Is this a problem?

Hi everyone, In the first week of owning my printer, I had PLA leak upward and clog the hell out of everything. I was told this was because the hot end assembly wasn't tight.

I disassembled it to clean everything out and remove the clog. When I took it apart I saw deep gouges where the screws embedded into the metal. Now I'm new to this, so correct me if I'm wrong, but should this part be threaded like that? Or did someone install it incorrectly?

 

Mine looks the same way. I think it is just how they are installed. I've had it apart several times and it prints fine.
I also had an issue with extruder leaking. I made several attempts at fixing it - disassemble, clean, reassemble - and still had issues. Finally, I got everything cleaned up and reassembled and heated the extruder to normal temps with no filament. Once it was at normal temp (210 or so) I used the little wrench and a lot of caution and tightened the nut on the top of the heater block again. I found it was gaining some clearance with heat. Once I tightened it while hot, I've not had anymore leak issues.

 

That's perfectly normal. That's how the J-head is mounted in most greg's wade

 

Ok great, thanks! That's important to know.

 

the scars of battle

 

Another somewhat related question if I may. What is the name of the piece that is towards the palm of my hand in the first photo? The threaded part that has an spot for you to grip with the small wrench included with the printer. Is that piece removable? Mine spins freely when I turn it and I thought everything needed to be tight during reassembly.

 

Thanks Mark. Can the heat break be removed from the cold part? Mine rotates freely but shows no signs of being able to be removed. I don't know whether or not the spinning is normal and is causing leaking, or if it is a normal design function.

 

Alright. Hopefully someone with the hex will see this. I haven't been able to find a single piece of documentation about the hex head in all my searching. All the videos suggested to me were of the older versions, and the 1 that I had hope of helping me (listed in the Robo3D R1 FAQ, turned out to be made private

 

Can you take a picture of what you're confused by?

 

I have the wrench on there. Holding that piece in my hand I can rotate the wrench around and around with very little resistance. It never tightens or loosens anything.

 

Is there a set screw on the heatsink? i've seen the internal part of the hexagon come apart

http://s132.photobucket.com/user/dragonsbrew717/media/KIMG0454_zpsioxacnup.jpg.html

Without securing that in place the hexagon is useless

 

There is a set screw there. Regardless of whether I remove it or not, when I use the wrench, the heatbreak just spins and spins. It doesn't matter what direction I turn it, it keeps going. I can't get it to come out or to stop spinning. I've even tried pushing and pulling on it with the set screw in and with it out.

 

There is no way to secure the heatsink on the Hex. The screw at the top is for Bowden set ups. I had a beta Hex that worked great for months...and then developed a wobble at the heat sink. Back to the e3d...

 

Thanks for all the responses so far guys, you've been a great help. So are you saying that this will always rotate freely and won't be secured? If so, it also means that once the heat block is attached it can swivel in relation to the hex part. I'm really just trying to find out if this is how it is supposed to be or not. I keep reassembling the thing, and it keeps leaking everywhere. (Although the prints look great up until the plastic blobs start landing) I'd like to know if I'm doing something wrong or dealing with a defective part.

 

It is designed to be a press fit, so no malfunction. Unfortunately, once it turns freely, it can negatively affect prints. In theory, it can't go really wrong, but in practice, if they leak at this joint, there isn't anything you can do to fix it. It's too bad because it worked really well for me until this problem became an issue.

 

Newer models have a set screw on the side of the heatsink to hold their heat break in place. Either that or robo3d is drilling and tapping them.

Can't seem to find the picture at the moment.

The heatbreak being a little loose shouldn't have an effect on print quality.

 

I hadn't seen that. It's a very good idea!

 

Mike you are exactly right! It took me a while to figure out, but there was a place for a set screw that I overlooked. The problem is that there was no set screw in there. I looked everywhere inside all the parts that came with my printer to try and find something the size of a pin head. Believe it or not, I found this.



The teeny tiny allen wrench, had a set screw stuck to the end of it. Whoever installed it in the factory uninstalled it when they pulled the allen wrench out and it stayed stuck to it this entire time. Once I realized that I was able to put the screw in, and it solved the problem.




Now there is a set screw where it belongs, and the heat break doesn't spin wildly anymore!

Thanks for the help. I'd consider this one solved! We really need a reference for the parts and assembly of this hot end. I might start working on one.