Ender 3 SuperVolcano Mount and Part Cooling

Intro

This part is a replacement mount to be used to replace your stock Ender 3 Hotend with a SuperVolcano. I have always wanted to try out a SuperVolcano, but actually setting one up seemed very difficult. I could find very little information on how to get it working, or how to even buy one. I also never saw any mounting or part cooling solutions anywhere. When I saw a clone SuperVolcano on sale on aliexpress, I decided to give it a shot and designed this mount. I do currently have it on my printer and working (See pictures). This project was a bit of a hack, and I wouldn’t recommend it to most people. An upgrade to some kind of volcano is a much more reasonable, and easy to implement choice.  Below, I will go into some detail about how exactly I got this working. Electronics knowledge and tools will be helpful. Additionally, firmware changes will need to be made, as this will shrink your build height/volume slightly. I think I currently have mine set to about 220x by 220y by 230z. Significant tuning will also be required to get this printing to any acceptable standard. Most high detail printing will be completely off the table with this, but you will be able to achieve extremely high flow rates and fast print times. I was able to print a 100% scale benchy in 18 minutes with a 1mm nozzle (See pictures). Note though, my Ender 3 is also set up with a clone BMG and an aftermarket board running RepRap firmware.

It uses two 4020 fans for part cooling. The fans attach to the bracket in a way to allow you to adjust their angle. I made it this way for testing, as I was not sure what angle would be ideal. Steeper might be better for more direct cooling on the part, but in theory might cool off the hot end enough to cause problems like heater faults (though, I have not had this issue). I may design and add more “Fan Mount” brackets in the future, for different kinds of fans.
 

Things you should consider

- I am using an aftermarket board known to have a 4A maximum draw on the hot end output. The particular SuperVolcano clone I am using draws a max of 3.6A at 24V. Verify that your board can handle that level of current draw before beginning this project! 

- Before putting this hot end on my machine, I swapped the board for one that runs RepRap firmware (BTT E3 RRF V1.1). Unfortunately, I will not be able to provide instructions on how to set this up with Marlin/Klipper. The minimum firmware tweaks you will need are: a PID tune and change the build volume of your machine.

- If you are expecting to reach the ~100 mm^3/s supposed flow rate of the SuperVolcano in your regular printing, expect to be disappointed. I would not call this a practical upgrade, as you will quickly run up against the limits of the speed of your machine, amount of part cooling, and linear advance limitations. A more practical upgrade is definitely some flavor of volcano (around 30mm^3/s flow rate). Though, you will definitely be able to reach high flow rates than a volcano style hot end in normal printing. In my experience, the higher the flowrate of your hot end, the less precise control you have over the molten filament. Generally, this means worse print quality for more tuning.

- I would recommend you to do as I have done and upgrade your main board to some kind of RepRap/Klipper board, and extruder to some flavor of geared extruder (ex. BMG, orbiter, etc.). This will make the process of tuning easier, and will increase your quality/speed drastically with pressure advance or linear advance. A tutorial on how to do this is outside the scope if these instructions, though.

- If your printer does not have a 24V power supply, I would not recommend taking on this project. The 12V varieties of the SuperVolcano draw a large amount of current, and must be controlled with a MOSFET. A tutorial on how to do this is outside of my expertise, . 

- The two 4020 fans I am using for part cooling draw a max of ~0.300A. I do not know what the rated current is for my board. So far I have not had a problem, but this might be something to check on your board.
 

Required Tools

- Soldering Iron

- Solder

- Heat Shrink Tape

- Wire Ferrule Crimping tool/ Assorted Wire Ferrules

More Info can be found here: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GZOh1NzqzzU

- Wire Strippers (I prefer the manual ones, ones capable of small gauge will be helpful)

- 7mm wrench/socket (pliers/adjustable wrench will work as well)
 

Nice to Have Tools

- Some variety of JST/Molex Crimping Tool

- Extra wire for fans

Parts

- [PRINTED] 1x “E3 Supervolcano Mount Bowden” (Downloaded here)

- [PRINTED] 2x “E3 Supervolcano 4020 Fan Mount” (though I suppose you could get away with 1 fan)

- [PRINTED] 1x “E3 Supervolcano Mount Collar”

- 2x 4020 Fans

- 1x V6 Heat sink

- 1x V6 Heat sink Part cooling fan + Fan Mount

- 1x E3D Heat break

- 1x SuperVolcano heater block, heater cartridge, and thermistor

- M3 Washers, Nuts, and Bolts of lengths: 40mm,

- Assorted M3 and M2.5 bolts

- 2pin connector for your main board (for part cooling fans)

Some thoughts on required Parts

For the actual hot end parts, I bought a full clone volcano kit, in addition to a SuperVolcano heater block/thermistor. I am not in love with the idea of buying knockoff parts, so I will decline to link what exactly I bought. I will say it was from a fairly well known and reputable vendor for 3D printer parts on aliexpress. The way it worked out at the time, this was an easier and cheaper way to get the parts I needed: a heat break, heat sink, and heat sink fan. You may find it is cheaper to buy the parts individually. If you end up buying genuine E3D parts, I am pretty sure the ‘eruption pack’ does not come with a heat sink or related parts, so keep that in mind. If you decide to buy any genuine parts, the thermistor, heater cartridge, and heat break are probably the most beneficial pieces. 

For the printed components, I used PETG. ABS/ASA is probably a better choice, j I did not have any. PLA will likely not work, it may be softened by the heat of the hot end. The small pieces like the Fan and Collar I printed with 100% infil. For the large piece, I printed it with 4 perimeters and ~20% infil. Less perimeters would be detrimental, as the ‘arm’ sections for the fan may not print solid. They are a bit delicate. 

