Hexagon Hot End?

Geez, Mike. I thought that was the way they were supposed to look.

 

I have one of the silicone sleeves and it keeps the thermistor in by itself without anything. I have kapton tape keeping the sets of wires together like in the setup video and that keeps the thermistor locked close to the heater which has a set screw.

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Here's my attempt at securing thermistor with fire cement:

http://forums.robo3dprinter.com/index.php?attachments/p1020789-jpg.2306/

 

I know you do not have to use the silicone - but I think it isolates the thermistor better

 

I've done the same as splk3 but with no tape. Silicon sleeve to hold the thermistor in and the wires zip tied together with the heater wires. The hole in the silicon sleeve is smaller than the thermistor so it will never just fall out, and is small enough to grip in the wires to hold the thermistor in place.

 

He said he used copper silicone inside the hole

 

Is the copper silicone an insulator or does it fully conduct the heat? Wouldn't the insulating properties of the silicone affect the temp reading of the thermistor if you put it in the hole instead of just on the outside to hold the thermistor in?

 

I´m not sure if the silicone affect the temp reading - my plan was to use it to get a tight fit in the thermistor hole.
Maybe it`s better without silicone, or some aluminium foil could be used to get a tight fit + better conduct the heat?

 

I tried to get some aluminum foil in the thermistor hole as tesseract suggested on another thread and gave up as it was too fiddly as I just wanted to get it printing again. Figured I could always go back later if I had issues but I haven't given it a second thought as it's been running flawlessly.

 

I've seen people have been having issues with the E3D and jamming with PLA and the solution is to season the hotend with cooking oil. I was going to do that with my Hex soon as I don't want to go through the hassle of clearing a jam but having said that I haven't had and issues to date but also have only done about 8 hours of printing with the Hex. I'm wondering if it's something I should/need to do with the Hex though?

I'm setting up a new spool holder so I can do some decent prints and get some hours up on the Hex.

 

Great, Then we can skip the silicone, alu foil.. - I`ll try without on my next Hexagon

 

The silicone will conduct heat. Has to to be able to sustain that kind of temperature. Also when you insert the thermistor it's very important the glass bead is pressed against the metal. The silicone acts more to encase the sides

 

Putting a little pressure on the leads by attaching it to the heater cable is enough. Pretty tight fit on mine at least

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Any thoughts on seasoning the Hex?

 

I'll let everyone know if I decide to season - I'll wait to see if I have trouble printing.

 

well got all my parts, the xxl lcd is excellent but after changing the settings for the pre warm up pla when I switch it off and back on it looses any changes so I have to make them again is this normal ?
Hexagon looks cool but will have to wait until I get time to fit it, it did not come with the silicone sleeve is that still under testing if so @Elvira as soon as its available let me know so I can order one thank you

 

Settings are not stored in the xxl panel, but in your controller

 

Yes, the silicon sleeve is still being tested as far as I'm aware. It's definitely worth getting as soon as it's available.

 

Silicone sleeve has been working great for me so far - highly recommended (only done 3 prints but the temperature doesn't slip at all, even when right in front of my air conditioner, and I have 2 filament cooling fans without shrouds blowing on it as well.

 

Update on my hexagon progress:

I was having a pretty hard time with getting filament to go into the hotend because of the gap between the extruder and the mounting plate. I also had a piece of filament snap in between and I had to take everything apart. Boo.

So I hacked together a "hybrid-bowden" setup by removing the insert at the top of the hexagon, shaving some of the original hotend's PTFE tube, screwing it into the hexagon threads, and cutting it down so it is just barely shorter than the gap between the hexagon and extruder hole. Now it is way easier to feed new filament, and I haven't snapped and lost anything in between (yet).

Cabling is definitely an issue with the extra fans and cables - should probably be a bit more careful in planning when I do the y-axis upgrade to run them a bit more carefully.

I do highly recommend adding a plug to anyone changing/upgrading their hotend or other components - it makes it much easier to swap out parts. I moved my plugs a bit up the cable bundle as well to get them out of the way of the x carriage since my cables were getting in the way of the x-stop.