Tri Hotend

[Generic Default]

Hi everyone! I bought my Rostock Max just over a year ago and ever since then I've been working on 3d printer related technology, some of which I've posted on these forums. Anyway, this particular post is about something I've been extensively developing since the beginning of 2014 (although I started conceptual work on it in early 2013). I considered doing a Kickstarter but everything on Kickstarter is delayed for at least a year since the crowd investors need to have their orders fulfilled and stuff. So I decided to start small when I release it, and I'm giving you guys the first look at my product since I've relied almost exclusively on this forum for help, advice, and research.



The Tri hotend;

Bottom view render

Cross section render

It's just three hotends rolled up in one. No PTC fittings, no melting PEEK sections, no bowden backlash, no multi-extruder alignment shifting.

I'm going to start selling these within a week (unless something goes horribly wrong), and if there is enough demand, I'll ramp up production. I want to keep this thread as design and feedback input, as well as discussion, not as an advertisement. Nevertheless, there are several users on this forum who started businesses selling aftermarket 3d printer parts, so I don't think that I'm out of place here. My first hundred and ninety something posts on this forum weren't spam ads.


Give me feedback! I have good prototyping capabilities at this point and I want to know what you want in a hotend. My business plan is to make niche products for the DIY 3d printer crowd, so if there are even a few people who suggest I make something, I probably will. Open source, of course (although manufacturing drawings won't be released until I break even). It's not for sale yet and I won't post the link to my website on this thread.


Please give me any comments, suggestions, questions, inquiries, ect. in this thread. Thanks!

[McSlappy]

Ha ha... I was considering getting dual hot-ends but was thinking how much I wished for a triple... I was thinking this just last week.

Let me know the cost and shipping to Australia - perhaps I could stock them after some testing.. Though now I need some more extruders

Love the design! Does it fit above the effector?

Congrats, I think this is a winner. What's it called?

Oh and don't feel spammy - this is a legit product and we are all legitimate consumers (and some of us sellers!) be proud of your product, I think it looks amazing!!!

[Eaglezsoar]

I am very interested in your Tri-Extruder.
I like the kit variety with all mounting parts, heater cartridges, thermistors, and cooling fan and shroud included
but would consider the hotend with me buying the cartriges, thermistors, fan and printing out my own shroud if
you provided the STLs for the shroud and mounting parts.

[Mac The Knife]

I like how the hex heads worked out.

[Generic Default]

Thanks guys! I'm glad your first few responses are positive and not something like "STOP ADVERTISING HERE WE HATE YOU!"

Anyway, it will be a full kit, both pre-assembled and DIY maker versions will be available. Everything but the effector plate will be included (3 heaters, 3 thermistors, 3 PTFE tubes, 1 fan, 1 fan mount, ect). I hope to add the effector plate as a separate pre-printed piece for retail as well, but of course any STLs will be free to download. I want to get a bunch of different mounting options available, some listed below;

1) Magnetic arm effector plate
2) Rostock Max effector plate adapter
3) Kossel effector plate adapter
4) your custom mount here

I already have a nice effector plate for the magnetic arm system designed and tested. The mounting is not a standard groove mount, since there isn't enough room to fit three bowden tubes into that small diameter circle. The nice thing about my custom triangle mount is that it is rock solid as far as rigidity goes, there is no wobbling, no angular tilting, no vertical or horizontal movement whatsoever. It press fits into place with two locking brackets that can be fitted in the hotends main groove to hold it down. The brackets are unessesary, but they might be useful if someone prints their own effector plate and it turns out to be oversized and a loose press fit. Instead of typing a paragraph to describe it, next time I'll remember than I have renders of it on my desktop....derp

I'll make a printable adapter for the stock SeeMeCNC melamine plate tonight. I forgot to mention that this thing is pretty tiny, and yes, it does sit above the plate to conserve Z height. My current version is 1.75mm only for now, but I will make a modular version that accepts any filament between 1 and 4 mm diameter, not just 1.75 or 3mm.

Also in the design pipeline for the more distant (4+ months) future;

-8 nozzle hotend similar to this but bigger
-16+ nozzle hotend that you may not recognize as a hotend (seriously, this one will blow your mind when you see it next year)




But for now I'm starting with the 3 nozzle that you see above. It is inherently more expensive to put 3 hotends in one, so I can't sell this in the price range to compete with cheap Chinese J-heads. Price will probably be just under 150 dollars with free shipping and all parts included. Not sure about assembly yet. It's easy to put together, but I want a pre-assembled version to avoid problems with less DIY-ey consumers.

