Una Reborn

I’ve found another use for a 3D printer. You can use it to print spare parts for your other printer which is broken. I used Edna the Ender to print out the replacement fan ducts and also the rather fancy Bowden tube holder you can see above for Una who broke recently. I’ve re-assembled the print head (again) and this time I’m much more confident that Una will be back to her old self. The main reason for my confidence is that I think I’ve solved a problem that I’ve had for ages.

If you look at the picture above you’ll see that the print head (the brass part you can just see above the orange material that I’m printing) is tightened right up against the heater block (the shiny aluminium part). Previously, for reasons that must have made sense at the time, I’ve had the nozzle hanging down from the heater, which has meant that the heat from the heater block has only a small area to travel down to the nozzle. I think the result of this has been that the nozzle has been quite a bit cooler than the heater block, to the point where I’ve had to increase the print temperature just to get molten filament through it. With this new arrangement I’m printing successfully more than 10 degrees cooler than before. And it works a treat. Una is now producing stuff that is really good, very close to the quality of Edna.

So, if you are building a printer, make sure that the nozzle is as tight up to the heater as you can get it. That way it will spread the heat around properly.