Alternatives to E3D V6?
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Thanks for all the suggestions so far. I'll record them all!
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@phaedrux I was having issues getting onto their website yesterday, but all seems fine today. Odd.
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In simple finger tests, I find that the two bottom fins of the E3D heatsink seem to be dissipating all the heat and the rest never really get warm (at least at block temperature of 240C). I suspect the entire upper half of the heatsink is there mainly to allow room for the fan to be mounted. I never got a chance to take a picture of it with a thermal camera.
Even if you position it properly, the E3D fan mount doesn't usually stay there long. It can rotate even from the small pull of the fan wires or when bumped when you remove prints from the bed.
I'm not a fan of the mounting system that seems to have become standard. The round barrel has no anti rotation features and in the Titan extruder it can rotate relatively easily, The Bondtech BMG extruder seems to clamp it tightly enough to prevent rotation. Why anyone would design something like this without at least one flat face to prevent rotation I'll never understand. It reminds me of using 4 screws to level print beds - an early design mistake that is still being propagated.
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For the price, quality and options E3D is hard to beat. Its not a sales pitch, I tried to move away from E3D, long story for another day.
Originally I felt the pricing was high considering all the knock offs. Well I learned there is a huge difference with E3D quality and it justifys the price.
There is consistancy in the product, making troubleshooting easier and reducing failures. (unless you forget to plug in the hotend fan, lesson learned)
Plus resolving any issue is straightfoward, sometimes a pain but routine over time.When outfitted with a copper block, nozzle x and PT100 it is quite a robust workhorse with few limitations. Pricing is still near half any other option that seems comparible. I’d really like to try another solution but can’t justify the cost difference. Id rather purxhase anoher DUET Wifi with a hotend at that cost. That I can justify (if I had the dough thai is).
As mentioned above the clip on fan isnt the best solution. I found that integrating the shroud for the heatsink with the mount yeilds better results. Also, there should be no issues with the heatsink spinning in the mount, even when using printed mounts. That too needs to be adressed in the mount design.
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@mrehorstdmd yes, you would have thought flats would be the intuative solution to the problem. E3Ds fix has been to move to a screw in mount. Fine for mounting in machined or precision moulded parts but a further step away from working well with printed hotend mounts.
Regarding the groove mount I'm not sure where it originated. It seems to be an informal thing with a degree of variation between different suppliers versions. I tend to ensure a 0.5mm CAD gap between my clamp part and base and so far that has not failed to grant a tight clamp.
With the fan mount rotated so the offset is upward, moving the fan away from the heater block it is easy enough to ensure the fan is trapped and can't rotate much.
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@bricor said in Alternatives to E3D V6?:
For the price, quality and options E3D is hard to beat. Its not a sales pitch, I tried to move away from E3D, long story for another day.
@doctrucker said in Alternatives to E3D V6?:
Firstly this is not knocking E3D or their V6 product at all. I've got a number of machines and I don't want my knowledge to be limited to a single manufacturers products.
...but yes agree that price comparisons to cloned and east asian products are dangerous.
You have the similar issues when trying to justify why component x costs an order of manitude more than a mass manufactured part of similar size to J Bloggs who's just realised 3D Printing may be the ideal solution to making the prototype widget for that product that will make their fortune.
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Good luck in your quest. I’d like to see more options, options that have proven, significant advantages. And at twice rhe price it has to be revolutionary. As much as I would like to evaluate the comparable otions, I can only rely on the opinions of others that have written or posted videos, nothing I’ve researched has justified any further persuit. I’m hopeful that something is coming in the near future.
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@bricor ok the 500 US dollars end of the market is too expensive for me (particually when import considerations and potential CE issues are brought into the mix) but as a community I feel we need to be careful to avoid loosing viable competitors for any specific element of our systems.
As soon as order quantities becomes significant enough manufacturing can outsourced to cheaper countries. With big order quantities significant quality control and penalties can be imposed on the manufacturers. This results in a good product which has the fraction of the cost of locally manufactured products - which will be what new market entrants will be most likely to do.
Edit: Fully appreciate cost drivers though. Many if my genuine E3D V6s are second hand.
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No reports from Dyze Design products? I think they were the only non E3D hotend maker at the UK TCT 2018?
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@doctrucker I have been using two DyzEnd-X successfully on my previous printer. Printed ABS,PLA,PETG with it. I had a genuine e3d v6 installed before and the print quality improved a bit, but that might be caused by having tuned the pid more carefully than I did with the e3d or because of the e3d already lost quality because of high usage and some crashes into the bed.