Crimping tools will make your life easier for this build. My Ender 3 came with tinned wires  in the screw connectors, not wire ferrules. My clone SuperVolcano wires had this as well. This is arguable a fire hazard, and I would recommend buying a cheap wire ferrule kit, cutting off the tinned ends, and replacing them with ferrules. They are safer and will last longer. It would also be smart to put wire ferrules on the connectors to your heated bed while you are at it. Teaching Tech has done several videos about basic electronics like this: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XBoXp31PCo8

Instructions

- If you are planning on keeping the old hot end around, I would recommend properly unloading the filament, first. Be sure to turn off your machine and make sure nothing is hot before removing your current hot end. Everything but the v-wheel carriage can be removed, including the cover, heat sink, hot end, etc. Make note of the place in the board these pieces were plugged in. Write down the polarity of the fans; which color wire was connected to which pin. The heater cartridge and thermistor may or may not be reversible (they would have two wires of the same color). 

- Try dry fitting the mount against the plate. You may need to drill out the holes. I think I ended up needing to drill out all of them. The large holes should fit over existing button head screws on the carriage, they can be drilled out very liberally if needed. The mount should fit with holes placed for the fan should of the original hot end. The Ender 3 has many varieties, so the hole pattern you have may change. When I went to mount mine, I found the CAD model I was working off of had more holes in the plate than what was actually on my machine.

- Mount your 4020 Fans to the fan brackets, making note of the direction of airflow (should be written on the fan somewhere) and the where the wires come out of the fan. I made sure the wires of mine came out the back. The fans should be blowing air down, toward the bed.

- You will need to splice the fan wires together, as with many Ender 3 boards there is only 1 part cooling fan output. I ended up splicing them near the hot end to save wire. You will also likely need to put a new connector on the wire for your new fan. I used extra crimp connectors that came with my aftermarket main board. You may need to source your own connectors.

- Next, assemble your SuperVolcano parts. I would advise following this video from E3D for assembling a V6. The process is the same, just with a longer heater block:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gwNAMveHLmw

Be sure not to over tighten the tiny grub screws. Also if you get any, be sure to apply thermal paste to the heat sink side of the heat break. Do not put thermal past on the hot end side of the heat break. Hot tightening your finished assembly will be essential. So far, my heater core likes to be wiggled loose when it bumps into high spots in a part mid print (something that is inevitable in high flow printing like this). I have not found a solution for this beyond regularly re-tightening the heater block. You may find E3D’s official documentation on the SuperVolcano helpful as well: 

https://e3d-online.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/sections/6157591327133-SuperVolcano

- Attach your SuperVolcano assembly to the mount. The heat sink collar should be a snug press fit. There are holes on each side of the heat sink collar for zip ties. At this point everything should be mounted and ready to turn on. You can place the PTFE tube into the top of the heat sink. If you find the end of your tube is looking a bit sad/melted, trim it with a sharp pair of wire cutters/scissors. Plug your heat break, part cooling fan(s), and thermistor into the same ports. Be sure to put ferrules on the heater cartridge wires before reconnecting it. Always give crimped connectors and screw terminals a light tug to make sure they are connected properly.

- Turn your machine back on and verify you get no magic smoke. Try preheating your hotend. Verify it heats up, but it will likely throw a heater fault. This is normal. You will need to do a PID tune before using a new hot end. Here are a few links on doing this with different firmware:

RepRap: https://duet3d.dozuki.com/Wiki/Tuning_the_heater_temperature_control

Marlin: https://all3dp.com/2/3d-printer-pid-tuning/

Note: after a PID Tune your printer will technically be working, but you will not be able to get good prints without a fairly thorough set of tuning. There are no default slicer settings for a setup like this, so you will need to figure out a lot of it on your own.

- Next you will have to do some tuning of your machine. The list I would recommend is:

- Linear Advance/Pressure Advance:

RepRap: https://forum.duet3d.com/topic/15131/tune-pressure-advance-using-the-marlin-generator-and-notepad

Marlin: https://marlinfw.org/tools/lin_advance/k-factor.html

- Temperature

- Retraction

- Minimum Layer Time

- Minimum Speed

Teaching tech has a great website for tuning many parameters like this:  https://teachingtechyt.github.io/calibration.html

- I found that turning on linear advance greatly improves print quality, but slows down prints substantially, and in a way that cannot really be alleviated by any kind of tuning. Your slicer will also not be able to factor in the slowing down caused by linear advance, so your print time estimates will be very inaccurate. I found this slowing down could be reduced by increasing your maximum extruder acceleration and extruder jerk. I do have some concerns about how this will affect the longevity of my extruder, though. 

Any ‘commercial’ parts (ex. E3D parts, Ender 3, fasteners) in pictures above were not modeled by me, I got them from grab cad:

Ender 3 Model: https://grabcad.com/library/creality-ender-3-v2-3

SuperVolcano: https://grabcad.com/library/e3d-super-volcano-heater-block-and-nozzle-1

I will leave you some settings I had to tweak to get this working. You might find them helpful as a baseline, but do not expect them to be perfect for your setup. These settings were tuned for a 1mm nozzle, 0.5mm layer height, for PLA:

Pressure Advance: 0.2 seconds 

E-Steps: 412 steps per mm (NOTE: this is for a geared extruder)

Minimum Speed: 10 mm/s

Minimum Layer time: 4 seconds

Maximum Speed: ~130 mm/s

Maximum Acceleration: 2000 mm/s^2

Retraction: 2 mm
 

If you got to the end, thank you for reading! I am also happy to try and answer your questions below. If you try out this mod, good luck! 

Feel free to remix this project!