Still waiting for some parts for my new printer.

3D Printing
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Still waiting for some parts for my new printer. In the meantime I was forced to repair my rep2x. To be honest, this is one of the worst engineered machines I’ve ever seen.
I have already noticed that the cable for the y axis was more or less broken. AGAIN!
And the thermocouple in the right hotend gave no signal anymore. As you can see on the pictures, the left thermocouple was also more or less broken.
I’ve tried to reinforced them as much as possible.
Printing pla was never really possible with these hotends.
So I’ve decided to repair and improve everything.
I’ve also decided to modify the left extruder to be a bowden extruder.
Btw, it’s a good idea to put some heatsink compound between the heatsinks and the Alu block.
And because I’ve spend some time on the lathe anyways I made some nozzle variants for my new self-made hotend benchmark.
And some new nozzles for the rep2x in 0.3 and 0.5. Not because it’s a good idea or to save money. Only because I need them and my supplier haven’t send them yet. I should definitely have some on stock.

Actually I try to check if I’m still able to print with the old temperatures before I start a “real” print job.
But the first test looks promising. Even with pla.
Because of the ptfe line I’m now limited in Temps of course. But thats OK for a while. I think I’ll rebuild everything again in the future when I’ve found a useful self-made hotend configuration that works with every material and without ptfe.

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I used to love makerbot, I worked with a Cupcake for a year, but then they just seemed to stop improving their machines and just added obselecence.

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Hi, Sven! I would like to take in PTFE protection. The material is up to 260 ° C temperature resistant, and more does not need the filament. It is, unfortunately, common practice, at higher speed to increase the temperature. This is, in my opinion, the wrong way. Rather than raising the temperature you just have to build a longer heating block. Thus, the plastic will melt easily and quickly even at NORMAL temperature. I have already built and tested 3 long hot-ends, it works very well (I have pictures and videos uploaded).

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@Maxim_Melcher
This is more or less the plan for my complete new hotend. But on the rep2x I’m actually limited in space.
And it’s way easier to change the Temps than changing the hotend actually. And you will have probably more leakage/drops even with retraction with a bigger melting zone on lower speeds. That’s also the reason why I started with my own hotend design for the new printer.

I’ve tried some prints now.
The ptfe changes a lot in the rep2x, but it’s relatively complicated to find the right setup now for abs. Pla works fine.
This will take more time than expected.

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@Sven_Eric_Nielsen You have the problem with ABS due to short molten zone, because the inevitable overheating of the short heating block requires a very fine adjustment.