So I got in my E3D hotend and have run into a problem. I have a Prusa I2 and the Linear bearing mounts on the X carriage are not letting the fan shroud of the hotend up far enough to mount the hot end properly. However the X carriage does have a mount for a larger fan (I think 50mm which I have). My question is, would taking the fan shroud and fan off of the hotend and using a larger fan mounted to the x carriage have a negative affect on the hotend or should I just make a different x carriage that would accept the E3D hotend and if so does anyone know of one on thingiverse that would work with the wades exdruder?
Sorry, no solution from this newbie, but I had to point out an awesome bit of your post:
“…or should I just make a different x carriage…”
Those few words embody the maker spirit I love.
Had a similar situation with an ORDbot and the included 30mm fan shroud was pretty poor quality - I used a 50mm fan instead with no shroud angled so that it cools the hotend heatsink and the print as well. Running PLA and it works flawlessly and the hot end is cool to the touch.
Having never tried it, this is all guesswork, but the E3D heatsink has (in my experience) been very good at keeping things cool even at absurd temperatures, so it should still work even if you move the fan back a little as long as it’s still getting good airflow.
I don’t know if I’d run it entirely without a fan… But if the 50mm X-mounted fan is close enough to move good air over the E3D I’d bet it’ll work well (or, if not really work well, at least cool it enough that it won’t melt through your mount).
you need special mount - like this one: http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:114596 or like this one: http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:121650
it depends what version of e3d extruder do you have and how much space between bearing mounts do you have
@Jarek_Szczepanski thanks for the links. I’ll probably use one of those designs and modify it to fit the carriage I have.
Hi Mike!
The three options (as suggested by others above) would be (In order of preference, best first):
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Print little mounting block that goes under X-Carriage - Simple, easy, will definitely work. You will lose some Z-height.
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Print new X-Car with less chunky bearing holders. - Won’t lose Z-Height, but a bit more labourious.
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Jury rig some other fan mounting arrangement to get airflow to the heatsink. If you’re really stuck in a rut I have seen people use toilet tubes and duct tape as makeshift air ducts. You don’t really need that much airflow, the heatsink has way more cooling capacity than is really necessary. Then print a better solution above. - This solution is good if you don’t have another printer to hand.
+Sanjay Mortimer thanks for the ideas. I do have a printer available to me at the hacker space I belong to so I think I will print a mounting block that will fit my carriage. This will at least get me printing with my printer. BTW I am loving the design so far. Assembly was easy and straight forward. One other question for you…on the bottom of my extruder there is a 10mm deep hole a little bigger than the OD of the top of the heart sink, with making a mounting block for the hotend it will create a gap between the bottom of my extruder where the filament exits and the top of the hotend. Will I need to make a spacer to fit in the hole on the bottom of my extruder with a smaller hole big enough for the 1.75 filament. My fear is that there is enough space there for the filament to kink and just bunch up on top of the heat sink.
Thanks for the kind words!
With 1.75mm filament it is prone to buckling up if it’s not confined properly. Would recommend some sort of tube-like spacer/guide. PTFE tubing as lining would be amazing if you have some, but not entirely necessary.
Good luck, and let me know how you get on!
I have some PTFE tubing that can be used…maybe. Trick is getting it down to the right diameter.
@Mike_Smith I created parametrized version of j-head mount - http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:148536.
This one doesn’t require support.
By default it’s 25mm wide and 8mm thick, but you can change it in openscad.
Incidentally, and this may be too late to be of much help, but you may be able to make do with your smaller x-stage. I found that while the fan+hotend were too big for my stage, the individual parts would go through just fine. I then popped the fan housing around the hotend, slid the groovemount-plate onto the top of the x-carriage around the top of the hotend, and then popped my Wades’ geared extruder on top.
Definitely a pain in the backside, but it’s gotten me to the point where I could conceivably print a new x-carriage (but probably won’t, so long as I can swap the extruder nozzles without taking it all apart again. 