E3D Installation Question

John, While you are messing with the power you might want to double check the connections to the switch/fuse block. One of the hot wires pulled right out of the crimp. I redid them all with new crimp lugs. I also cleaned up and tinned all the RAMPS power in and out wires. They had a lot of stray strands too close to each other.

 

I have a shroud that also includes a wire harness clamp and also an E3D 30mm fan housing that holds the LED module I mentioned above. If anyone is interested I can put them on Thingaverse. Caveat emptor - I'm no mechanical engineer and am still learning to use these tools. They take a bit of light filing to get them to fit. I really struggled with the duct and could not make one that encircled the extruder.

 

Oh - the E3D fan shroud is a mod of tonycstech's design.

 

This might be a stupid question. But where shall i put the red wires from the heater cartridge ? Does anybody have a picture? I assume the wires shall not be connected to 12v power supply.

 

And also, for the furnance cement, should i use it only to secure the hole where the thermistor goes in to, or should i use the cement so also seperate the two thin wires ?

 

Only to secure it in the hole. But make sure you call the manufacturer of whatever brand you are using. I picked up some muffler putty I thought would be perfect, but I called the manufacturer and they said it insulates against heat which is the exact opposite of what you want. The whole point of using fire cement is to make sure it gets an accurate temperature reading.

 

I used Mega Copper silicone gasket maker:
http://www.amazon.com/Versachem-88839-Temperature-Copper-Silicone/dp/B0002JN5JM

I suggest lightly sanding a square area on the surface around the thermistor hole. Use a toothpick to put a small glob in the hole, put the thermistor in and then build up a neat glob around it and the sanded area. If you don't sand it can pop off. I probably have an 8x8x5 mm glob of it. I could not find a thermal coefficient for the Mega
Copper but it seems to conduct heat fine. The temp readings seem to react very quickly.

On someone's suggestion I insulated the thermistor leads PTFE insulating sleeves from hotends.com. See my photo in the post above.
https://www.hotends.com/index.php?route=product/product&path=60_69&product_id=82
Otherwise you will need to insulate with Kapton tape like the E3D directions.

Don't try to electrically insulate the thermistor leads with cement or gasket maker. It won't work.

Please don't hook the heater cartridge leads up to 12V! That will drive it to it's hottest possible temperature and will burn it up . It should be attached to the resistor/heater leads that you cut off the old J head.

 

Thank you all for good answers! I ordered some furnance cement from rutland. As i live in Norway it's a bit difficult to call the manufacturer. But i assume that this will work since i took the idea from some youtube vidz made by Jerry (?)

The only thing that confuses me a little is where do i use the cement. It might sound stupid but i dont have any experence at all with 3d printers.

Are you adding the cement inn to the hole first and then push the thermister in ? Or do you first put the thermister in the hole and use the cement around the hole to make the thermisterf sit tight in the hole?

You then use kapton tape to separete the two thermistor leads and secure it against the alu block ?

I need it in with a fork. Because i don't have the time to fail.

 

If someone else has used fire cement and have a picture of the finished product i would have been very thankfull

 

There's a picture up there ^ that Steve posted, although I wouldn't have used as much but that's up to each person. You want to fill the hole with it as tightly as possible; get out any and all air pockets. Then push the thermistor in, against the wall of the heater block if possible. Then add a little bit more on top to make sure you get it stuck in there nice and tight.

 

Thanks. So i did as you said.

First i added some water to the cement because it was almost as dry as sand (not that dry) but hard. Then i filled the hole with cement, and pushed the thermistor in.

After pushing in the thermistor i took a q-tip and filled with cement to make it sit on the surface.

Picture:



Does this seem ok?

It says on the cement instructions that i have to heat it up to 500 degrees Fahrenheit for final cure. Is this step important?

 

Yes otherwise it will not cure correctly. You should put it in an oven

 

What about the kapton tape and the cables. I dont think they will survive 260 degres celsius (500 fahrenheit)

 

Lol sure they will. They can probably take closer to 400C

 

Okey thanks. I assume the kapton tape will handle the heat asswell. How long should it cure?

 

I think that much gasket cement is needed to get a large enough surface area for it to stick reliably. Also would not stick without sanding the area. That bit of a mess was also my attempt at adding strain relief to the thermistor leads. It seems to work in that respect.

 

Yeah sanding is definitely necessary, just like painting but even more so in this case. The only reason I wouldn't add so much is because it would bug me looking like that. On a part I would never see, on a purely mechanical machine. I don't know why but I have some irritating quirks. I can just see myself trying to get it shaped into perfect little cones for an hour or more haha. That's part of the reason I haven't gone beyond using kapton tape. I have a roll that is the exact height of the heater block so I was able to make it look super nice and neat. Pointless, but yeah.

 

SoLongSideKick,
What you don't know is that I did spent an hour forming a tiny perfect cone that subsequently popped off. Then I resorted to a bigger glob . Most of us here probably tend toward quirky OCD at times.