Tri Hotend

[Generic Default]

I have another last-minute dilemma. Right now I have a bunch of 30mm and 40mm fans to use with this hotend. Both of them work, and both are significantly quieter (and less 'vibratey') than the smaller 25mm fans used on other hotends. Both fit onto printed mounts on the heat sink of the hotend.


I can supply both types of fans and mounts for the first batch of hotends I sell, but I only have one printer and printing those three parts at a good quality level takes over 3 hours, which may limit me in daily sales. Do you guys have any suggestions for which one I should go with?

I'm leaning towards 40mm since it has better air flow.

[Eaglezsoar]

Definitely the 40mm.

[Generic Default]

Here's what the 40mm fan looks like on it;

It looks kind of bulky on the Rostock V1 effector plate, but it fits. The blue circular adapter part fits right into the rostock effector plate, then the fan shroud fits over it all. Nothing is loose and nothing rattles. The nice thing about printing this with trimmer line is that you can actually bend the entire fan shroud almost inside-out without breaking it. Plus it won't melt or distort from heat! I was messing with retraction settings when I printed the fan shroud so it has some blobs on it.

[barry99705]

Here's what the 40mm fan looks like on it;

fan mount 1.jpg

It looks kind of bulky on the Rostock V1 effector plate, but it fits. The blue circular adapter part fits right into the rostock effector plate, then the fan shroud fits over it all. Nothing is loose and nothing rattles. The nice thing about printing this with trimmer line is that you can actually bend the entire fan shroud almost inside-out without breaking it. Plus it won't melt or distort from heat! I was messing with retraction settings when I printed the fan shroud so it has some blobs on it.

I wonder if you could make it so it has a 40mm fan mount on one side, and a 30mm mount on the other?

[McSlappy]

I vote 40 too. I honestly value quiet fans over size - I have a Rostock sitting on either side of me right now and I would love to quiet them down

This kit looks awesome!

[Generic Default]

Well if you like quiet fans you'll love these ones. I think they might be rated at a much higher voltage or something because I've been running these 40mm 12v fans on a 24v power supply to cool the smoothieboards controlling my 4 axis mill and 2 axis lathe for two months now. They're still going!

I'll make several mounts available for various needs. The one in the picture can mount two 40mm fans if needed, and it's designed to clamp around the heat sink if you mount the fan on the open side. I'll do a 30mm fan mount and a 30/40 fan mount too.



There is one nuance with the Tri hotend that you should know before you buy it. Un-cooled and with the stainless steel thermal isolator, it can jam with PLA. From what I understand, all full metal hotends have this problem. So I'll be including a thermal isolator with each kit that's made out of a VERY, VERY, VERY expensive type of plastic. It can print at nylon temps without degrading.


Slightly experimental stuff here but I don't want to take any chances. ABS and nylon print fine with the stainless thermal isolators, I'm sure polycarbonate and PET work fine too. PLA just sucks. I bought a discounted roll of 'defective' PLA, with the defect being surface texture. With three different types of hotends it has jammed, so there is a chance that it's my PLA and the stainless will work for regular PLA. I just don't trust the thermal expansion inside the thermal isolator and I want to make sure nobody has to deal with PLA jamming.

I have other ideas in progress to deal with this kind of stuff, and one of my goals by the end of this year is to solve PLA jamming forever!

[Generic Default]

The website is now capable of taking credit/debit card orders, but I'm very limited in how many I can sell right now. The first production run of 100 units will be ready in 5 weeks.

I realized that many people may not have the capability to print with more than one hotend with their current electronic control board. I think that multi-extruder is the way that 3d printers are going in the future, but I might have a separate option to buy the hotend in modular parts. So if you can only use one nozzle, you could buy the main heat sink and one single nozzle-heater block sub assembly. This would bring the price down and allow people to work their way up to having a triple hotend. It would essentially make it a single hotend to start with that can have parts added for dual or triple extrusion.

Does it sound like something I should pursue?

[McSlappy]

Yes I like all of your ideas!

Having the option to buy a base kit then add nozzles is excellent!

[Eaglezsoar]

The website is now capable of taking credit/debit card orders, but I'm very limited in how many I can sell right now. The first production run of 100 units will be ready in 5 weeks.

I realized that many people may not have the capability to print with more than one hotend with their current electronic control board. I think that multi-extruder is the way that 3d printers are going in the future, but I might have a separate option to buy the hotend in modular parts. So if you can only use one nozzle, you could buy the main heat sink and one single nozzle-heater block sub assembly. This would bring the price down and allow people to work their way up to having a triple hotend. It would essentially make it a single hotend to start with that can have parts added for dual or triple extrusion.

Does it sound like something I should pursue?

That sounds like a good idea for those with limited funds.
We also need to market the tri hotend more on some of the other forums. I'm not good at marketing but I do know that it is key to attract buyers. Probably 90% of the 3D printer users probably never heard
of the Tri Hotend.

[teoman]

Wonder if you could use a 4 throw relay to be able to use 2 different nozzles at the same time? Or 2 x 4 throw relays to activate the extruders one by one?

[teoman]

Maybe some small clip like things or hooks on the side of the fan cooling shroud for wire management?

[lightninjay]

The website is now capable of taking credit/debit card orders, but I'm very limited in how many I can sell right now. The first production run of 100 units will be ready in 5 weeks.

I realized that many people may not have the capability to print with more than one hotend with their current electronic control board. I think that multi-extruder is the way that 3d printers are going in the future, but I might have a separate option to buy the hotend in modular parts. So if you can only use one nozzle, you could buy the main heat sink and one single nozzle-heater block sub assembly. This would bring the price down and allow people to work their way up to having a triple hotend. It would essentially make it a single hotend to start with that can have parts added for dual or triple extrusion.

