I’ve had the idea in my head to move the CTC over to using an E3D Lite6 hot end. I don’t print much in the way of high temp plastics, Mainly ColorFabb PLA/PHA , XT and some ABS, so the Lite is perfect for my needs. I love them on both my Prusa i3s, so set about hunting down if there was anyone who had converted over to an E3D on a CTC/FF or other printers in the same vein. It seems some are just using the heater block and the E3D nozzle, but I wanted to go the whole hog and using the whole heat break assembly. I’ve come up with the below. Basically a whole new X Carriage. There’s still a couple of things I need to work out, like how I’m connecting the belts and how I’m going to attach the Stepper/Extruder assembly, or if I want to go over to a Bowden Setup. At this point, I’m thinking Bowden may be easier. It’s a single Carriage, as I almost never use the left side, I’ve actually stripped out all the wiring for it, while I was doing some maintenance.
Yes, it does mean that I lose some Z Height and have to move the endstop, I don’t tend to print tall Items, if I need to, I can use a Prusa. I’ll also have to butcher a Thermocouple, I have many spares, so it’s not an issue.
Credit for the base Carriage goes here: http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:558475
Credit for the Open SCAD library for the E3D v6 goes here: http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:548237
I think I’ve worked out the belt problem while typing this, I’ll update that later. So, let me know what you think, if this is a good idea or not (as a note, I’m not a fan of the Replicator style throats with bar heatsink, too much hassle with them on the CTC). You can tell me I’m stark raving bonkers, I won’t take offence…
