A new extruder version for the e3d hot end

[ErikAkia]

Hello all,
This is an entirely new design for the e3d hot end on the M2.
There is a hybrid direct and bowden version for dual hotends and one that is direct drive for a single hot end.
I have been sitting on this thing for a while now, not feeling like I really tested it enough but it is time to let it free.
I have run a bunch of prints through it but only two overnight print runs.
I believe it to be bug free but ymmv.
I have printed and used the dual version but not the single. The geometry is the same with the only real change in the parts cooler so I don't foresee any issues with it.

The benefit I see in this design is that;
The hotend is fixed relative to the gantry and does not rotate or shift;
you can feed and remove the filament very easily;
it has the most continuous support of the filament I have seen in a direct drive;
it is easy to clear jams if they occur.

I am still thinking of better ways for a the tensioning system. It works now but you have to have a feel for how tight you need it and there is variability each time you redo it.

I would print this in PET+ or PETG. You can use PLA but you need to actively cool the stepper directly if you do otherwise the motor mount will warp.

I would love to hear what people think of this design.

The dual head is here. http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:824403
The bowden drive is here. http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:824667
The single head is here. http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:824655

I made a video of it and published it on youtube here. https://youtu.be/qAHeEA26nSM

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[jimc]

nice. its quite the setup. the fan duct looks like an octopus sitting on the filament drive. lol. the whole setup looks really big but probably just because the vid was done as a closeup to show the parts. i thought the v4 looked big too but in person its super tiny. what is interesting is that you have one setup as a bowden and the other direct. i guess with one hot end in front of the other thats about the easiest way to go about it. nice job on it though. the big question though is....how does it print?

[ErikAkia]

Sorry for the long delay in responding to your question about print quality.
I had done a lot of printing with the direct drive and some with the bowden side when I was still using the old extruder with an adapter to make it a bowden.
The print quality is as good if not better than the original setup.
Because it was so frustrating to use the extruder motor to feed filament all the way down the tube I adapted my direct drive to be a bowden drive as well. I had not done much testing with it and when I started to use it to get some samples to show I found many issues that I had to correct. I have made several changes to that bowden drive and it is now functioning but I have not run a huge amount of filament through it.

I am including 4 pictures. The left boat which is darker blue is the one from the bowden and the lighter blue is the direct drive. The black one is Ninjaflex through the direct drive. That was about the 8th Ninjaflex boat.I was running out of filament and will improve it further when I get more.

I never had the Ninjaflex jamb or not extrude. I started off printing with a multiplier of 1.2 because that was some of the advice given to others. This proved to be inaccurate for me as it was just way to much plastic. I went back to 1 and had better results. I will try and reduce it even further next time.
I tried to run the speed up to 60 and though it did print it was not very good. At the time I was still using the 1.2 multiplier so that could be part of the problem. The best print I got was at 23 mm/sec across all but travel settings

I think I found out something interesting with the e3d hotend. When I was trying to get the bowden extruder to work I was having problems with it when I used retraction. There were several times after it stopped printing that I opened the extruder to pull out the jammed filament that I could not remove it and ended up pulling the PTFE tube out of the hotend to get it clear. One of those times I was hand pushing the filament and then pulling small retraction then feeding more when it completely jammed and I could not push or pull it out. I cleared it by pulling the tube out of the hot end and snipping the end off the PLA. I think what was happening is that there must be a small groove where the PTFE ends in the hotend and as I pulled the molten plastic to that point and then pushed again it cooled enough to solidify in that groove and would not move forward or back. I think the groove is in the cool zone and so if it was solidifying in that groove then it would not get hot enough to move again. I did figure out that most of my problems getting the bowden to function was I was running it to cold and so that may have been a factor in the cooling into the groove. That the plastic was just to close to the melting temp and cooled to fast at the wrong spot.

I am forever learning.

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I made several youtube videos.
In this one I loaded Ninjaflex after both PLA and PETG without any problems and extruding at normal speeds.
https://youtu.be/AHlibfeZ8Sk
In this one I show and talk about the direct drive print vs the the bowden.
https://youtu.be/GSzwhvqFHxY
In this one I show and talk about the ninjaflex prints I did.
https://youtu.be/FaXtuaW5U0o

I think this extruder design works very well and I am very pleased. I would love to know if anyone else tries it and what their thoughts are.

Thanks
Erik

[artem]

Wow nice work.

I also just assemble my e3d hot end and printed all of the parts to mount it on my makergear m2.
I was wonder is there some thing that I need to know before I start using e3d hot end?

[Bratag]

Wow nice work.

I also just assemble my e3d hot end and printed all of the parts to mount it on my makergear m2.
I was wonder is there some thing that I need to know before I start using e3d hot end?

Artem - there is a long thread on the E3d mod in the modifications forum. You will need to make a change to your firmware to account for the E3D temp sensor.
Its also not a bad idea to PID tune post change.