E3D Volcano Discussion

OK, I installed this today. First, let me say that all of the parts are well done. I like the kit.

As for installing it. That was a pain in the derriere. I will add some pictures in a few, but getting the old heat block off, heater core and thermistor requires unwrapping the loom. Did I mention I hate that loom? Yea. Then getting the new thermistor attached is a pain since the wires are not the same length (just more of a hassle than a pain). The way the heater core has to go into the new heat block and the way that new heat block has to mount on the hotend leaves precious little room for the (heater core) wires to clear.

Got to this point and heated it up just to make sure the heater core and thermistor were working. Then re-do the wire loom and re-level.

I took this time to shim the pedestal for the bed. The new bed upgrade was nice, but not inherently level itself. I had added some shims to the plate, but since it was apart I went ahead and shimmed the base/mounts to get the bed level.

Still reassembling and testing, but I'll post some photos later. I will say this about how it gets up to temperature : hasta muy pronto.

Very nice. I went with the 0.8 nozzle for starters, may go up.

So in summary, it is a really sweet upgrade that is a largely undocumented mess. It is not difficult to sort out what needs to happen to make it work, but you have to figure it out

 

@mark tomlinson does indeed have the stud thermistor. Probably didn't make his build any faster this time though. We had what I'll call some shipping problems getting it to him. Waiting to see if he comes up with a witty reply...

 

Too soon to the work to laugh too much. How about this?

I was struggling with the fine-tuning on the prints and while it was printing fine, it was not... right.
Kept tweaking temperatures, extrusion %, etc... Then I realized I was still slicing with a 0.4 nozzle set in that profile.



Just so you know... There is no 0.4 in the volcano kit. It does not go down that small.

(and I didn't install the smallest one it did have--0.6--nope)

Reset the nozzle to 0.8 and it is looking at *lot* better

I had to drop the temperature to 190 and was able to keep the extrusion % at 100. It was wanting to get stringy still at higher temps, but this could just be a thermistor variance since I used to use 195 for the PLA with the original E3D heater block and thermistor.

What I really need to do is to start cranking up the print speeds. That was really the point with this kit I think.

As far as the stud thermistor, it is in there (I grumbled at getting it wired in, but I didn't use the fancy connector so blame me for that).
Reloaded the firmware with the correct thermistor setting (@Printed Solid had indicated this used the same thermistor type as stock so I had to tweak that setting).

P.S. I blame the shipping problem on poorly disciplined house elves. Or UFO's... one of the two.

 

Here is a set of three test objects printed from left to right (order of tweakage).
I am happy that we are close to being back to where we started and I will start playing with the print speeds as time permits. Still could stand to go down in print temp a slight amount and likely up in print speed

 

That would make sense. The volcano doubles the melt zone with the intent that you're running at faster speed. If you're not running at faster speeds, you can probably decrease the temp quite a bit. I wouldn't be surprised if you end up even lower, like 175.

 

Faster... want faster
I will do some more tests with various speed settings to get an idea of what else changes.
Overall I am very happy with this (but Oy! it was a pain).

 

You are totally correct. It even makes sense given how huge the melt zone is on that thing.

 

HI @DennyJ I've got stock on all of those things. That would be an interesting upgrade. The longer melt zone on the volcano might make dual more challenging. @Mike Kelly what do you think?

 

Roger that. The volcano needs care to prevent ooze on it anyway. The volume of the hotend melted material is like a buffer of goo.

 

The volcano may or may not add value initially (and you have to already have the E3D hotend). It does allow you to print faster (speed) with a higher flow rate (and a more consistent one). Assuming you have the E3D on there and are doing the conversion for her, it is a worthwhile endeavor.

 

I don't have the more extreme layering definition that they show in the video, the layers are a little more obvious, but not to that extent.
I just may not have pushed the speed as much...yet.