Does it sound like something I should pursue?

Yes please! This is actually what I was dreaming of before you announced the possibility of it happening. I was going to purchase your tri-hotend with the intention of only using two hotends until I could upgrade my board, but purchasing the base kit and adding pieces would be superb!

[critical_limit]

@generic default:

is it possible to post your hotend adapter and fan mount in metric files instead of inches?
Have to change some small things for my effector.

Thanx
Dirk

[Generic Default]

@generic default:

is it possible to post your hotend adapter and fan mount in metric files instead of inches?
Have to change some small things for my effector.

Thanx
Dirk

I'll post the mounting dimensions so anyone can make their own effector for the Tri hotend. I'm shipping the Tri hotend with a mounting adapter for the SeeMeCNC Rostock plate, but people with different or modified printers need to know this stuff to design their own mounts.

There are two mounting parts of the hotend. The preferred one is the triangular part at the bottom, since it is ultra rigid and easy to press fit without fasteners.
The second one is a groove mount above the triangular part. Both are shown below.

[critical_limit]

THANX !!!!

Now I have to wait for the Hotend

[sandy]

Dibs on one! That design is beautiful. I want to use one of them for printing supports.

Will you please message us when they are available for sale?

[Generic Default]

Dissolvable support is especially nice, but anything that can be peeled or broken off without leaving a rough surface is a huge improvement. ABS and PLA and HIPS are no problem with support material, but nylon is trickier since nothing sticks to it very well. I've been working on a way to extrude hot glue sticks into filament, it would be dirt cheap and easy for anyone to make. It doesn't need the entire filament extrusion set up like the other ones on the market. Of course it's limited to glue sticks though.


I've already sold one Tri hotend in the US, but I can't do international shipping for another day or two. The first production run is around a month away, so there will be plenty for sale at that time!

[artexmg]

Dissolvable support is especially nice, but anything that can be peeled or broken off without leaving a rough surface is a huge improvement. ABS and PLA and HIPS are no problem with support material, but nylon is trickier since nothing sticks to it very well. I've been working on a way to extrude hot glue sticks into filament, it would be dirt cheap and easy for anyone to make. It doesn't need the entire filament extrusion set up like the other ones on the market. Of course it's limited to glue sticks though.


I've already sold one Tri hotend in the US, but I can't do international shipping for another day or two. The first production run is around a month away, so there will be plenty for sale at that time!

I went to your website, but do not see the option to buy the hot end for only two extruders, as you mentioned?

Cheers!

[lightninjay]

Dissolvable support is especially nice, but anything that can be peeled or broken off without leaving a rough surface is a huge improvement. ABS and PLA and HIPS are no problem with support material, but nylon is trickier since nothing sticks to it very well. I've been working on a way to extrude hot glue sticks into filament, it would be dirt cheap and easy for anyone to make. It doesn't need the entire filament extrusion set up like the other ones on the market. Of course it's limited to glue sticks though.


I've already sold one Tri hotend in the US, but I can't do international shipping for another day or two. The first production run is around a month away, so there will be plenty for sale at that time!

I went to your website, but do not see the option to buy the hot end for only two extruders, as you mentioned?

Cheers!

From this, I would gather that Generic Default intends to update his website once his production runs are ready.

[Generic Default]

Everything's still on schedule, I'll have to figure out inventory for shipping separate parts if I go that way. The website is kind of temporary in how it looks now, I plan on adding a bunch of stuff and getting more pictures and videos once I get the machined parts in.

Still no jams with ABS or Nylon. I've been trying to get T-Glase to print but my jams seem to be caused by long, fast, repetitive retractions on the original Steve's extruder. The hotend keeps the PET flowing fine, even when I torture test it by overheating it past 300 degrees for several minutes to let the plastic decompose and get crusty. Once I get the retractions figured out for PET I'll print some translucent parts with glow in the dark ABS inside. That will be awesome.

More updates to come. I'd like to be able to post more but I have a really busy life right now!

[lightninjay]

Hey man, totally understandable! You're running a life, a business, and I'm sure plenty of awesome hobbies on the side besides this one.

Important thing is, just keep doing what you're doing, and enjoy it all while you can. I'll just be patiently awaiting my chance to order one of your tri-hotends when the opportunity arises.

[bdjohns1]

Any word on when I'll be able to throw some money at you?

[McSlappy]

HERE'S MY MONEY!!

[Generic Default]

I'll let you guys speculate about the picture below. This is my permanent solution that will (hopefully) end all jamming problems with metal hotends for the future of 3d printing.

I will say that I filed for a patent on a few things related to this hotend, and just hotend technology in general. Some of you may remember a thread I started a few months ago about patents and open source stuff; I wanted to avoid IP earlier this year. The combination of aggressive patent trolls in the US and rampant [Chinese] copying of recent U.S developed 3d printer related stuff has convinced me to get patents on the things I invent. So while I'll go the traditional route with patents, I still intend to make my stuff open source for reprappers and makers in general.

Stuff is coming together and I'll give more details once I have some free time. For tonight this is all you get!

PS- I hope you like the results of my seven dollar product photoshoot! More pictures in the next few days.

[McSlappy]

Yes, this is looking very nice!

And don't be afraid to patent, patents aren't evil, it's just what people do with them Telsa is a great example of people being awesome with patents... Trolls are the worst.

Looking very nice all up. You got a total weight on that yet?