Hotend - leaving for another time

[johnridley]

Over the weekend I screwed around with trying to make a hotend, but IMO it's beyond my ability to drill a 0.35mm hole in brass. All I did was break drill bits. Seriously, those are tiny bits. If I saw one on the table I'd think it was just a random bit of wire. It's pretty much impossible to not break one.
MakerGear sells full hotends ready to go for $75, and nozzles for $10. I bought one of each. I do not think I will ever try drilling my own nozzles again but I may make a whole hotend with a $10 purchased nozzle, I will try that. However I don't know what thread those take.

My linear bearings showed up today so I can go a little farther on the build.

Comments

[rasterweb.livejournal.com]

What did you use to drill the hole, a drill press or a Dremel?

[johnridley.livejournal.com]

I chucked the work piece in a drill press and clamped the drill in a vice. This works great for the 1/8" main hole through the work bit and I've drilled many centered holes through work pieces this way in the past but it didn't even think about working in this case. Regardless of how carefully I tried to feed or what speed I ran at, I just snapped the bits like they were glass.

Honestly with MG selling CNC machined nozzles for $10, I really can't be bothered anymore. I do need to figure out what they thread onto though, I'll do that when the order gets here from them. I suspect it's an M8 rod since it's threaded and it has a 3.2mm hole bored down it. I may have trouble finding brass M8 but I may try boring steel instead, if I can find soft (grade 2) steel M8 bolts to work from. Or just start from 5/16 rod and thread it with an M8 die.