This just happened. How are your experiences with the E3D Lite6?

This just happened.

How are your experiences with the E3D Lite6?
http://repraprip.blogspot.no/2015/06/how-i-broke-my-brand-new-e3d-lite6.html

I snapped off the brass nozzle just like that while putting together my first extruder. Bought a nice inch-pound torque wrench before trying again.

@Matt_Smith Yeah, I should probably get me one of those. When assembling I do believe I have the feeling needed to torque adequately. But when it broke for me there was traces of old plastic in the threads - and maybe inside the block - so I probably should have cleaned it a bit more first…

Something caught my attention - you mentioned that there was plastic leaking from the top of the heater block. This should never happen. Did you tighten the nozzle at temp (around 240)? If it’s tight enough you should never experience leaking and plastic in the threads should certainly be minimized.

@raykholo ​ Yes, the leaking is quite weird. I did tighten the nozzle at 245C. Could the leaking come from the liner not being positioned past the heat sink, thus making a small gap perhaps?

That’s where this conversation is leading, but let’s resolve the leaking first. They’re separate issues I think.

How tight did you tighten the nozzle?
And you can go higher temp… Just remove the ptfe first… But the metal can be heated to 280 without issues. Just don’t burn yourself or melt the printed extruder mount! You shouldn’t need to though - I got a lite operational yesterday and printing this morning, I only tightened at 240 if I recall correctly.

Then we can address the ptfe not sitting flush. Actually as long as it’s a good right angle, I don’t know what the cause would be.

@raykholo ​ Smart thinking to remove the liner before heating it up! I did tighten it pretty good, but not excessively. The guide says to tighten with the strength of one finger on the spanner, but I did tighten it more than that.

It could also be the collet to hold the liner was pushed slightly back when mounting the hotend. I could have used a proven wades design instead of making my own modified version.

@Nathan_Walkner ​ Looks like that was the issue. Though why it started moving even more, I don’t understand. One would think the collet held it in place.

I do have a screw extractor set, would it be wise to heat up before extraction? I also will be needing a new liner cut to the right size, I think.

I just had a look at my assembled (but not tightened) lite. Took the nozzle off and the liner was sitting flush against the tip of the heat break so all’s good there. In my case the liner went in all the way without issue so could have been a machining issue with the hole.

Also there’s no reason for the nozzle to snap off even with filament in the threads, especially when warmed up. The nozzle could have been defective.

I might add that direct drive mount designs for the V6 often don’t account for the extra height of the lite caused by the liner lock needing to be extended. For example the lite will NOT fit into a bulldog extruder using the standard metal holder (leaving aside the other j-head mount gap issue, and the fan would not clear the bulldog mount either). I had to print a modified version to sort these out. As you say this could cause the liner to come loose during use. It does seem to me that this locking mechanism doesn’t appear to be very secure.

+Nathan Walkner​ Very good point. I’ll try to extract it and see what happens.

@Chengster_N ​ Yes, that’s the way it should be. I’ll try to disassemble the heat sink and look closer at the hole.
I used a small ratcheting spanner and a 7mm pipe, so the force wasn’t excessive. Still, copper isn’t the strongest stuff around, so I possibly was a little too eager on the nozzle.
I am tempted to avoid the collet and print a cold end that holds the ptfe liner in place. Or maybe I should do both.

I messed up when trying to extract the nozzle, and the extractor broke off inside the block, making it near impossible to fix.
The issue with the nozzle breaking was due to me not following the nozzle swap guide, which has to be done at 245C…
I always ment to pay for new parts, but E3D felt something could be wrong with the heat sink threads, (possibly due to the leaking)? So they gave me store credit to buy a new one(!) which was far beyond what I would have expected.
I’ll report back with a new modified wades and my experiences with a more carefully assembled lite6.