Topic: All Metal Hot End (NOT E3D)
Edit:
It has been brought to my attention in a post below, that I didn't mention what type of material used with this hot end. So for the sake clarity, this "review", such as it is, is based solely on the use of ABS, since this is the only material I personally like to use. I have no experience with any other materials through this hot-end.
As I previously alluded to in other posts, I've been pretty happy with the standard hot end the SD3 comes with. The MG plus hot end is a good hot end as long as you don't need to print materials requiring excessive temps (>250°C), or as long as you don't accidentally melt the peek inside.
Anyway, I recently tried some pretty crappy filament, which clogged my hot-end, so I decided it as time to try a new all metal hot end I had purchased on eBay a few months ago. Since I had already made the extruder and carriage assembly and pre-assembled everything, it was a simple matter of unplugging the wiring from the original extruder and plugging in the new one.
Here are some pics of the new setup.
It's been about two weeks since I installed it, during which time I printed with a variety of filaments which I already had experience with, with the previous hot end. So here are a few observation made during this short time with it.
It needs to run a little hotter than the original hot end, by about 10°C.
It heats up very quickly, <2min.
The upper barrel stays very cool.
The transition from one color filament to another requires less material (about 50-100mm instead of 200-300mm)
The fan adds noise, and is on all the time. It would be nice to figure out a way to turn it off automatically when the print stops.
I lost about 15mm of vertical travel because of it. In fact I had to find a much longer "Z" end stop screw to replace the original.
The barrel cooling fan, required me to redesign & relocate the GCode fan, and the only place I could find was behind the hot-end. It seems to work though.
So far it seems to work OK, and I haven't had any trouble printing with it. So for now it will stay on, but I'm still trying to figure out how to turn off the fan. I know this is not an e3D, but for $24 it's not bad either.
NOTE:
I re-used the thermistor and heater cartridge I was previously using on my original ho-end, and since I plan on sticking with ABS, I didn't need to make any firmware changes.
SD3 printer w/too many mods, Printrbot Simple Maker Ed., FormLabs Form 1+
AnyCubic Photon, Shining 3D EinScan-S & Atlas 3D scanners...
...and too much time on my hands.