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I'm assembling a J Head for my machine, and I'm trying to figure out whether or not to take the $5 plunge for a heater cartridge it's not the money as much as the thought of paying for shipping for one more thing and waiting a few more days to do it.

Is the heater cart a different type of component, or is it just the same kind of resistor in a tube with radial leads?

I like the wire management advantage of having attached leads, but I'm good at dressing wires and don't think I'll do it if that's really the only difference.

What do you think? Coming soon... the threaded thermistor discussion.

I have a j-head with a resistor and an e3d with the cartridge. Both work great and the cartridge seems to heat the head a bit faster, but I haven't timed them.

From a wire mgmt POV, I think I prefer the resistor because I like having the wires go out from the block and then turn up 90 degrees so they can join up neatly with the other wires (thermistor, LEDs, peek fan, part fans). With all their sheathing and shielding, the fancy cartridge wires don't make that 90 degree turn as well so it seems kind of scrunched up.

If I had to complain about anything else, it would be that the cartridge sticks out of both ends of the block. I wrapped all my heater blocks with the ceramic tape secured with kapton tape. None of them look good, but with the cartridge sticking out, my wrap job on the e3d is extra sloppy.

What I did like about the cartridge is ease of install. No fussing with rtv, just a setscrew.

Good points, all. Really my only hesitation with the stock resistor (unless somebody brings up a good point that hasn't been mentioned) is that there's just no good way to make it disconnectable.

Disconnectable for when it fails & you need to replace it? That happened to me with my stock hot end and I replaced both resistors. They weren't too hard to dig out, but I hadn't used ton of rtv.

For disconnecting my whole hot end/effector contraption, I use a 4 pin molex connector for the hot end & thermistor wires & a 6 pin deans mini for the peek fan, part fans & LEDs. My e3d hot end/effector setup is [was but will be again] wired the same way, so I can switch back & forth as desired. I'm basically copying what Broose setup a few months ago.

Jimustanguitar wrote:Good points, all. Really my only hesitation with the stock resistor (unless somebody brings up a good point that hasn't been mentioned) is that there's just no good way to make it disconnectable.

I'm confused, is the resistor is difficult to remove? I had to remove a heater cartridge that started working sub-par, and the way it expanded inside the block made it miserable to remove. I had to drill it out and even then the casing was stuck inside the block, which resisted my efforts to remove it until I attacked it with a tungsten carbide bit.

I'm not concerned about removing the resistor itself, it's the wiring that I want to make sure I can disconnect easily. I've taken the hot-end off of its mount 3 or 4 times to add fans and lights and to install the CF Trick laser arms, and it's just been a pain to either uncrimp the connections each time or to cut all the zip ties along my bowden tube to completely remove the assembly. (I'm also OCD about wiring things, and will disconnect and reconnect things that don't need it, just to re-route wires and make everything clean and neat).

I guess I want to build in the ability to remove the hot-end from the mount plate without having to undo lots of other things. This would also lend itself to swapping out hot-ends on the fly.

Jimustanguitar wrote:I'm not concerned about removing the resistor itself, it's the wiring that I want to make sure I can disconnect easily. I've taken the hot-end off of its mount 3 or 4 times to add fans and lights and to install the CF Trick laser arms, and it's just been a pain to either uncrimp the connections each time or to cut all the zip ties along my bowden tube to completely remove the assembly. (I'm also OCD about wiring things, and will disconnect and reconnect things that don't need it, just to re-route wires and make everything clean and neat).

I guess I want to build in the ability to remove the hot-end from the mount plate without having to undo lots of other things. This would also lend itself to swapping out hot-ends on the fly.

Magnetic arms and effectors, each with a different hot-end configuration AND the self leveling kit; you know the kit they talk about - I think its called the unobtainium kit.

If you made the electrical connection through the spherical ball for the magnetic arm... 2 for the heater, 2 for the thermistor, 2 for a fan (maybe use a common ground and have more accessories...) You could make the electrical connections "auto magnetic"...

That's just crazy talk!

Jimustanguitar wrote:If you made the electrical connection through the spherical ball for the magnetic arm... 2 for the heater, 2 for the thermistor, 2 for a fan (maybe use a common ground and have more accessories... You could make the electrical connections "auto magnetic"...

That's just crazy talk!

I think you may have hit on something... think of the possibilities!
Aluminum arms with aluminum cups, I betcha it would work.

Eaglezsoar wrote:

Jimustanguitar wrote:If you made the electrical connection through the spherical ball for the magnetic arm... 2 for the heater, 2 for the thermistor, 2 for a fan (maybe use a common ground and have more accessories... You could make the electrical connections "auto magnetic"...

That's just crazy talk!

I think you may have hit on something... think of the possibilities!
Aluminum arms with aluminum cups, I betcha it would work.

Do the magnets touch the balls at all? I'm just thinking making the aluminum cups would be too hard for the average diy'er. If they touch, you could run wires to the magnets, the chrome coating will conduct from there.

From what I understood the magnets and ball are not supposed to touch, although the closer they are without touching the better..

I believe that's correct... The magnet itself isn't a bearing surface, it's just close enough to keep it all stuck together.

For an electrical connection to go through the arm, it would have to be a metallic arm or a metallic collar or something like that at the end...

The wheels are turning, this could happen.

Jimustanguitar wrote:I believe that's correct... The magnet itself isn't a bearing surface, it's just close enough to keep it all stuck together.

For an electrical connection to go through the arm, it would have to be a metallic arm or a metallic collar or something like that at the end...

The wheels are turning, this could happen.

Just don't forget to color code your arms. Would suck to hook it up 90deg off and try to run your cooling fans off the heater rail!