Hiho friends,
I finally have a E3d v6 ordered and on the way. After watching a few build videos and I noticed that no one is using ‘Loctite’ to secure the thermistor or heating element. Is loctite not a preferred method to secure these screws in place? From my RC days, we’d loctite everything that was a metal screw to metal bracket/mount etc. Just wondering if anyone is using this on their hotends? (Now that I think a little bit, does loctite function being heated up repeatedly?)
From the datasheet, it looks like most kinds of loctite should survive the temperatures your hot end will reach, but there’s no need for it. The risk of any screw backing out is minimal to nonexistent, and you want to preserve the option replace parts (especially thermistors) easily, which means without having to break the loctite seal you’ve made.
These things aren’t flying around in the air or bouncing on a dirt track; it’s pretty unlikely anything would work itself loose on a desktop piece of hardware, and even if it did, you’d probably notice before it became a problem.
The heat cycling and dissimilar metals lock together pretty well. After a year of printing it can be a challenge to dissassemble. @Thomas_Sanladerer video is a much watch on how to assemble.
My first thought was well, Locitite isn’t going to work at those temperatures. And their datasheets state:
“In rare instances where hand tools do not work because of excessive engagement length, apply localized heat to nut or bolt to approximately 250 °C. Disassemble while hot.”
So while it would maybe survive the heat, it certainly wouldn’t be useful that hot.
Mechanically jamming the nozzle against the heat break works very, very well and creates an excellent seal.
Thank you everyone for the quick replies, will not be using loctite. And thank you @Thomas_Sanladerer for your very well constructed vidoes, they have been a huge help in understanding the 3D printing process and finer details for clean looking prints.
As an additional note we used to use loctite in some of our clutch components until testing showed that at operating temperatures it served as a lubricant more than an adhesive. It’s great stuff when used within the design parameters, heat is a weakness for it though.
In the rc world its a life saver… Literally. But 3d printing not so much