New to 3D printing and I have been learning PLA, HTPLA and PETG in the first two weeks of getting a Snapmaker 2.0. I am finding I am most interested in doing filament with metal infused (copper in this case) so I can patina it for a few garden pieces I want to set into motion. The recommendation is an “all metal hotend” because of the heat conductivity of copper. I already know I need a better tip due to abrasion and I am looking at an Olsson ruby tip but I can’t find any suggestions for the all metal hotend. I see on the snapmaker site new tips that are wrapped in teflon while on the robotshop site they feature a bare heating block made of aluminum (all metal in photos); the description on robotshop mentions teflon but it is not apparent. My question is, would the robotshop nozzle replacement be able to withstand the heat conductivity of copper filled filament better than the snapmaker brand tips (are they actually different)? What is an “all metal hotend”? I may not be able to use copper filament but I want to understand my machines limits better and find the right parts for my projects. Thank you for your time and any suggestions for future modifications.
I have found designs for hotends (also called thermal breaks). The Teflon is a tube inside the hotend that helps prevent the plastic from sticking. It will melt at temperatures above 250 degrees Celsius. An all metal hotend has no Teflon; it is just metal. It is needed for material that exceeds 250 but it too has drawbacks. First is it MUST be smooth to prevent sticking and it is much more likely to clog due to sticking. Often hotend have burrs or internal marks which will result in clogs. All metal hotends may even need to be polished internally after purchase. The best material is a two stage hotend followed by titanium. Both are rare and very specific. Stainless steel is common but suffers from smoothness issues; it will vary by manufacturer, usually better being more costly. Pipe cleaners and polishers may be your friend to limit clogs. My question about the heater core still stands… would it suffer from higher heats? Is there plastic that would get damaged? (And yes, I would replace the hotend with an all metal, so the question is about other parts of the heater core)
You took the words right out of my mouth…
It’s only worth going the all_metall route, if you had a series of things to print. The long_term heat creep is the main issue here. I’d use a dedicated printer for that job and another for the regular jobs.
Big parts (like garden deco) may fail 2-3 times before you succeed.
I went a different way and learned to paint
This Witcher_2 idol is made of red PLA then sprayed matt black and painted silver metallic with a short brush. There are also gold/copper metallic colors available.
In other cases I mixed gold and copper for a vintage look. ( the green copper verdigris look is a different story)
