E3D Extruder Upgrade for gMax

#1
The E3D Hotend provides a phenomenal performance upgrade over any other option available in the market. It is extremely reliable, can print with a wide range of materials including rubber, and frankly, is one less thing to worry about in the ever-turbulent world of 3D Printing.



E3D certainly makes a great extruder, but it’s not the easiest thing to assemble. If the smell of burning fiberglass tubing, crimping tiny wires, or the idea of tightening a bolt at 280°C doesn't appeal to you, read on.

I’m selling a fully built custom extruder designed around the E3Dv6. This includes a carriage for swapping out the one on the gMax, and 1 or 2 modular E3D toolheads, fully assembled with motor, screws, and wiring.



The stock gMax head does support E3Ds, but only to a small extent. The E3D doesn’t seat fully in the grooves and ends up at angle. There isn’t enough room for the cooling fan and shroud anymore, leading people to come up with unique but unattractive cooling solutions.





Each head is $150, this is based off the fact that people are at least $300 in the hole when buying parts to do a dual e3d upgrade themselves. Buying screws and springs in bulk as well as tacking on individual shipping charges from at least 6 different suppliers really drives costs up.
The carriage with wheels is $30.
So a single E3D upgrade is $180 and for a dual I'm making it an even $300. That includes my printer time and materials, my assembly labor, a great modular design with lots of expansion potential, and a lot of attention to small details you don't allow yourself to notice when the goal is to "just make it work."

Bring Your Own E3D is welcomed as well for a $80 deduction per head. Please keep in mind that the E3D must be assembled a certain way for everything to integrate perfectly with this design. I'll provide those details, and it's pretty straightforward, but I've managed to assemble an E3D incorrectly and break a thermistor when I was starting out so be careful. I'll help as best I can.

Each toolhead has its own cooling fan blowing directly at the tip of the nozzle, providing airflow directly exactly where it needs to be to ensure the best print quality.





Note the white tubing going all the way up to the drive gear. This allows printing with flexible materials like rubber right out of the box, not something the stock gMax was ever able to do. The E3D has its own "always on" fan for cooling the fins, this is how it mitigates jamming when printing with PLA, and allows working with higher temperature materials.



This fan can be automatically switched off after a print, once the nozzle has cooled down, making the printer completely silent during standby. The control board doesn't have enough switched pins to trigger this fan, but I'm working on an expansion circuit board that will allow the RAMPS board to control this fan as well as illumination LEDs for each extruder in the future.
I'm also working on a "Stepper TopHat" that will replace the, albeit neat, wire bundle coming from each toolhead with 2 between cables, making things even nicer.



The carriage has 2 modular slots on the back, allowing for dual extruders to be used side by side. The 3 point alignment system makes sure that the toolhead always mounts in the same vertical plane, and the easy to access set screw locks it in firmly in only one possible position. I've taken heads on and off repeatedly and just hit print, never having to re-level my bed or adjust my Z-axis offset.

The modularity allows for future upgrades such as paste extrusion via syringes and pumps or an auto-leveling servo in the front slot for removing the burden of leveling the bed once and for all.


I’ll provide a custom firmware update for the gMax so that it can reach the higher temperatures right away, and I’ll include a pre-built fan expansion PCB from a 3rd party manufacturer so that everyone can enjoy silent standby until I manufacture my own expansion boards.

I’ve been working with and designing my own 3D Printers for a year now, and want to share with you all the phenomenal performance of this E3D head so that you can experience it on your gMax.

Several people are already interested, and I need to consolidate the orders, preferably this week, so that I can take advantage of bulk pricing with E3D and my other suppliers. I’ll be placing bulk orders for all the parts with long lead times in the following week, and expect to ship final units to anywhere in the USA by the end of January.

Please respond ASAP to be included in this production run.



Happy Holidays!
 
#2
Ray, being as I was privy to and earlier sneek-peek on the early work done on this, I am definately onboard :D :D ! In fact, you should already have funds sitting in your paypal account (or very shortly anyways...) :oops: .

I'm really impressed with both the modularity and simplicity of this design and have been wanting to get E3D's on my gMax for the longest time now (think I have been saying that for months at this point!). Since I knew this was coming, I held out for the good stuff.

This is going to be a great Christmas present for myself and I hope the others jump on this run as well.

- Chris



raykholo said:
The E3D Hotend provides a phenomenal performance upgrade over any other option available in the market. It is extremely reliable, can print with a wide range of materials including rubber, and frankly, is one less thing to worry about in the ever-turbulent world of 3D Printing.



E3D certainly makes a great extruder, but it’s not the easiest thing to assemble. If the smell of burning fiberglass tubing, crimping tiny wires, or the idea of tightening a bolt at 280°C doesn't appeal to you, read on.

