Upgrading hotend: Airwolf HD2x to E3D V6 + Volcano (Page 1 of 6)

At a glance it does not seem too difficult.  The Airwolf uses 2 crossed rods for X/Y motion.  You just need to design a basic platform that mimics the connection to the linear bearings.  Beyond that, a Chimera mount is very straightforward, needing only a vertical surface with some mounting holes in the right locations...

EDIT:  BTW...I just doodled this up...this is by no means to accurate dimensions

I think I'm going to go ahead and get the parts to upgrade and work on a mount once I get them in.

Purchasing from Tim, what parts will I need to upgrade to a dual extruder volcano for a bowden system?

Let me ask you this -

The way it's set up right now, it has two thermistors going to the RAMBo board; one for each extruder. I know it's definitely two thermistors because sometimes the reading will vary just a little - by +/- 0.1 or 0.2 degrees.

The heater is connected to "HEAT 0" on the board, and "HEAT 1" has no connection. To make things more interesting, if I go into Repetier-Host and turn the heater on for "HEAT 1", it never does anything - although it shows an active heater on the display. If I move the plug for "HEAT 0" to "HEAT 1" it heats the extruder.

What do you think?

Looks like there are two going into the heater block. One on each side.

Three routes:

Lite6+Volcano (cheapest, limited to 245C)
v6 + Volcano
Chimera + Volcano

v6 may be a little harder to mount since it has groovemounts instead of M3 screws. If you want Volcano parts instead of the nominal v6 parts, get in touch via email and I can put together a custom package.

I would mount it by making a plate that uses the same screw hole pattern as your existing laser cut plate that's under the heatsinks. Looks like M4 SHCS?

Also $600 for a hotend is insane.

295C with included thermistor, 450C with 40w heaters and K-Type thermocouple. Heater upgrade no charge, thermocouple and thermocouple board prices are on the website.

Maybe you should raise your prices   NOT!

that would be correct.

the engineering drawings can be found here: http://wiki.e3d-online.com/wiki/E3D-v6_ … g_Drawings

may help you out with designing mounts to fit your machine.

Guys -

Getting over one hurtle at a time...

So far I'm still working on my mounting solution, although that's not an issue as of yet. I've had to find replacement connectors for my RAMBo board, which I was able to find on Newark. Right now I sortof have an issue with the heater:

I think I figured out why they only use one 25W heater powering the extruders. There is a 5 amp fuse on the RAMBo board that carries the extruder heat, logic, and fans. I'm afraid a single 40w heater will bring me close to that (I don't know how much current the fans and logic draws, but the 40w heater draws 3 amps). Either way, running both extruders at 40w is certainly out of the question. So I guess, now I'm between putting in the 25w heaters or using relays with an external power supply. What do you guys suggest?

Thanks for that - I ordered an 8 amp fuse.

Here's what I ended up doing for the mounting solution. Criticism is welcome.

It's in three parts
- the "main" part where the hotend slides into, holds a part fan, and attaches to the Y rod
- a "clamp" that bolts onto the front to secure the hotend
- and a back piece that holds the fan (I removed the fans from the hotend) and attaches to the X rod.

I basically tried to copy the design of the existing mount. Unfortunately I couldn't find a way to use it for the new hotends.

Everything will be printed in polycarbonate with an infill of 50%

Awesome, I'll have to take advantage of that once everything is finished.

Why aren't you using the included fan shrouds?

60C heatsink temps are probably OK for Polycarb or ABS. They are not OK for PLA, though you won't be printing PLA at 350C.

If you can't use the included fan/fan shroud, can you rework your shroud and/or use a more powerful fan?