I'm planning on upgrading my Prusa MK3 to a Volcano hot end. The Starter kit/Eruption Pack comes with a Thermistor and Heater Cartridge, are these better than the ones that come with my prusa? or can i just use the ones from my prusa with the volcano upgrade? perhaps I should just buy the Aluminium block, and nozzles separately? plus anything else that might be needed?
Not knowing anything about your Prusa and its temperature measuring circuitry then it is impossible to say if your controller and the supplied thermistor are compatible (electrically/electronically) . Both supplied components obviously fit the volcano and it's Al heater block. The heater cartridge may be 12v or 24v so here depends what it is and if it is compatible with the voltage and possible power available from your controller.
Its just the stock Prusa MK3, was hoping someone here had experience with this combination. guess i better go post on the prusa forums as well
Prusa MK3 uses a standard E3D thermistor cartridge, though it has a different cable. MK3 is 24v 40w, Volcano is 12v or 24v, 30w. Either are fine, 30w is a little slower to heat up, 40w is a little safer.
that helps very much, thank you. is the 30w or 40w worthwhile to get? would that help me achieve faster speeds, or better quality prints with a 1mm nozzle? or is that mainly the result of the longer melting chamber?
For such things, go with the 40W. When going for really high flows, the energy being "sucked" out of the hotend by the filament melting might lead to temperature fluctuations which then could mess up your print. Always leave yourself a few performance reserves and the price of a 40W heater cartdridge is not really a big deal, so go for it.
As a counterpoint, in the event of a controller failure, a 40w heater can get hot enough to melt aluminum. Also the heat required to actually melt the filament isn't all that much - around 8w on v6, and 15w on Volcano. Most heat is lost to atmosphere. Using a sock would more than compensate for a loss of 10w of heat.
Thanks for the imput. Would you happen to know if the Prusa MK3 could handle a 30w or 40w heater cartridge? I assume to use those id need a bigger power supply perhaps? I read somewhere that the Prusa MK3 is pretty much at its limits for power consumption. So much so that it was ill advised to use the power supply to power a strip of LED's (a users comment, not said by Prusa themselves)
