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Like the subject says, noob error. Started doing my tower calibrations with a heated hot end and bed today. I have a 40W ceramic cartridge instead of the resistors.
For some reason the silicone tape I had wrapped around the hot end failed (split vertically), and pulled out the thermistor and the permatex copper sealant plug just a little bit. The hot end started moving when touching the bed during the calibration so about 1 second of troubleshooting along with the smell pointed to the problem.

What i didn't do is install the the threaded thermistor that I have on hand for my e3d hot end (but no mounting e3d plates yet so I'm stuck ordering then new peek insert). I didn't have an M3 - .5 bottom tap to do the mod on the stock hot end. So I now have an M3 - .5 bottom tap on order from amazon and 2 replacement peek inserts from the motherland!

Live and learn!

I would highly suggest to any new builders to get a ceramic heater cartridge, a threaded thermistor insert, and an M3 -.5 bottom tap as part of the "must have" items for the initial build. (I wish it was an option or a standard item on the original kit). The permatex sealant is such a messy, ugly, poor design IMO.

Sorry for the small rant .

I'm sure if you ask nicely, someone on the forum would print you an e3d mount! That would certainly beat you having to waste money on a new stock hotend that you'll use once, just to install the e3d...

I thought about waving a white flag and seeing if a e3d mount might be available from some one. I should have a new peek insert by the weekend,so I think I can wait that long to get back at it.

The stock hot end is decent IF you use the screw-in tmist and heater cartidge. Stock hot end is a good place to start.

I agree, glueing in the parts with RTV is a very poor way of building a hot end. Prone to failure, messy, and ugggly!

bvandiepenbos wrote:The stock hot end is decent IF you use the screw-in tmist and heater cartidge. Stock hot end is a good place to start.

I agree, glueing in the parts with RTV is a very poor way of building a hot end. Prone to failure, messy, and ugggly!

I think a lot of that has to do with the builder's skill level and experience working with RTV. I found it to be easy, secure and very neat looking - but again, I have experience with RTV materials...primarily with mold making but you get the idea.

That said, I agree it would be nice if a threaded thermister and ceramic heat cartridge(s) were part of the kit. But with the standard Hot End, you would still have to use RTV to hold the cartridges unless you drilled and tapped a hole for a grub screw.