- I’ve been printing for several years so this is not something I haven’t seen before. And I know how to fix it-- just buy a new hot end assembly. Or-- this time, I think I’ll try cleaning it and try it again. Does anyone know why this happens? Is it leaking from around the tube (see item 3 in second pic) where it’s pressed into the finned heat sink? Or does it come out of the nozzle during a normal print and get diverted up into the sock?
- I inadvertently skinned the insulation off wires 1 and 2. I don’t have any heat shrink tubing that small. Any ideas? Any help will be appreciated.
From what I see, the leaking is here
And that is not fixable
If you want to just replace the thermistor and the heater as well, my go to place is aliexpress
From my point of view as electronic engineer, it does’t worth fixing that wire and it certainly is not reliable after fixing. Melting point of solder wire 60/40 is around 190°C. Conventional heat shrink tubing is rated at 125°C. You can use fibreglass sleeve to cover the joint, but that certaintly not work in tiny space there.
For me, I just buy the whole hotend and heater/thermistor assebly from aliexpress
Do yourself a favour and consider an E3D hotend - price is high but you won’t regret it.
Am using one now for quite a while and the speed increase is nice, however the quality improvement of my prints tops it all.
Having said that…
There is a tiny gap between hotend and extruder but the plastic should not come out there.
It can only be forced out there after the hotend got severely blocked at high temp while the extruder kept pushing…
Cleanable, fixable but not sure if it is worth doing…
Thank you very much. I checked the Australian currency exchange ratio and the Ali Express price would be a good bit cheaper than BBL.
“got severely blocked at high temp while the extruder kept pushing…”
That makes perfect sense.
I’d like to know more about your E3D hotend. What precisely does it do better than the OEM arrangement?
E3D VS Bambu - round 1
As for so many other people the original just caused too much trouble.
In my case it was severe heat creep issues when trying to print glow PLA.
Considering the massive wear and tear I decided to get a hardened steel nozzle for this = cheap one with exchangeable nozzles from Ali.
Was advertised to have a much better flow rate thanks to a 3 channel system in the nozzles LOL
Was so glad I also ordered a bunch of replacement nozzles with the traditional single hole - the glow filament wouldn’t make it through the others.
Speed was terrible though and when I saw that they just ramped up the production to satisfy the demand for their new Obxidian hotend I ordered one.
Fell for the advertising, the part that stated how fast they could print…
Round 2 - the arrival
Quick and easy swap as it came fully assembled.
Quick max flow rate calibration print - or so I thought.
Ran right through the end perfectly.
Had to modify the model so it would start with a much higher speed and end with impossible speeds.
With PLA the E3D maxed out between 45 and 48 depending on the blend.
The Bambu original crapped out at a max of 22…
Round 3 - utterly wasting time and filament for no reason
Wow that thing prints with volumes said to be impossible…
Of course I started to change drive the speeds of the default profile higher and higher to see at which point test prints would fail.
Should have just started downwards from the max of 500mm/s ROFL
And of course it turned out that Bambu’s standard profiles ARE indeed limited by the max flow rate.
Increase just that and all speeds where the flow was a limiting factor go up - PAST the listed value in the settings…
Round 4 - Let the fight end with a K.O.
The (possible) print speeds already meant I had very little regrets about this costly investment.
I say possible because these extreme speeds really only work for geometrically easy and simple enough prints.
Jerk, acceleration, pressure advance and all that still put a severe brake on complex prints and that for good reasons.
The K.O. for Bambu came quite while later though and through a very (on the surface) detailed print of a dragon head.
Printed it many times with the Bambu hotend, first time with the E3D and settings optimised for it.
A difference like day and night…
The supports came off much easier and cleaner.
Many areas where I struggled with overhangs producing a surface that needed afterwork came out just fine.
But the overall surface finish was just wow…
Much smoother and consistent and I later found out that matte PLA now actually perfectly blends together with barely and layer lines visible in the print - at 0.2mm layers…
I only use the E3D for plain filaments, no filled ones despite the claim it can handle it as it still drastically affects the inner surface coating - which seems to be the main factor for these flow rates.
I can print PLA on a 30 degree (Celsius) day with the door and lid closed - no heat creep jamming the extruder, not melt downs either…
You can basically go and just increase the speeds of a default profile by 25% and use that as a starting point.
Should work fine for all prints.
Then you can just hit the button for ludicrous speed and relax for simple enough model.
Or create two new profile at 100% speed, one for best quality and one for fasted speed possible without too many issues.
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I really appreciate you typing all that for me, but unfortunately, it’s like you’re giving lessons for landing a 747 and I only moved here yesterday from the darkest jungles of Africa and I never saw a plane until today. But less ignorant 3d printer enthusiast will hopefully find the information useful. As Rocky said “I’m just a ham and egger”. He knew how to box a little but knew nothing about the finer points so that he would be competition for Apollo. I’ve heard terms like heat creep (ond others), but I don’t know what it means. After I learn a lot more, I’ll return to your piece. Thanks
Please don’t feel bad, lame or that you are just a breakfast sandwich ! 
We all started something at some time and had no clue at all.
Not knowing is not a problem, never learning is.
Just go ahead with 3D printing, enjoy the little drawbacks that will happen.
With every new print, new settings tried you learn a little bit more.
What seems to make no sense TODAY might just be old tricks for you next year - don’t give up, keep going ! 