[Eaglezsoar]

Now you are getting me excited, can't wait to buy this stuff!!!

[McSlappy]

Yeah this is awesome stuff! Seriously message me with pricing if you're not posting here

[Generic Default]

Right now my estimate for retail price is just under 150 dollars, with free shipping included for US customers (it's entirely made in the US, with the exception of the heater cartridges).

Of course if you're buying in bulk as a distributor for your own store, you will get a big discount. Unfortunately right now I'm not ready to do international shipping (customs and import duties are annoying!), but I'm looking into it. I'm still in the process of setting up a business.

[Demolishun]

Very cool!

"STOP ADVERTISING HERE I HATE YOU!"
Cause I ain't got the money to buy this yet, and I WANT IT!

This is seriously very cool and the more options for extruders for 3D printing the better.

I assume the electronics will need an upgrade to handle 3 extruders on a Rostock Max V2?

[Eaglezsoar]

Right now my estimate for retail price is just under 150 dollars, with free shipping included for US customers (it's entirely made in the US, with the exception of the heater cartridges).

Of course if you're buying in bulk as a distributor for your own store, you will get a big discount. Unfortunately right now I'm not ready to do international shipping (customs and import duties are annoying!), but I'm looking into it. I'm still in the process of setting up a business.

Please tell us how we can buy one of the kits and parts such as the magnetic ball effector.

[Mac The Knife]

(customs and import duties are annoying!), but I'm looking into it. I'm still in the process of setting up a business.

I wouldn't worry about customs, or import duties. A few years ago I was making and selling clutch parts for a RC vehicle. I used USPS flat rate priority mail. Printed out the labels at home, international postage had a couple more questions to answer, but nothing to lengthy.

[Generic Default]

I really need a second printer so I can print all of the extra parts to sell as upgrades. Right now my magnetic arm effector plate may not fit standard hotends (I have printed several of them to accomodate my E3D hotends until I switched to my own tri hotend). I want to get my business up and running soon!


Yes, the Rambo board can only work with 2 hotends unfortunately. It has enough components to do 3 hotends (there are 6 stepper drivers on the Rambo) but I don't know if the second Z stepper driver can be reconfigured in the firmware to work as an independent hotend driver.

And Eaglezsoar, the magnetic arm upgrade is a pretty big deal for any delta printer. It needs 1 effector plate, 6 arms, 12 arm cups, 3 carriage mounts, 12 socket head cap screws and 12 3/8 chrome ball bearings. I plan on offering a full kit in the future but for now I need to focus on my tri hotend to get a business going.

You will be the first to get the STLs for it though!

[Jimustanguitar]

So you mention that it has no PTC fitting and no Bowden lash which got me looking at your pictures very closely... It looks like the bowden tube itself threads into female threads inside the aluminum, just above the heat break... Is that right? How has that been working for you, I'm intrigued.

Looks very cool!

[astroboy907]

Of course if you're buying in bulk as a distributor for your own store, you will get a big discount. Unfortunately right now I'm not ready to do international shipping (customs and import duties are annoying!), but I'm looking into it. I'm still in the process of setting up a business.

The only problems you might have are sending lots of bulk with a high declared value. For one-off international shipments it's a lot easier. As another poster mentioned, USPS is pretty easy to work with. First class international is relatively cheap, providing it is under 13 ounces, and priority isn't bad if you need it done quick.

There are still taxes though

[Generic Default]

Yes, the bowden tube threads in just above where it enters the heat isolator (thin tube).

It prevents the bulk and problems associated with PTC fittings. This is how I got three nozzles in such a compact area. I can pull as hard as I want on the PTFE tube and it doesn't wiggle at all. The three holes that go into the top of the heat sink aren't threaded most of the way; the tube slides down freely until it gets to the threads. They're threaded longer than an M4 nut but not so long that it takes forever to screw the tubes in.

