3D Printer Modifications
October 2018
A list of modifications I have designed and implemented. I'll end up adding to this page as I make more parts to add to it .
The E3d volcano hotend has it's heater block mounted horizontally which results in a larger melt zone than regular hotends.
Since I bought my ender 3 I wanted to install a volcano hotend on my cr-10. It would allow each machine I have to excel at different rolls. I could use my i3 mini for small prints at slower speeds and/or lower layer heights. I could use my ender 3 as a general jack-of-all-trades printer, and I could use my cr-10 for large prints at large layer heights and not have them take over 3 days to complete. I ordered a volcano clone from ebay and had a look on thingiverse for adaptors. I found this one which seemed like a good place to start. The main problem I had with it was the fans I had would not fit on these designs. In fusion this was the solution I came up with.
The ender 3 has quickly become my main workhorse printer however the stock hotend had it's limitations particularly not being able to print high temp materials. This upgrade involved mounting the e3d v6 hotend, and creating a cooling solution. I also took this opportunity to create a universal connector for hotends to be swapped in and out without having to snip and resolder anything.
I used the same starting point as I did for the cr-10 this time selecting the v6 version, but I had a similar issue with finding an appropriate cooling solution. In fusion I came up with this design. It shares the same screws that fix the bottom of the heatsink fan.
I was initially worried that the fans covers might end up colliding with the object it's printing but they ended up being surprisingly rigid. After printing with both these setups for over a year now they have served very well.