E3D Upgrade / Firmware Changes

Ah, just an update about my E3D V5 upgrade:

I'm done, and finally made it work. The things I had trouble with, so far:

• Assembly of the E3D V5, especially preparing the thermistor, and fitting into the hole, and then securing it. Oh my, Kapton tape is such a mess to deal with! Hard to bend cleanly, hard to make stick, always in the way... It's a miracle that I've been able to connect and isolate my thermistor without breaking off any leg.
• Exact position for mounting the new hotend. I didn't really find any good advice on this. What I did is downloading and printing this fan mount (the one from tesseract seems to be much more popular, but the STL is not manifold, and required fixing... Also, the print is much bigger, and the assembly seems to require extra screws). I ended up mounting the E3D print head so that the fan (that comes with the E3D) faces forward (so it's under the "do not touch" label, while the PLA cooling fan (now mounted on the new mount) is still at the back. The cables (thermistor, heater cartridge) come out on the left side (from the viewer's POV, when facing the printer). Please anyone advise if that is "wrong", and if the E3D fan should be facing sideways or backwards instead.
• Wiring. Nobody prepared me to the harsh truth that the new hotend needs to be electrically connected somehow to the printer! I was worried all along about how to stuff the heat cartridge and thermistor wires into the cable hose (not to mention that they're way too short). Took me a while to realize that there's a 4-pin Molex connector close to the print head, and that all I need to do is crimp the 4 wires of the new E3D head to a female Molex connector (which I wasn't able to find over here, so I did some tinkering). Only the fan cables needed to be stuffed into the cable hose, and connected to the same two pins on the RAMPS board (I soldered a separate harness for that) like the RAMPS cooling fan (so it is always on).
• Reliability. Since the wires of the heat cartridge need to be bent in a sharp angle to make them go upward, I fear I might have torn/broken the wires off while bending them. Many times, the head doesn't heat at all. It needs some shaking and pushing to make it heat up. Not sure what I did wrong here - the instructions on the E3D site are not very complete, it should have mentioned how fragile the heat cartidge cables are towards sharp bending. Anyway, it's working now... And it's only temporary, anyway: I already ordered the E3D V6, so I consider this whole V5 episode a learning experience.

Anyway, as I type, I am printing the 5mm calibration cubes/steps with Taulman Bridge at 245°C, and it's going pretty well so far. (An earlier PLA print with the new head came out pretty well, too, at first try).

 

Thanks! But it seems to be working for now. Looking forward to the V6 delivery now.

 

You want to have your e3d cooling fan pointing sideways otherwise it's blowing hot air towards your print cooling fan at the back.

 

I see... Thanks for the hint, makes sense. I'll rotate it then.

 

Just received my V6! And of course, new questions and doubts. See here.

 

I'm looking to upgrade to the E3D V6... (already purchased and on its way) but I have been reading a lot of horror stories about the upgrade, mainly the upgrade to v3 of the ROBO 3D firmware. What is the best method to perform the upgrade and what changes will need to be made to it in order to make the ROBO function properly again? Any info would be greatly appreciated.

 

I don't think you're understanding the situation. Just use the 6-10 firmware and change the max temp to a value greater than 240

https://www.dropbox.com/s/hd6djpsdaaqiumw/Auto_Level_6_10.zip

 

So can i use this firmware on the Beta version of the Robo3d?

 

No. Beta printers have the switch logic look for an open circuit to detect the endstop is triggered on the Z.

R1's turn the Z_endstop_inversion to True.

If you have a beta printer (Your Z homes by a screw hitting a switch) then you should use a serial switch mount: https://www.dropbox.com/s/04hedq3az25p92t/Auto_Level_Series_6_10.zip?dl=0

I also have this one modified for use with an E3D: https://www.dropbox.com/s/eqe5izgqc8fjon9/Auto_Level_Series_6_10_E3D.zip?dl=0