Here is a comparison print of the same object: Green:

3D Printing
,
21

MUST. RESIST. MONEY. INSUFFICIENT…

@Stephen_Baird @James thank you for these wonderful comments. With all these money that I save from not buying a Makerbot, I will get the e3d v6 metal hot end and potentially printrbot metal heated bed upgrade.

22

+Dat Chu, It may take some work to adapt the e3d hotend to the printrbot, although it apears as though the V5 fits just in place (http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:462402)

Also note, that a new hot end means modifying your slicer settings, printer settings and possibly your electronics with the new heater element and nozzle parameters.

23

@James I am all for tuning things and learning more.

24

@Michal_Canecky ​ i have the same ubis hot end with the same nozzle that i got with my printrbot simple 2 years ago, i have pushed upwards of 30-40 reels of plastic through this little beast and its still going strong. Never had a problem with it. The only PTFE/teflon in an ubis is around the nozzle threads, and in the heat break tube, when you put the nozzle back on you have to cut the teflon tape so its well clear of the end of the threads so it does not get wrapped over the barrel end as you screw the nozzle back on, otherwise it can get into the melt chamber. If you are printing hot enough to melt teflon then you are operating way out of spec, the max temp for the ubis is 250c. Which is plenty of range for both PLA and ABS. PTFE/teflon does not liquify until you get to 328c which is way way over the temp you should be driving it at. Even at that temp it only converts to a thick gell and not a liquid. I would check your firmware to make sure it is reading temperatures correctly.

25

So you must have the old Ubis hot end with cartridge. I was using the new ones. Of course I cleaned the teflon tape from the nozzle thread, but it didn’t help. There was still some teflon coming from somewhere. I bought couple of old ones in December and also started using canola oil on filament and it will be almost a month and l don’t see any issues so far.

26

@Michal_Canecky yes its an old cartridge one, you can still buy a clone of them from QUBD called an Anubis. I drilled out the cartridge hole on mine from 5mm to 6mm so i could use the larger and easier to obtain 6mm 40w reprap heaters. So i can now buy spares for $25 for 10, and they heat up faster too. The only thing that has actualy broken on mine was the heater cartridge, and that was only because i was dumb when cleaning the nozzle and managed to break one of the leads off.