Need some advice on my failed build

[leebrimelow]

Hi everyone,

I have thoroughly enjoyed the build process for the v2 but unfortunately there are a few issues that I need to fix. Any advice on the following issues would be greatly appreciated:

The Hot End
I have only basic experience with soldering and electronics. The process of building the hotend was very difficult for me for a couple of reasons. First the thermistor leads are so tiny that trying the solder them to 18g wire led to it being pulled out of the hotend. I'm very interested in buying an assembled replacement hotend so I don't have to fiddle with it. The E3D v6 looks cool but would I need a custom mount for it? Anyone on here sell them?

Crimp Nightmares
The hardest part of the project for me was crimping those tiny pins onto the various wires. The insulation on the wires seemed too big for the pins. Is there any alternatives to this? Can I buy the connectors with lengths of wire already coming out of them which I can just solder to the Delta wires? I'm willing to pay for a solution to this.

Rebuild
I did a bunch of sketchy wire connections to make up for my crappy crimping skills and when I plugged it in the LCD did light up but I didn't see the rows of black bars mentioned in the manual. I have decided to break it down and do a partial rebuild. One idea I had was to run all the wires from the top inside a mesh loom on the outside of the machine rather than running them inside of the aluminum extrusions. That was such a PITA and I'd rather avoid that. See any problems with that idea?

Any idea when there will be an updated build manual that covers the rev5 heat bed?

Sorry for all the questions and thanks in advance for your responses,
Lee

PS - if anyone on here lives in the SF Bay Area I'd be willing to pay for help finishing

[leebrimelow]

One other question...

On the power supply can I snip off all the wires coming out of it that I'm not using? They take up so much space.

Thanks,
Lee

[geneb]

The manual was updated for the Rev5 board over a week ago, so you should be good there.

The insulation on the wires isn't too large. The link I give to Hansen Hobbies (where to buy the crimp pins, connectors and crimp tool) in the manual has an excellent tutorial on how to crimp those connectors - BUT you'll need a real crimping tool unless you're very good with a pair of needle nosed pliers.

g.

[Eaglezsoar]

One other question...

On the power supply can I snip off all the wires coming out of it that I'm not using? They take up so much space.

Thanks,
Lee

If you are absolutely certain that your printer is working fine and you are absolutely certain that the wires you want to cut are not needed they yes you can cut off the unneeded wires but get some liquid tape
and brush it on the ends of the cut wires so that there is no chance of the cut wires shorting on something. If you are not absolutely certain of the above it is better to gather the unused wires into a bundle
and put some wire ties on the bundle.

[Polygonhell]

Be very careful cutting the wires on the 25 pin connector, some of them (usually the 3.3V sense pin) are usually deliberately shorted at the connector and they need to stay that way.

[Tinyhead]

Be very careful cutting the wires on the 25 pin connector, some of them (usually the 3.3V sense pin) are usually deliberately shorted at the connector and they need to stay that way.

Whoops. Machine has been working fine for months, but i'll keep this in mind in case things start to go a bit buggy on me.