A simple hack to adapt a 1.75mm filament Mk8 extruder to handle 3mm filamented is presented.
This tasks is the first of 4 main adjustments to commeria extrusion kits will be made in order to achieve a thicker extrusion:
For layer by layer and wireprinting:
- Adjusting the Mk8 1.75mm Extrusion kit to handle 3mm filament by reassemble.
Then for wireprint:
- Adjusting the nozzle, the heat block and extrusion barrel to avoid self intersections when wireprinting.
- Adding a cooling system.
- Preparing a multi-material nozzle by either:
- Tooling a new aluminum nozzle with multiple heatblocks and barrels.
- Assembling several extruding systems together.
The first step in adjusting for a thicker extrusion is to disassemble the spring, feeding works adequately if the spring is simply kept in place by adding the top and bottom screw without tension.
Next step is to prepare the barrel for handling 3mm by removing PTFE Tube and drilling the end point.
Although 0.4 mm works fine with layer by layer deposition, the nozzle drill was particularly succesful with thicker diameters reducing clogging and reaching the thicker filament deposition required for the larger scale 3d printing.
For experimenting with temperature control the thermal block has also been drilled to attach a thermocouple together with the thermistor.
The thermocouple sends signals to an external PID unit to keep temperature control while the thermistor sends signals to the arduino to keep track of the temperature and communicate with the rest of the components.
Final hacked Mk8 1.75mm to 3mm filament