E3D on Vertex K8400 (Rev 2) by Bo_Ris

Last crawled date: 3 years, 1 month ago

This is the second revision of my E3D dual print-head mount for Vertex K8400 published here. The old design had the following issues:
the lower ends of left and right holders were too close to the heat-blocks and could melt
as the result of printing process imperfections there were several gaps in between things causing ducts to leak air
air duct openings were not aligned with the nozzles
there was insufficient airflow/cooling towards bearings located under the print-head
the wires coming from heaters and thermistors were hanging around X rod and it was not easy to fish them into the long channels of the main thing
the fan was fixed in the position with sliding-in piece rather than screws
air was hitting heat-blocks not allowing them to reach temperatures above 223 degrees
while LEDs looked as a cool feature, they were not very practical due to ever-changing amount of light that hits Raspberry Pi camera. Having stationary LED strips along the edges of the printer is a better option.
overall appearance/design had issues (at least in my opinion)
New design addresses everything from the above list. In addition, it allows to gain few additional millimeters of printing space along X and Y axis (details below). 15 Ohm resistor used in the 1st design now allows to reach temperatures up to 240 degrees. Replacing it with 33 Ohm 1Watt resistor will reduce airflow and the noise produced by the fan and will allow to heat up-to 270 degrees, which is the maximum nozzle operating temperature.
Required parts
One or two E3D v6 HotEnd Full Kit - 1.75mm Universal (with Bowden add-on) (12v). You can purchase them from here. Buy the original; Chinese replica will not fit into this design.
Heater cartridge(s) - one per print head. You MUST reuse the original ones from K8400. Do not install the cartridges that came with E3D as they are for 12V, while the printer supplies 15V DC.
One 33 Ohm 1W resistor
One 40mm x 40mm x 20mm 12V high speed fan
Four M4 x 16mm hex socket cup screws
Four countersunk screws M3 x 50mm. They are part of the original hot-end mount and can be re-used (I used M3 x 50mm hex socket cup screws)
Four M3 x 30mm hex socket cup screws
Four M3 x 16mm hex socket cup screws
Two M3 x 12mm hex socket cup screws
One M3 x 12mm screw
Four self-locking M3 nuts
IMPORTANT: This design fits the GENUINE E3D hot-end http://e3d-online.com/E3D-v6/Full-Kit/v6-1.75mm-Universal-Bowden It cannot be used with Chinese replicas that are bigger in size.
Update 16-Dec-2017 Uploaded STEP file with all parts for those who wants to modify this design to fit other hotends. If you do such modification please share it with others via Remix It section.
Update 26-Oct-2018 Uploaded top cover for thinner 40x40x10 fan. If you use such fan, I'd recommend to have a separate fan as posted here https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3044377