E3D V4 All metal hotend

[Eaglezsoar]

I went to the E3D site to download a copy of the assembly pdf. Imagine my surprise when I tried to download it up pops a window to login to Facebook. There was also a button that says Skip Login. I cleverly pushed the button to skip login and up pops another window from Scribd that says: To download this document you must become a Premium Reader. Requesting money to download an assembly pdf, that is an insult to all who have purchased your Hotends.

Sanjay, you produce a good product but the support clearly needs some work. I should not have to login to anything just to download support materials.
I am not a member of Facebook or Twitter and I never will be a member.

I should not have to pay money to get a copy of the assembly manual.

I have purchased two of your hotends but with this kind of support I may look elsewhere for any future Hotends.

I also would like to know what is the difference between version 4.1 and version 5. I do not see any reference to version 5 in the "downloads" area.

[Eaglezsoar]

How did you guys with working E3ds get your bowden cable connected securely to the hotend?

We use something like this: http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:57889

Cambo3d makes an aluminum version of the above thing and you can find it by going to Seeme's List on the forum.

[SanjayM]

Eaglezsoar
Seems scribd may have changed the way they deal with downlaods etc. Paying for an instruction manual is obviously a stupid concept and not our intention. We are not getting money off this in any way, it's just the way scribd have things set up now.

Will get an alternative download link sorted as soon as possible - in the meantime you can of course still read the manual on the scribd link as before.

I am in the process of sorting out the whole documentation/downloads/support situation on the site, as it's not as clear as I want it to be right now, and needs to include v5 info. But this has to come after physically shipping stuff to people who have paid for and are owed items.

Just to be clear - it's not our intention to withold/monetise documentation or information, that would be entirely counter to our whole philosophy as a company. It's simply a matter of there being a limited number of hours in the day, a huge level of demand, and that we are a small company adjusting to truly massive growth in a short timeframe.

Hope that sets things straight, and if you have any other comments do just let me know.

[Eaglezsoar]

Eaglezsoar
Seems scribd may have changed the way they deal with downlaods etc. Paying for an instruction manual is obviously a stupid concept and not our intention. We are not getting money off this in any way, it's just the way scribd have things set up now.

Will get an alternative download link sorted as soon as possible - in the meantime you can of course still read the manual on the scribd link as before.

I am in the process of sorting out the whole documentation/downloads/support situation on the site, as it's not as clear as I want it to be right now, and needs to include v5 info. But this has to come after physically shipping stuff to people who have paid for and are owed items.

Just to be clear - it's not our intention to withold/monetise documentation or information, that would be entirely counter to our whole philosophy as a company. It's simply a matter of there being a limited number of hours in the day, a huge level of demand, and that we are a small company adjusting to truly massive growth in a short timeframe.

Hope that sets things straight, and if you have any other comments do just let me know.

The fact that you responded at all tells me all I need to know about your Company. Taking time out to answer my comments shows that you care more than anyone else that I
have ever dealt with. 99% of Companies that I have dealt with would not have taken the time to comment, that places you and your Company in a top position for me. I know
that you and others are working your butts off trying to deal with all the orders you have received and that is an enviable place to be, it shows that you are succeeding and will
continue to succeed. As far as the downloads are concerned, I wanted to make you aware of the problem and now I know that it will be fixed. In summation you are great at how
you take care of your customers and your efforts ARE appreciated. I am looking forward to seeing the version 5 info and I will most likely order two of that version as I have done
with version 4. I have no interest in the multi-headed water cooled options but I sure am interested in the single versions. Thanks for responding and may the success of your
Company bring success into your personal life. A person with your beliefs is rare and you deserve to personally share in the success. Please do not respond to this message you
have done what needed done to satisfy me. Thanks!

[Generic Default]

I know this might be slightly off topic, but Sanjay was talking about the water cooled multi-extruder earlier. Would it be possible to use ferrofluids to cool the hotend? Ferrofluids don't need a pump because they naturally flow to remove heat. Maybe it's out of the question, but just consider it.

