mikefree41 wrote:Solidoodle informed me that if you unscrew the brass barrel from the peek insulator you ruin the threads and it will leak when you reassemble it. I think they are trying to sell more hot ends.
The PEEK retainer gets up to glass transition temp during normal operations. The threads are ruined in most cases. When we used to provide people the barrel, we saw all manner of mishaps including leaking barrels, snapped barrels during assembly etc.. while the barrel might work for some, there is an equal chance it might not fit into a used PEAK retainer leaving Solidoodle in the wrong for providing a part that doesn't work. In general we are trying to get people away from taking apart, or assembling their hot-ends. The Solidoodle hot-end is fairly fragile, and we have seen many instances of Solidoodle users breaking theirs in attempts to repair it. We know from (unfortunate) experience that the hot-ends can be tricky to build, so we try to make sure everyone gets a solution that works for them the first time.
For similar reasons, we generally do not recommend that users remove their nozzles either. Many users can manage removing the nozzle, but the parts that make up the hot-end are soft, and we have seen plenty of examples of users breaking parts when they were meaning to fix them. Generally speaking, it is much safer to remove the nozzle off a fresh hot-end than a thoroughly used one. If you're experienced with machines, go for it. I'm sure many forum readers have no problem popping off the nozzle, but for many newer Solidoodle users it can be a recipe for breaking things.
Former Solidoodle employee, no longer associated with the company.