Ultra-compact ultra-light hotend for Anycubic Kossel

Last crawled date: 4 years, 2 months ago

Edit 2020/01/20: I just came across Thomas Sanladerer's video review of a hotend very similar to the one I cobbled together for this, so I guess I'm on the right track. :)
The one in his video looks like it has significantly different dimensions, but the same basic design. It's from a company called Deltaprintr. I like what I put together better as it uses standard threads for the nozzle, and has a variety of nozzles available.
TL;DR: This knocked 51g off the effector. I was able to print 400mm/s with fairly nice results (very minimal ringing) using TMC2130 drivers (plus my other modifications) with this hotend using Klipper firmware. The limit turned out to be the TMC2130 drivers, as I ran into problems when I raised the current past 0.9A (the chip has a design-limit of 0.96A). I've since switched to TMC2208 drivers so I can raise the current further, but I've not yet run any more speed runs. I may upload a video later.
I wanted to try a combination of parts I had in my Anycubic Kossel Linear Plus, but it doesn't look like anyone else has put this combination together, so I made my own mount for it.
This uses the following parts:
Heatsink & heatbreak from Trianglelab.
It doesn't have a name, sadly, as I'd like to be able to refer to it by name. It's the external dimensions of the heatsink used in the Ender 3, but with fewer/thicker fins and a heatbreak closer to that of a MicroSwiss.https://www.aliexpress.com/item/4000083295807.html
Heatblock, heater, & nozzle from Trianglelab.
This also needs a name. It's miniscule and not much more than a piece of threaded aluminum tube with a cylindrical heater wrapped around it. If it's currently listed as "unavailable", check back. I asked them about this and they said they were improving the design and would be bringing it back soon.https://www.aliexpress.com/item/32697889176.html
3010 fan driven at 80% to reduce noise.
Various hardware, including 2x M3 nuts (pressed in the part cooler side), some longer M2.5 screws to mount the fan duct, and the rest (I think) were stock. I may have used screws 1-2mm shorter for the part cooler blower, but I'm not sure (I've been running this for a couple weeks now, haven't had to modify anything).
Note that this combination does lower the nozzle by a few millimeters, this is intentional (see below). Spacers are provided for moving your favorite part cooler duct down by 2.5mm or 3mm.