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So I stayed up till 1am last night waiting for a print to finish (the fan shroud for my brand new E3D V5 extruder - YAY!) and so I was just watching a show and not watching the printer. Well... it evidently got to about 75% and the PTC fitting at the EZStruder decided to let go. When I later looked at the bowden tube, it looks like there was a defect in the connector as there was only 3 little points where the metal was holding it (the metal piece also fell out of the fitting). It wasn't a complete ring holding onto the tube. I guess I'd just been lucky up to this point. I thought maybe the hot end jammed, but I pushed on the filament by hand and it pushed easy as pie.

I took a picture of the tube having come detached and then the filament just looping in the air beside the EZStruder, but for some reason it turned out like I was taking a picture of bigfoot. Super blurry.
The hot end came with a fan shroud, but I wanted to print my own to keep the 'black' look. I wish the picture could do it justice; this was the smoothest print I had made to date. It was also my first attempt ever at ABS. I thought PLA was the bees knees having never used ABS... I now see it can make some awesome prints. I had a pretty decent issue with stringing with PLA, but there's not ONE tiny hair or bump on this ABS print.
Right now I'm just letting some glue dry on the PTC fitting. I ordered a bag of 10 of these fittings. They are almost impossible to find in Canada, but I managed to find a bag of 10 on Amazon.ca for $7... shipping included. Only problem is waiting a month for them to come in from China.

Well. I got about 15 minutes into trying that print again with my fancy-dancy patch up job... but alas... it too failed.
Maybe I am experiencing jamming.

Glue didn't stick to either the tubing or the plastic in the fitting. Kapton broke and it snapped the ABS filament.

try some heat shrink tubing, then tape te heatshrink and the existing tube to help it from sliding, until you get a replacement fitting. Some hardware stores may carry it.

I had the exact same thing happen with my stock PTC - except it was a bigger print and it was left overnight... LOL was the result.

I took apart the hot end and couldn't find anything wrong. The page tubing was in perfect shape but the filament piece in the tip is stuck. I don't want to drill it out either. Might try the oven trick as some users mentioned.

Tinyhead wrote:I took apart the hot end and couldn't find anything wrong. The page tubing was in perfect shape but the filament piece in the tip is stuck. I don't want to drill it out either. Might try the oven trick as some users mentioned.

I know you wouldn't do this but I have to say something just in case. Do not put the whole hotend in that kind of heat, the peek would be a molten mess. I write this for any new
users who read it and get confused and think they can stick the stock hotend in the oven on a clean cycle.

Eaglezsoar wrote:I know you wouldn't do this but I have to say something just in case.

Hehe... Nope. I wouldn't do that. I work enough with plastics and metals at my work (drying out electrical/electronic equipment) to know what not to put into an oven. Good advice for anyone who might think to just toss in the entire hot end though.

I deserved this. I knew full well the prints didn't stick very well to the tape, but I was hoping I'd get lucky. I was not.

Have you tried the extra hold hairsprays to hold down your parts?
I have had good luck with Garnier Fructis # 5 but the only place I find it is on Amazon.
Aqua Net Super Hold also works.

No. I was just printing ABS to straight up blue painters tape that had been on there since printing PLA parts. I never really prepped the surface as I should have so I wasn't too surprised when it popped off.

+1 on the Aquanet hairspray. That crap works great for my ABS prints so far. So easy to scrape off and clean the residue off with some denatured alcohol too. I know Acetone is suggested a lot, but in my tiny man cave that crap gives me a headache or a buzz.

Tinyhead wrote:Well. I got about 15 minutes into trying that print again with my fancy-dancy patch up job... but alas... it too failed.

20140312_205924.jpg

20140312_212823.jpg

Maybe I am experiencing jamming.

Glue didn't stick to either the tubing or the plastic in the fitting. Kapton broke and it snapped the ABS filament.

TinyHead, looks like you have the old connectors. Those teeth will always eventually fatigue and fail. Get the new connectors from SeeMeCNC, they are amazing.

Right now I'm just letting some glue dry on the PTC fitting. I ordered a bag of 10 of these fittings. They are almost impossible to find in Canada, but I managed to find a bag of 10 on Amazon.ca for $7... shipping included. Only problem is waiting a month for them to come in from China.

My bowden just did the same thing. Small piece of metal and all. Do you have a link to the Amazon source? Or some hint as to what to get? Thanks.

Do you have the old blue ones like mine? Evidently they've gone to a new type that are supposedly much better.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004M8 ... UTF8&psc=1

There's the link for the new style. Also referenced here: http://forum.seemecnc.com/viewtopic.php?f=37&t=4589

Yup, the blue one. I could have taken the exact same picture.

Thanks so much for the link. I've ordered for Monday delivery.
We have only one week of school left and so many students still need to print. At least we'll only lose one day.

I just got my order of 4 of those from amazon, the packets have the correct part number on the outside but all contain plastic T fittings.

Polygonhell wrote:I just got my order of 4 of those from amazon, the packets have the correct part number on the outside but all contain plastic T fittings.

That's no good. Mistake on their part? Or have others had the same issue?

Same for me, I initially thought that I just screwed up.

nitewatchman

Oh. Maybe I can cancel the order.
How long will it take to get one from SeeMeCNC? I think school will be out by then.

I've ordered the part previously and gotten the right one, I would bet the current batch was mislabeled, they ship from Amazon, so basically someone in a big warehouse puts a labelled item in a box, so they will likely continue to be wrong until they run out and restock.

The PTC fitting of my extruder failed yesterday while it was printing the skirt of a 11h32min print. I guess I was lucky.