I’m selling a fully built custom extruder designed around the E3Dv6. This includes a carriage for swapping out the one on the gMax, and 1 or 2 modular E3D toolheads, fully assembled with motor, screws, and wiring.



The stock gMax head does support E3Ds, but only to a small extent. The E3D doesn’t seat fully in the grooves and ends up at angle. There isn’t enough room for the cooling fan and shroud anymore, leading people to come up with unique but unattractive cooling solutions.





Each head is $150, this is based off the fact that people are at least $300 in the hole when buying parts to do a dual e3d upgrade themselves. Buying screws and springs in bulk,
The carriage with wheels is $30.
So a single E3D upgrade is $180 and for a dual I'm making it an even $300. That includes my printer time and materials, my assembly labor, a great modular design with lots of expansion potential, and a lot of attention to small details you don't allow yourself to notice when the goal is to "just make it work."

Bring Your Own E3D is welcomed as well for a $80 deduction per head. Please keep in mind that the E3D must be assembled a certain way for everything to integrate perfectly with this design. I'll provide those details, and it's pretty straightforward, but I've managed to assemble an E3D incorrectly and break a thermistor when I was starting out so be careful. I'll help as best I can.

Each toolhead has its own cooling fan blowing directly at the tip of the nozzle, providing airflow directly exactly where it needs to be to ensure the best print quality.





Note the white tubing going all the way up to the drive gear. This allows printing with flexible materials like rubber right out of the box, not something the stock gMax was ever able to do. The E3D has its own "always on" fan for cooling the fins, this is how it mitigates jamming when printing with PLA, and allows working with higher temperature materials.



This fan can be automatically switched off after a print, once the nozzle has cooled down, making the printer completely silent during standby. The control board doesn't have enough switched pins to trigger this fan, but I'm working on an expansion circuit board that will allow the RAMPS board to control this fan as well as illumination LEDs for each extruder in the future.
I'm also working on a "Stepper TopHat" that will replace the, albeit neat, wire bundle coming from each toolhead with 2 between cables, making things even nicer.



The carriage has 2 modular slots on the back, allowing for dual extruders to be used side by side. The 3 point alignment system makes sure that the toolhead always mounts in the same vertical plane, and the easy to access set screw locks it in firmly in only one possible position. I've taken heads on and off repeatedly and just hit print, never having to re-level my bed or adjust my Z-axis offset.

The modularity allows for future upgrades such as paste extrusion via syringes and pumps or an auto-leveling servo in the front slot for removing the burden of leveling the bed once and for all.


I’ll provide a custom firmware update for the gMax so that it can reach the higher temperatures right away, and I’ll include a pre-built fan expansion PCB from a 3rd party manufacturer so that everyone can enjoy silent standby until I manufacture my own expansion boards.

I’ve been working with and designing my own 3D Printers for a year now, and want to share with you all the phenomenal performance of this E3D head so that you can experience it on your gMax.

Several people are already interested, and I need to consolidate the orders, preferably this week, so that I can take advantage of bulk pricing with E3D and my other suppliers. I’ll be placing bulk orders for all the parts with long lead times in the following week, and expect to ship final units to anywhere in the USA by the end of January.

Please respond ASAP to be included in this production run.



Happy Holidays!
 
#4
Sure! There's definitely room for you in production batch 2. E3D is currently out of stock of the v6 hotend so there's a lead time of a few weeks while they resupply.

PM me for more details. Glad to have you onboard!
 
#5
Hi Ray,

I am due to receive my new gMax within a week or so and I would like to purchase your E3D Exruder upgrade. I would like the dual extruder version. How do I go about getting in on the current run? I can't PM you - the system says I am "too new" and need to participate more. - Please advise.

Can you also elaborate on the future syringe/paste possibilities you mentioned? I can see a lot of uses for that with my CNC mill and reflow oven. :D

Thanks,

Larry
 
#6
Hi Larry,
I PM'ed you my personal email address. You can also use the email address at the bottom of my website to reach me (link in signature).

Paste extrusion: This is what Cohesion3D is all about - printing electronic inside of plastic, but we're also the best filament printer I've used in my life (seriously). I'm working on a "long distance" paste extruder for resins but also yogurt, icing, and silicone, to name a few... Check out the Discov3ry paste extruder, it's fairly similar to the module I've been making since before they launched. Link

I also have a "direct" paste extruder. Unlike the remote module, this is a self contained unit for much more expensive pastes that come in smaller quantities, like the conductive ink for Cohesion.

Thinking about something clever for PCB work? I'd love to hear about it.

Looking forward to hearing back from you.