Assembly guide

I thought I'd do a quick post on how to assemble the hot end for those who are trying it out. Its quite straight forward but nonetheless a guide will always help.

Additional items needed:
Kapton Tape
Bootlace ferrules
Heat shrink
2x M4 nuts
Extruder

Firstly to mount this hot end to an extruder with the supplied mounts, you'll need an extruder with the mendel parts v6 mount. This mount has 3cm spaced holes around the extruder hole. I also recommend having an extruder insert hole that is 1/2 inch diameter so that the peek insulator fits snug in the extruder.

To the right you can see the type of mounting you'll need. This is a Greg's wade V3, I have the SCAD and STL files available for this extruder if you need them.

Ok now to assembly...

 So first thing you need to do is place the PTFE tube all the way into the Peek. Then cut the tube with 2mm sticking out of the Peek (as shown). Start with more length to be on the safe side and shave your way to the right size by trial fitting the nozzle on. The final length of the tube will be about 40mm. You can make the ends chamfered if you like for best fit, but I don't think it is necessary.


Next, place the fender washer on the shoulder of the Peek insulator and screw in the nozzle.

At this stage it may be best to install the resistor and thermistor. I recommend wrapping the leads of the thermistor in Kapton tape so that they don't short on the hot end.

The resistor will have a slightly loose fit in the resistor hole. I have made it this way as the tolerances on these resistors is not uniform and their shapes vary wildly. I suggest wrapping the resistor in kaptop tape (300deg rated if you can get it) as well. This prevents the paint peeling off the resistor and shorting out on the hot end and also allows a snug fit in the hole. I have made the hot end narrow to avoid shorting issues with the axial leads of the resistor.

To attached your wires to the resistor and thermistor I recommend crimping the leads of the thermistor and resistor with Bootlace ferrules. These are common crimps which are like a metal tube on one end and a plastic shield on the other. Remove the plastic shield and just use the tube to crimp. Cover any exposed wires with Heat shrink.

Finally, mount the hot end to the extruder. Of course it won't look like the picture to the right, as (hopefully) you should have the extruder mounted to the x-carriage. Much of the mounting process will be done upside down with the Z axis raised, and the hot end pointing downwards.

When in operation I do recommend having  airflow over the washer and mounting screws to avoid potential issues with warping the extruder mounts or even with the extruder coming loose and shifting layers in your print!

Please let me know if I have missed anything!