The Big Meltdown

Well it's happened. I left my Mendel i1 happily printing late on Friday afternoon while I nipped over the road for ten minutes, I came back and it wasn't laying any plastic, everything was merrily running around as though it was printing but nothing was coming out of the nozzle. I hit kill and lifted the Z axis, I was intending to take off the idler on the extruder and clean it out as I assumed it had clogged up and was slipping on the hobbed bolt. Nope, it wasn't that, when I looked at the hot end the insulator was surrounded in a blob of solidified ABS. It had made its way out from the top of the insulator, how I don't know but it had so I had to strip down the extruder and hot end. Then as I was separating the insulator it broke off from its threads leaving me with one goosed hot end right in the middle of an important print that was urgent.

I don't have a spare hot end so it's been a mad rush to get one and I found a nice person who is sending me one in a hurry and hopefully it will be with me on Tuesday morning. This episode will teach me to look forward from now on, I will keep spares on hand, maybe two as I expand my machine bank to two and then more, again looking forward I think it would be prudent to keep building the same machine or certainly ones that are upwardly compatible so I can keep a minimum number of spares and cover all the machines.

I've lost a lot of hair this weekend, almost as much as I did when I first started building my machine in the early days when resources were a bit more stretched out and thin on the ground back in 2010 .... ahhhh happy days, I had loads of hair in 2009 and look at me now can anyone direct me to my nearest wigmaker.

Or you can always get a Full metal nozzle like a E3D hot end or Prusa,
I wouldnt realy buy a Magma, they are like 70 dollars and they can't run PLA, when E3D and Prusa hotend should be able to do that. (E3D should be 60 dollars and Prusa 100)

@DrLuigi - I've been looking for a full metal hot end, the one I got in a hurry which will do for the interim is a standard J Head with peek insulator, it cost me £13 which I found good. I don't like paying the hyper inflated prices that people are putting on their products just to make a quick profit. I've had a look at the Geeetech which is nice and the G3D Buda looks to be the one, I can get that for just over £40 on eBay Buy It Now or possibly less as they run an auction on them too. Did you mean the G3D when you said the E3D ? I've not seen the E3D or perhaps I'm missing something.

I've have a nice design for one but I need a laser cutter to make a part and a lathe to make another, the lathe isn't a problem as such, I have a modelling lathe in my workshop but I've not been able to afford a laser cutter yet. There is a lovely one being sold as a kit in the US http://www.emissiontechnologies.com/ I also have a small cnc that I built to make pcb's but it wouldn't be powerful enough to cut metal, or at least it would take a very long time taking it out a mm at a time. It's a shame I'm retired, my job was a programmer/setter/operator on a 5 axis cnc, that would do the job fine :)

http://e3d-online.com/E3D-HotEnds

Ive heard great think about it from others. also from the Prusa mk2 .

Wow, that looks like the bees knees to me, I've definitely not seen this before, how have I missed it ! Even better they're in England so postage is a dream. I'll be buying one of these in the next couple of weeks.

David Lamb looks very familiar, perhaps he just has one of those faces ....

Oh so you live in the UK?

Well ye i might also buy that one since its pretty close ^^

Or the prusa nozzle from Geekshop.eu,


But i am thinking to even perhaps keep my Jhead since it works, and havent melten so why would i change it haha :P

Yes, I'm an Englishman to the core :) I've not been outside England for 50 years, when I was about 9 our family went on a touring holiday across, France, Belgium, Holland and Germany. I remember going to Ostende but not much else from Belgium, although there was a massive Casino on the sea front, whether it's still there or not I can't say.

Theres an old saying in England and I'm sure you have heard something similar in Belgium, 'If it isn't broken then don't fix it' basically it means leave it alone if it's working ok, which would apply to your J Head. I would probably be happy with mine for the foreseeable future if it hadn't given up the ghost.

Is the Prusa mk2 you mentioned the one on Geekshop ? it also looks a nice hot end, but perhaps a bit dearer than the E3D. Having said that tney're both very nice, thank you for giving me the links to them, I will definitely be upgrading.

Well i think the E3D might be better, Since its longer in development,

Prusa is like 1 year old and its still its second version.

I did hear good things about both so i would say throw the dice and just take one ^^ i guess E3D might be better as price goes but the Prusa might be shorter aka more build volume (E3D is pretty long 72mm if i am right)

Also you forgot a O, its Oostende ^^ Well i guess it may be still there ^^ You could always try and look it up on google maps :P

Oops, sorry Luigi, I spelt it as it's known in English, that's rude of me, I should only spell it like that if talking to another Englishman, speaking to you I should have spelt it with two O's, my apologies.

I have just looked at the map, yes it is still there, it's called the Casino Kursaal Oostende, also the hotel we stayed it, The Imperial, is still there just across the road from the Kursaal. Interesting seeing it again after 50 or more years !!

Sorry for going off topic, I should know better being a newly appointed moderator. :)