Anyone Ever Changed to an All Metal Extruder?

[jasonfreeland]

Has anyone been able to go to an all metal extruder? The teflon tubes are my biggest headache, next to adhesion issues.

[Nargg]

Do you have a link to such extruders?

[jasonfreeland]

http://store.makerstoolworks.com/ext...v6-3mm-direct/

I've seen other also

[Nargg]

Thanks for the info, that was very inlightening.

The tube part of this guy is aluminum. Very little difference in quality and result between aluminum and Teflon for this purpose. (p.s. with family members in the aircraft industry I know a lot about Aluminum....) Another thing I find interesting is the fast transition between the filament radius and the extruding radius. Seems to me if they want clean extruding the taper of this transition would be longer and smoother making the move from the entrance of the heated block to the extrusion more smoother and less likely to bind.

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Basically too shallow. Needs to be deeper and longer to get a smooth change of the filament speed required to extrude. This alone may change the state of the extruder that would cause jams IMHO.

Edit: FlashForge's tube is also aluminum, or at least available in aluminum if your's isn't... http://www.flashforge-usa.com/shop/f...inum-tube.html

[jasonfreeland]

Part of it is getting the stepper a little further from the hot end. I've had softer filaments heat up and wrap around it completely, major pain to clean up.

Edit: I'm in the process of building two MendelMax 3s for a school and am almost to the point, of putting the extruders on. They use the v6s I linked above and I'll update, when I have a little more experience with them.

[Nargg]

Part of it is getting the stepper a little further from the hot end. I've had softer filaments heat up and wrap around it completely, major pain to clean up.

Edit: I'm in the process of building two MendelMax 3s for a school and am almost to the point, of putting the extruders on. They use the v6s I linked above and I'll update, when I have a little more experience with them.

That makes 100% sense. Let us know how the MendalMax project goes.

[jimc]

The e3dv6 you uave linked is probably the best hot end on the market. There is nothing you can put on the machine that will be better.

[jasonfreeland]

There is a water cooled design I saw https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/o...t-end#activity that looks to have it beat, but much more complex.

[Nargg]

There is a water cooled design I saw https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/o...t-end#activity that looks to have it beat, but much more complex.

I've seen a few designs with water based cooling, very neat. As pedestrian as water cooling is getting in many computer designs, I'd think this would be soon a very popular method in 3D printing. Though there are other similar methods, like the heat pipe with chemical induced flow for cooling. Separation of the cool and hot within the pipe seems to be the golden path to long life in print extruders.

[curious aardvark]

just out of curiosity - what problems do you have with the teflon tubing ?

I've fed juist about every type of filament going through mine with no problems.