[Flateric]

But correct me if I am wrong here but ferrofluids are prohibitively expensive. Also the heat still needs to then be removed from the ferrofluid and the fluid itself is also fairly weighty (heavy) so to include a support system to remove the heat before the fluid could be recycled, further adding more weight to the effector would be counter productive. Especially since we all in the delta world are, or really should be trying to make the entire effector and it cargo as lightweight as reasonably possible.

[Flateric]

Well I feel the heat issues with the E3D hotend have been greatly reduced and addressed by E3D relating to PLA.

[img]http://i.imgur.com/CvFIh9N.jpg[/img]

The heat range before jamming is not as large as a jhead for instance, but it is no longer razor sharp, meaning it used to be a couple degrees high and it was a prob, a couple degrees low and it was a different prob. I find the butter zone for PLA on the E3D to be between 175 and no higher than 200. This is a general overall number and not specific to any type of PLA in particular, which will obviously have specifics. But for me I start at 180 and go from there. I have to have more and stronger reasons for each 5c I go up. Meaning that last 195 to 200 needs a damn good reason because I do not like going that close to a plugged hotend.

So there you go. If these guys can manage to nail down their shipping to reasonable times then they should be shovelling one of these off to nearly everyone in my opinion.

[Batteau62]

Flateric,(and othere3d owners) do you use the OEM thermistor, or the screw in one that is so popular? I'm building mine now. I'm looking for the best temp control like we all do

[cpunches]

Personally I use a screw in thermistor on the E3d and the stock hot-end. I had a terrible time trying to get the ones I used RTV, or kapton tape, to affix to the hotend to stay put. Also it's a lot easier for me to remove them if I want to move the same thermistor to a new hotend.

[Generic Default]

Did anyone else have problems with them shipping it? Sanjay told me he shipped my hotend on July 23rd and that I would get an automated email with the tracking number shortly, but now four days later I still haven't gotten the tracking number and I think he lied to me about shipping it.

EDIT:

Nevermind, he shipped it on the 23rd and the tracking number was just delayed from error. Problem solved, ignore this post.

[cpunches]

I've purchased two E3d hotends as well as some misc. parts. In my experience Sanjay and David have gone out of their way to make sure I (and others) am a satisfied customer. It does take a while to get the items from the UK to the US. I always got a reply from them whenever I had a problem and communicated with them via email as well as this forum and G+.

Did anyone else have problems with them shipping it? Sanjay told me he shipped my hotend on July 23rd and that I would get an automated email with the tracking number shortly, but now four days later I still haven't gotten the tracking number and I think he lied to me about shipping it.

[Flateric]

Personally I use a screw in thermistor on the E3d and the stock hot-end. I had a terrible time trying to get the ones I used RTV, or kapton tape, to affix to the hotend to stay put. Also it's a lot easier for me to remove them if I want to move the same thermistor to a new hotend.

I agree with this as well. However it is possible to easily make your own threaded thermistor. Just use the little brass bit from the back of any spare computer related product you may have kicking around (modems, routers, old video cards, old motherboards, anything with a db9 serial port, vga port, etc)

Either use JBweld and simply weld the thermistor into the female side, or use fire cement, or high temp epoxy. Thread the hole and your set.

And also yes, I would also agree they have been putting in a huge effort and seem to be full 100% committed to customers and service. I think the initial issue were simply a case of "OMG demand is far outstripping our expectations" and being caught in the position of having to play catchup.

I'm going to bet that they are by far the most popular all metal hotend on the market. A very good position to be in, but one that I don't think they fully realized at first they would be in so quickly. This is a real compliment to their product and design and confirmed by the market speaking with it's wallet.

Clearly congratulations guys! But you have to sustain it long term which I have no doubts anymore you will.

[thenewguy]

What are you entering in for the settings on kiss.

