We’ll for PLA the qu-bd mbe stock design leave much to be desired, but I must say they ship spare parts darn fast. I placed and order for a heater and a few spare nozzles and it shipped same day. This is the 3rd time I’ve ordered I’ve ordered from them and each time they shipped the same day.
I’m thinking I’m going to be printing for a while, so I figured I should have some non makeable (at this point) parts on hand.
Tonight I managed to salvage my heater. Since my thermistor is shot, repartier wouldn’t warm up the heater block… So hooked it up directly to my power supply and waited plastic to melt. I managed to removed the molten plastic to get to the heater set screw. I ran my nozzle into the undamaged side trying to squeeze some of the PLA that was stuck in the threads. After I got as much molten stuff out of the way as I could, I let it cool and then ran a M6 tap down the heater plug, and then I installed my clogged nozzle. The nozzle that leaked still has a lot of crud on the threads… In to the emergency spare parts I think.. Eventually I’ll probably hit it with a propane torch and
I ran a .30 drill in the heated nozzle from the tip a few times and then ran a drill in the opposite side to dry to catch what I pushed through. Hopefully I’ll be back in business with this nozzle… (although I have spares on the way).
This is the second thermistor I’ve gone through. The wire seems to all ways seems to break near the class. Looking closely at them, they seem to be soldered near the glass to extend the leads. I bought I bunch of spares, but I think I’ll hang on to this one, if I get stuck in desperate times at some point.
On my first thermistor, I used Jb-weld to glue it to the block and that seemed to work ok until the jb-weld fractured. I built up a bit of a support
If I can find a small enough end mill I think I’m going spot at an angle to drill a small hole to set the thermistor in the heater block. and then make a small trough for the wires. I’m thinking I”m going to fill the hole with paste and then Kapton tape it down. Hopefully this will keep the wires from fatiguing.
The next iteration I just want to get up an printing again and try out my liner and see how it holds up. I’m got some ideas for the next major iteration of the printer head in my organic head, but I need my printer working to print out the parts. I’m really curious to see my machined ptfe liner will hold up.
Uggg… time for bed.