TechZone Tip Assembly

The instructions on this page are for assembling the tip and extruder kit(s) from [TechZoneCommunications].

The information may be useful for general assembly of tips and other designes, but no attempt is made to address them specifically in this document.

Background

Here at TechZone (short for TechZoneCommunications) we have learned the hard way, that the tip is probably the hardest and most finicky part in the RepRap. Unfortunately that set us up to cause a lot of problems for many of you (our customers and design users).

When we first released the LaserCut Mendel (LCMendel) we thought it would be a piece of cake to make and deliver hot ends, after all, everyone with a RepRap has a hot end and we presumed that they worked just fine. In the weeks (which became months) that followed we found out that we were Fools (notice I capitalized that word). We probably spent far too long re-inventing the wheel, and should have bitten the bullet and purchased everyone their favorite tip and called it good. That certainly would have saved us some money!

Even with the current version of tips that we have shipped, I am not completely content with the design, I am certain that there are some improvements to be made. However, what we currently provide (Aug 27, 2010) is a good design, and I am confident it is no more finicky or flawed than the many other designs out there. I did break down and order several in from other vendors and set them up to use them before I finally released our tip.

Hot End Assembly

Here on the right is a picture of the parts we include in the Hot End kit:

History of our design

Some people have asked for pictures of our development process, and regretablly, I don't have pictures of all the designs we made and tested, but here are a few of the more noteable pieces. If you are one of our customers who recieved something different than what is in the photos here, please take a picture and post it to this section, I will add descriptions of what we were attempting to do.

Many Thanks to all of you who have helped (both directly and indirectly).