Hotend came with a .45 nozzle so enter that in kiss for nozzle size or would .50 work better and what about layer height? .2?

Also the same question for the .25 nozzle which I also purchased. But yet had time to play with.

[Flateric]

Be careful with that .25 nozzle, it is very difficult to dial in correctly especially with PLA of any type. The tip is so small that it easily backs the filament up while allowing it to swell in the hotend and jam. Far far less of an issue with ABS and most other types of filament. I can honestly say I have fed every single type of filament currently on the market through mine.

I'll check the settings for you in the morning. But I am certain my layer height was .2, temp was 190 and print speed was decently high.

[thenewguy]

Be careful with that .25 nozzle, it is very difficult to dial in correctly especially with PLA of any type. The tip is so small that it easily backs the filament up while allowing it to swell in the hotend and jam. Far far less of an issue with ABS and most other types of filament. I can honestly say I have fed every single type of filament currently on the market through mine.

I'll check the settings for you in the morning. But I am certain my layer height was .2, temp was 190 and print speed was decently high.

Working nights also? Haha

I put .45 in for nozzle size and nozzle fill? I think also had .2 for layer height. I got really good prints once I did a few adjustments. I upgraded the extruder, hot end, and arms at the same time. Huge difference. Then using kiss on top of that was sweet.

So I have good prints but was woundering what other people used for settings.

Btw I only use abs for now.

[lordbinky]

I just dialed my extruder settings for Kisslicer in. I ended up with .44 extrusion width .2 layer height. For this particular filament (JET - gray ABS) my filament settings were 1.73 mm diameter (average measured) and .86 flow tweak which resulted in single wall widths of .45 +/-.02 . For reference how sensitive that flow tweak setting is, a flow tweak of .85 resulted in .4 mm +/- .03. Working on getting infill tweaked now.

[626Pilot]

Be careful with that .25 nozzle, it is very difficult to dial in correctly especially with PLA of any type. The tip is so small that it easily backs the filament up while allowing it to swell in the hotend and jam. Far far less of an issue with ABS and most other types of filament. I can honestly say I have fed every single type of filament currently on the market through mine.

I was thinking of getting an E3D, unless Trick Laser gets their hotend done sometime soon, but this makes me wonder. I have been printing with a .35mm nozzle on a Budaschnozzle and I have to say it's been fantastic. I didn't see that diameter available on the E3D, and I don't want to use a .5 nozzle because it's not as fine and definitely a lot more drooly than .35.

[Broose]

Well I feel the heat issues with the E3D hotend have been greatly reduced and addressed by E3D relating to PLA.

Flateric- Did you recently get a newer version of their hotend that has the improved performance? I purchased mine in April and it has the tight temp range issues with PLA you discussed.

[Flateric]

Ya, mine is a updated recent version. Arrived end of June. I had given up trying to use PLA with the older version. It was just far too easy to plug it up. The newer one is dramatically improved. I felt like the older one had a 10-15c range of use with PLA. Anything outside of that was asking for trouble.

The new one is still not as forgiving as a stock hotend or jhead, but very useable and very forgiving overall. Temp range is more like 30c give or take as long as you do not exceed 205c. Different PLA's will vary of course. I use seemecnc or ultimachine PLA which is of generally very high quality.

[SanjayM]

Generic Default
No lies, just a lost piece of paper and a bit of confusion between me and my shipping guy - I emailed you a little while ago with the tracking number, which you will see has a shipping date of the 23rd. (If you are who I think you are that is)

Flateric
Cheers for the kind words, it means a lot to us. Initially the issue with shipping vs demand was indeed a "OMG demand > expected" one, but since May/June it's consistently been a supply issue. It's always the electronic bits, be it fans, or heaters (which we are waiting on now), or thermistors. The machined metal parts are produced by a guy down the road, we can go over and hassle him if the parts don't turn up. When China sends your stuff 6 weeks late, you don't have much of a way to sort that out. I have everything I need in stock to ship over a thousand units in the room behind me right now, but I don't have a single decent heater cartridge. A new factory in China has been pumping out very low quality heater units that are way below power and not the right mechanical size/tolerance. Because they're cheaper they have flooded the market, and getting good ones is nearly impossible. We've sent back over 500 units and not shipped product because we refuse to ship crap. I tell myself it's worth it - but seeing what some others get away with shipping I think maybe i'm being fussy!

