A beta test of the V6 HotEnd

E3D Release New Version 6 of HotEnd.

Postby Eaglezsoar » Fri May 23, 2014 1:03 pm
Good News! E3D has announced the release of the Version 6 of their HotEnd!
I have been a beta tester of the V6 HotEnd since April 11, 2014.
The first thing I did before receipt of the HotEnd was to purchase 4 rolls of
the least expensive PLA that I could find on Amazon.com thinking that these
would represent the worst PLA that could be found.

After receiving the HotEnd I mounted it on my Seemecnc Orion printer using
the http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:137140 mount by 626pilot. The nozzle on
the HotEnd was .35mm. Immediately I noticed that the layer fan that was being
used on the orion would not work with the E3D V6 because the nozzle on the V6
would not extend down far enough, so off comes the layer fan and an external 80mm
fan was rigged to be used as a layer fan. The V6 cooling fan stops the nozzle
from extending very far past the effector. The fix is a new effector design or
mount the V6 below the effector which I did not want to do on an Orion.

After mounting the V6, I loaded the first roll of PLA and it has been 40 days of
printing PLA and alternating ABS purposely trying my best to clog the V6 HotEnd.
My wife is the proud owner of Owls, cats, sea creatures and other PLA and ABS
animals and statues of every description. When I wanted to change to a different
roll of filament, I heated up the printer to PLA temperatures manually remove the
filament by hand turning the cold end knob, and inserting the PLA or ABS filament.
By the time I had finished with this project I can say that I actually became sick
of 3D printing and never wanted to Beta test another HotEnd!.

The results of the tests. Approximately 240+ hours of PLA were printed and over
125 hours of ABS were put through the V6 HotEnd. Try as a might, the HotEnd would
not clog or malfunction in any manner. Knowing the E3D HotEnds have a reputation
for clogging with PLA I was totally shocked that not once did this V6 HotEnd clog
or show any problems of any sort. I have used the V4 and V5 and have experienced
the PLA clogging but this one would not misbehave no matter what filament was in it.
I do not know what they did to fix it, but it just works. I do know that they have
spent more time polishing the inside of the heatbreak but I do not know if they
made any changes to the bore length.

The one negative that I can report has been true of all the E3D models and other
HotEnds. Because of the "peek" fan, the hotend does not extend very far from the
bottom of the effector and to use the effector mounted layer fans it the HotEnd
needs to extend further down. This is not the fault of the HotEnds, it is something
that needs to redesigned on the printer.

Others on this forum have also been beta testing the E3D V6 and I anxiously await
their reports. I would like to keep everything under this one topic, if possible.
I have included as attachments some pdf files that are mechanical drawings of the V6.
Also included are a few pictures of the V6. You will probably notice the V6 is
shorter than the V5 and here are the numbers.

V6 Direct HotEnds are 7mm shorter than V5
V6 1.75 Bowdens are 20mm shorter than V5
V6 3mm Bowdens are 23mm shorter than V5

If the other Beta Testers experience what I experienced with the E3D V6, E3D has
a clear winner on their hands and is the best HotEnd I have ever used.