Does anyone have experience printing filled filaments (carbon, glass etc.) with the Ender 5 Max? I’ve heard you are supposed to use steel tips but I can’t find any any Creality’s response was, frankly, unhelpful.
I’m hoping to use the Elegoo High Temperature Carbon Fiber Nylon filament for some structural pieces. It’s expensive but should allow me to make strong pieces.
I assume I will also need to make or buy an enclosure to keep the build space hot enough. I’m working on a design that will incorporate a charcoal filter to reduce the amount of noxious fumes when printing ABS and the like. Any suggestions are welcome!
I only print PLA, but you could upgrade the hotend to the Hi’s with it’s hardened steel unicorn nozzle. I did both of mine and it improved print quality more than I expected. Easy upgrade too - takes like 10 minutes when you have all the parts.
You can replace the brass nozzle for a steel one of you print a lot of abbrasive materials. You can print these materials with brass nozzle until they wear and prints get bad!
I misunderstood your original post and thought you were suggesting that I use a Bambu Labs H1S hot end. There are kits to do this but the change is decidedly non-trivial!
I now realize you are suggesting using the K2 PLus Hot End from Creality (I missed the Unicorn hint in your orignal post). This seems much more doable! I am still something of a 3D printing newbie!
Thank you
Did you print all the parts yourself? Which model did you use? Also did you lose much build volume?
I did some reading and it suggested that I would have to re-wire the heater element and thermister and then re-flash the controller. I’m find with the soldering but a little concerned about re-flashing the controller. Also am I correct in assuming this would void the Creality warranty?
Use the one for the Hi as the wires are the proper length - you will have to do more work to use the K2 and they both have the same unicorn nozzle.
It’s a quick and easy swap - just remove the heat sync with it’s fan from the Ender5Max’s original hotend and put it on the one for the Hi. You do need to add a 10mm copper or brass tube to the heat sync to help support the unicorn nozzle, but that is it. Put it back into the print head and you are ready to go. No parts to print, no change with build volume, etc. No need to reflash anything or rewire anything and no void in warranty. Just re-run all the calibrations after you change it out as the unicorn nozzle is a tiny bit longer than the e5’s was and you will need to rerun input shaping for the weight difference.
I’m working on a video of it so will post a link when I have it done.
I used the H1 hot end as you suggested and include the 10mm brass tube. I re-ran all calibrations except the Z-offset which the printer console would not let me run. When I installed the filament again - the same Creality PETG I had been using last week - the printer immediately started ticking when extruding. I tried printing benchy but gave up after the first few layers as the print was a mess.
I just re-read your original post LoriAnn and realized that I did not re-run input shaping. Once I’ve cleared the jam I will try that and see if it fixes the issue. But first I have to clear things out
I gently heated the end with a torch and was able to remove most of the filament from the tube. More importantly I pushed a new piece into the tube and was able to get a nice clean thin stream coming out of the nozzle. So I think I’m back where I started - but still need to figure out why it won’t extrude for me.
I did use the heater coil and thermister from the H1, not the Ender, and recalibrated them using the console. I assume that they use the same thermister across most models so hopefully I don’t need a new temperature curve for that.
I used the exact brass tube that Barry had suggested and cut it to 10mm +/- .1mm. I cleaned the cut end and it slipped cleanly over the nozzle. I also used a generous amount of thermal grease on the nozzle.
I’m going to try reassembling every thing, running the calibrations again and see what happens.
OK - this is embarrassing. I must admit to a bit of operator error. In my care not to strip the threads I failed to tighten the bolts that hold the heater to the ceramic block fully with the result that it was able to wobble a little. I’m sure that explains the horrible print but …
Revert back to original, use the standard MK8 nozzle, yes it will wear but is easy to replace… If you don’t want it to wear quickly buy a hardened steel one from Micro Swiss (had those in my Ender 3 Pro and Ender 5 Plus).
In searching for hardened steel nozzie if founf that none of the aftermarket nozzle manufacturers list the Ender 5 Max although many list the other models in the Ender 5 series.
Being used to repairing cars, computers and the like I have generally found that if a model is excluded from the supported list it is because it is either not supported or too new to have been tested.
Is that the case here or do manufacturers consider the Ender 5 max to be a niche product and not worth the mention?