I stopped using them when I changed to a bowden system. With the DyzEnd using bowden the filament often get stuck because of to much retraction I think and using the e3d I had no problems.Is anyone of you successfully using a full metal one of any brand with a long bowden tube (70-80cm) and high retraction (4-6mm) without issues ?
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@mrehorstdmd I'll second your observations that the lower heat sink find do all the work. It took me a long time to figure out that that was the fundamental design fault of the Diamond 5 colour. Both the Diamond 3colour and 5 colour use E3D heat sinks but to get 5 heat sinks in the same radius, the lower find are reduced in diameter on the 5 colour version. To cure the ensuing heat creep issues, you have to use a much more powerful fan.
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@scachi I can see you have been on the forum for a while, and so guess you have already exhausted pressure advance tuning?
(Edit: For example...) the documentation for the E3D V6 and lite recommended against retractions of over 4mm, but that is retraction of filament up the throat of the hotend, not retraction of filament at the filament drive. There will be a difference due to both bucking of the filament in the guide tube and compression parrallel to the axis of the filament.
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@doctrucker The E3D V6 I have no issues with. I have used those values without pressure advanced, later on I enabled and tuned it but never reduced the retraction then as the prints looked fine and did work without issues. I print petg most of the time, almost no stringing.
The documentation of dyzend mention that the retraction should be lower than 1mm, step 4, slicer settings:
https://dyzedesign.com/helpdesk/faq/how-can-i-setup-and-install-my-new-dyzend-x-or-dyzend-pro-hotend/The titanium has a very low thermal conductivity compared to other metals and allows the heatbreak to be very short. The retraction distance must be lower than 1mm.
A longer retraction distance will bring the soft plastic in a cold zone and stick to the wall. The cooled plastic cannot be pushed by standard motor and is stuck in place.
By keeping the retraction lower than 1mm, the filament stay soft and doesn’t clog in place.
Looks like this hotend is only useful for direct extruder usage.
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@scachi Sorry I ment that as an example. Edited my comment to make that a little clearer.
Otherwise very useful information, thank you. 1mm is indeed a tiny retraction distance.
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@scachi said in Alternatives to E3D V6?:
Looks like this hotend is only useful for direct extruder usage.
I don't think that is true. The 1mm limit only refers to the distance the filament should be lifted into the cold zone. If you used it in a bowden setup, the amount of retraction required in the firmware to achieve that 1mm lift may be higher than 1mm, but the end effect is same.
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@phaedrux said in Alternatives to E3D V6?:
@scachi said in Alternatives to E3D V6?:
Looks like this hotend is only useful for direct extruder usage.
I don't think that is true. The 1mm limit only refers to the distance the filament should be lifted into the cold zone. If you used it in a bowden setup, the amount of retraction required in the firmware to achieve that 1mm lift may be higher than 1mm, but the end effect is same.
Exactly, I got my bowden really tight and E3D V6 works fine with retraction about 2-2.5mm
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I say give the Slice a try. I just got one and it doesn't seem to be bothered with what ever retraction I throw at it. My E3d jams pretty easy unless I use a high output fan to cool it. Even then anything over 2.5mm is risky with my bowden setup.
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Apropos the E3D fan, in a fit of stupidity, I once interchanged the connectors for the hotend fan and the part cooling fan and I went on to print various PETG parts that didn't normally have any cooling fan and so the hotend was being used at 240 deg with zero cooling and the part cooling fan was going full tilt. I only noticed when the parts showed signs of poor layer adhesion (due to the excess cooling). The hotend didn't seem to care that it wasn't getting any cooling.
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@burtoogle said in Alternatives to E3D V6?:
Apropos the E3D fan, in a fit of stupidity, I once interchanged the connectors for the hotend fan and the part cooling fan and I went on to print various PETG parts that didn't normally have any cooling fan and so the hotend was being used at 240 deg with zero cooling and the part cooling fan was going full tilt. I only noticed when the parts showed signs of poor layer adhesion (due to the excess cooling). The hotend didn't seem to care that it wasn't getting any cooling.
Had a similar thing when I first attempted to print with the Diamond 5 colour with it's inherent heat creep issues, until I fitted a much bigger fan. PET-G was fine but PLA gave me all sorts of problems due to swelling in the area of the heat breaks.
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Last time I accidentally disconnected the part fan during a PETG build on an E3D Lite things smelt very hot quickly!