I'd definitely like to use a threaded thermistor, but there are issues with getting them in quantities we need rated to 300C. Thinking of going self-manufacture on them once I get some employees sorted and can sell them as a "thing" in their own right.

626Pilot
Our standard nozzle is a 0.4mm job, which is really negligibly different from a 0.35. I think you'll find the E3Dv5 is one of the least dribbly nozzles out there, getting the orifice diameter to length ratio just right is key for this.

[bvandiepenbos]

Be careful with that .25 nozzle, it is very difficult to dial in correctly especially with PLA of any type. The tip is so small that it easily backs the filament up while allowing it to swell in the hotend and jam. Far far less of an issue with ABS and most other types of filament. I can honestly say I have fed every single type of filament currently on the market through mine.

I was thinking of getting an E3D, unless Trick Laser gets their hotend done sometime soon, but this makes me wonder. I have been printing with a .35mm nozzle on a Budaschnozzle and I have to say it's been fantastic. I didn't see that diameter available on the E3D, and I don't want to use a .5 nozzle because it's not as fine and definitely a lot more drooly than .35.

Getting closer on the TL hot end, just need more hours in the day! Fins are designed and machined as well as most everything else, just need to get tooling designed and made for the "nozzle"
That E3D is a really nicely made piece. Great job guys.
Kind of strange to see... very much like what I have been working on, other than the nozzle design.
If my nozzle idea does not work out I will likely just go with the E3D myself.
Although I am very pleased with the J-head from hotends.com I have been running.

[lordbinky]

I bought a couple heater cartridges from various places, so I don't remember who had the bad one, but I currently have a bad one in the hot end until I get a replacement. I was awesome and destroyed my working one, which was fine thinking I had another backup. It's possible it was a 24V 40W instead of a 12V 40W as well. Either way, right now my hotend heats up ridiculously slow, and can't break 231°C .

[Generic Default]

Thanks Sanjay! The tracking number is working and I should hopefully have my hotend by the end of this week. I'm looking forward to testing this with some higher temperature plastics once I make a filament extruder, but until then I'll just use nylon at higher temperatures to get strong parts. The trimmer line I've been printing is extremely strong across layers (strong enough to permanently bend a steel pick), but delaminates easily when printed below 240 C (which is the hottest I can print without a full metal hotend). The E3d should allow me to make more solid mechanical parts.

Sorry for accusing you of lying earlier, I'm just used to some companies who send out fake tracking numbers and tell the customers stuff has shipped when it hasn't. You shipped my hotend a full week ahead of the preorder deadline, which is faster than I was expecting. So thank you, and I'll probably be buying more of your stuff in the future!

[Fiero2M6]

I finally got my E3D V5 hotend installed. It's awesome! Much less ooze with PLA and no worries about high temperature with nylon. This is by far the best upgrade I've ever done. You can tell a lot of time was spent making it perfect.

Sanjay: Do you have an optimum layer width to thickness ratio for the 0.4mm nozzle?

[Eaglezsoar]

I finally got my E3D V5 hotend installed. It's awesome! Much less ooze with PLA and no worries about high temperature with nylon. This is by far the best upgrade I've ever done. You can tell a lot of time was spent making it perfect.

Sanjay: Do you have an optimum layer width to thickness ratio for the 0.4mm nozzle?

Just wondering, do you know what the difference is between your version 5 and the older version 4.1?
Documentation on the site is sparse and I am still trying to figure out what the difference is.