upgrade to E3D V6 (Page 3 of 4)

Annnnnnnd this.

Off topic but you need to calibrate your extruder Steps per mm.  They should be closer to 105 than the 138 you have them at.

Oh and I watched a few videos on YouTube for assembly.

Brwhitesell - glad to hear that it's working! I haven't had any jamming issues myself and I've swapped filament many times. It extrudes better than the stock hot end ever did.

What temp are you running? For ABS should be about 245

I haven't used ABS. Mainly because I don't really like it since it's one of the more finicky materials to work with. I've printed the Taulman Bridge material with good results and same for the PET+. I'm also having some weird issues with PLA though. I'm going to make a new post for it.

what is the recommended wire gauge for the heater on the E3D? I'm running it to an SSD, but want to make sure I have enough power.

Thanks

Scott

What is the right size wire gauge to run from the heater on the E3D to an SSD?

He probably means SSR and my question is why are you doing that? are you using a board which won't support the load? using an SSR for the heater cartridge adds another serious point of failure that you will have to watch closely--the heater can get hot enough to catch fire if the SSR fails "always on." I'm not saying it's more likely to fail than an on-board MOSFET, but I'm not sure why you'd add the complexity.

All E3D's are gonna suck for PLA after about year or so. (or less if you print allot)
Problem will be with retractions. PLA filament retracts back into the nozzle, hot filament touches cooler surface (heat breaker area) and freezes expanded and get stuck.
Solution is simple.
Buy one of these:

Works like a charm.

Will also work for ABS but going too high temperatures will melt PTFE tube (cheap to replace but is the limiting factor to consider)

Another solution is to print your cooling fan designed to cool the model and the E3D heat breaker area at the same time.
Apparently it does not get cool enough.

What exactly are they, and where can I get them?? :-)

I have taken the whole assembly apart probably... 6 times now... I am actually starting to think that it has to do with the tension on the filament between the extruder gnurled thingie and the idler bearing. The filament does not seem to go exactly straight into the top of the E3D because the gnurled gear pushes it to the right. I think that is creating tension on the filament itself, and then I have to tighten the idler gear so it has enough torque on the filament to pull it through, but because there's so much tension, the teeth on the extruder gear dig into the filament, create little flakes, which eventually screw everything up...

I have adjusted things as best I can to have a straight path for the filament, and not too much tension on the idler/gnurled extruder "gear". I can get ABS to print it seems...because I'm thinking it's a harder material, it's not shaving away little bits like with PLA....

Sticking PTFE in the heatbreak of an E3Dv6 is just silly. Its like buying a Corvette and filling the trunk with concrete.

If you're going to stick PTFE in the heatbreak (thus limiting your maximum temperatures), you might as well save $40 and buy a Lite6:

http://www.filastruder.com/products/lite6

Hundreds of kilograms of PLA can definitely be printed through a E3Dv6 hotend without problem. Every single time someone has come to me with problems printing PLA, the issue has always been in cooling, in the setup of the hotend (this includes the extruder, hobbed hub/bolt, etc) or in the configuration of the printer (temperature, retracts, steps/mm, etc).

tonycstech, I'm not sure how you can say all E3Ds are going to suck for PLA after a year, the E3Dv6 hasn't been out for a year yet! Here's a quote from someone that's had a E3Dv6 for almost a year now:

brwhitesell:
- check that the PTFE tube is bottomed out in the heatbreak. It helps to bevel it slightly to match the internal geometry of the heatbreak.
- check that the fan is blowing air towards the heatsink
- change retracts to 0 for testing
- if you have thermal paste, put some on the heatbreak threads that are in contact with the heatsink. do check that the heatbreak is snugly tightened into the heatsink.
- try up to 230C, some formulations of PLA need higher printing temperatures
- did you assemble correctly? put in nozzle, back out 1/2 turn, put in heatbreak, heat to 280C, tighten nozzle

Any of the above being wrong will definitely cause PLA issues. ABS is more forgiving.