The only negative part of this design is that the ends of the bowden tubes need to be reamed/drilled once they're threaded into the heat sink, otherwise the compression from the threads causes a tight fit and extra friction on the filament. This hole enlargement will be done on my side so you don't have to worry about it when you get your hotend. It only has the potential to be a problem if you use a direct drive extruder (ie EZStruder) with not enough power, and you cut your bowden tubes. I plan on shipping with the tubes already inside and threaded and reamed. Gear driven cold ends are no problem, and when I make a 3mm version i won't have to deal with it since they use 4mm PTFE tubes.

It only has the potential to increase friction if your filament is oversized/inconsistent. Trimmer line slides freely with or without reaming. Once it's reamed, everything under 2mm slides freely.


By the way, exactly how long are your bowden tubes for those of you using a stock SeeMeCNC Rostock Max with the EZStruder? I still have a Steve's extruder mounted to the top plate of mine!

[McSlappy]

Generic, I totally understand the shipping woes - especially to Australia

Luckily I'm a small enough business that I wouldn't be able to order many :/ I have similar issues with the e3d - it only takes a few to get over the $1000 customs red flag.

Well this is awesome, good work!

[Flateric]

Smart design, I particularly like how all 3 nozzles are so close together and have a small through effector footprint.

[Generic Default]

Keeping the nozzles close together was one of my main goals in this design. I have had two other hotends since the end of 2013, but I can never get them working for dual extrusion because of alignment and leveling problems.

If the effector plate tilts at all (which is does on any machine) the nozzles will not be level. In my case, one nozzle would be high on one side of the build plate, and on the other side the other nozzle was high. Even 0.05mm makes a big difference, enough to prevent decent prints with dual extruders. The angular tilting of the effector plate is minimized if the nozzles are very close together. On the Tri hotend, the nozzles are just over 10mm apart. They also don't wobble relative to each other during movement even if the effector plate isn't perfectly rigid.


The triangle part of the heat sink is under 25mm in diameter, so it should work fine with the rostock max effector plate. The heater block sub-assemblies slide into the heat sink after the heat sink is mounted on the effector, and they're leveled by dropping them onto the build plate.

[enggmaug]

Yes, the Rambo board can only work with 2 hotends unfortunately. It has enough components to do 3 hotends (there are 6 stepper drivers on the Rambo) but I don't know if the second Z stepper driver can be reconfigured in the firmware to work as an independent hotend driver.

No, unfortunately, the extra Z stepper driver on the Rambo is not an extra driver.. it is just an extra slot for another stepper. The Z driver has 2 slots, is order to plug 2 steppers. But if you use a 2 Z steppers printer, and one of them for example turns in the wrong direction, you are screwed, and need to turn it around somehow. There is no way to change the behavior of the second stepper from the one of the first.

Anyway, I am working on a Rambo extension. I don't have much time for it, and it's not moving forward very fast.
However if someone wants to make the epoxy board, solder the components and try it, all design, place and route is done here : https://github.com/Enggmaug/RamBoExtension" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;.

It should allow to drive a Kraken, a quad extruder. If you only need 3, you can avoid plugging the components you don't need.

[pkhzor]

This looks amazing, can't wait for you to start selling them. It's not oversized and it looks extremely sleek.

[Generic Default]

It's actually pretty tiny. It uses less than 20mm of Z height under your effector plate, and 30mm over it. The mount is very compact. Check it out.

That's the adapter for the Rostock Max effector plate. You just press the Tri hotend into the adapter, put the adapter in the effector plate, then put screws through the holes to hold the adapter in place. The heater block sub-assemblies slide into it from the bottom and are locked in place with set screws.

[pkhzor]

Might be a dumb question but would 3 hotends need a better power supply than the stock v2 comes with?

[brent]

Might be a dumb question but would 3 hotends need a better power supply than the stock v2 comes with?

Yes, you would need a stronger power supply or a separate power supply (or even a relay setup). They take more power, therefore require more power. Power input depends on the hotends you are going to use for your 3x hotend modification.

[Generic Default]

I think the PSU that the Rostock comes with is 450 watts. Three 40w cartridge heaters is 120 watts, so that leaves 330 watts for the heated bed and control board. If the heated bed uses less than 300 watts, everything could theoretically be on at the same time. Of course for most prints not all four heaters will be on full power at any given time.

[Polygonhell]

I run a kossel mini off a 5A 12V PSU that's 60watts for 1 Hotend and all the electronics including the steppers, so your probably fine with the stock PSU for 3 hotends, I have run 2 off it without issues.