Couple of weekend mods.

[Mac The Knife]

This past weekend I did some machining for my printer. First up, an aluminum mount for the stock hotend.

Second project, was machining a new heat break. The one I machined from Macor ( a machinable ceramic) finally broke when a the hotend beat itself into the table. I still haven't got that model printed. Anyways, this time I went with a stainless steel tube, threaded, with four slots cut in it to allow airflow through it, to cool the teflon tubing.

I've got six hours on it printing ABS at 260C with a .5 tip, and another 3 hours printing ABS with a .35 tip. Later this week I'll dig out the weed trimmer line and crank it up to eleven.

[Mac The Knife]

I did end up JB welding the stainless tube at both ends.

[bvandiepenbos]

Nice work.
Love to see things made out of machined aluminum.

The heat break design looks like a great idea. I like the fact that you can see the filament.

[Mac The Knife]

And aluminum doesn't compress like melamine, Screws stay tight. I threaded the stock spacers 10-32 so I can use 10-32 screws at both ends, no more juggling wrenches and parts. Just a little dab of blue loctite.

[Mac The Knife]

Well, now for an update,,, After several hours printing at 260C, It ballooned a little,,

[Mac The Knife]

So I cranked it up to eleven, and fired up a 14 hour print (ABS) at 275C. Long print, so I threw a trashbag over the printer. The next day, the print was done, but was really looking underextruded. When I fully uncovered the printer, I found I had spring a leak.

So I machined a small collar to fit over the nozzle, and support the tube when it got hot. I made it long enough to catch some air.

[Mac The Knife]

Another 14 hour print at 275 C, and the tube is contained. Next weekends project will be to install a set of Trick Lasers carbon fiber arms that I received today.

[Eaglezsoar]

Your mods look great, congratulations on getting everything to work.
Excellent job!

[Mac The Knife]

This little mod of mine is working out great, with the additon of the aluminum collar, the teflon tube doesn't blow out and even withstands high temperatures when printing with weed trimmer line. The main draw back is that I have to use JB weld to lock it to the hotend, it gets bottomed out in the cold end. I recently discovered that Sheetcam will generate gcode for threadmilling, so this past weekend I ordered a 24 pitch thread mill. It works AWESOME!!. Making a heat break with my cnc-mill is going to be way easier then with my lathe. I'll be able to use 1/2" stock, machine it to 3/8" diameter and thread it, leaving a nice shoulder to tighten up against.

[Mac The Knife]

Oh, and onlinecarbide.com rocks. The price for the threadmill was less then half the price from my local tooling shop.