Author Topic: ZT-HE Hot End Experience  (Read 5728 times)

AL3

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ZT-HE Hot End Experience
« on: March 07, 2018, 03:13:14 PM »
I’ve been having problems with my Zortrax M200 printing large parts using Z-ABS and Z-ULTRAT due to warping.  After doing a lot of research I decided to switch to PLA since it was a common enough material and wasn’t as susceptible to warpage.  The Z-PLA Pro was expensive and took a long time to ship, so instead I looked for 3rd party materials and settled on eSUN PLA+ due to the good reviews, cost, and ability to buy off Amazon (2-day shipping).

At first, the material was printing, but I had to use high temperatures.  I was printing at 255°C and it was printing okay, but a little stringy and it wasn't smooth (at all).  Anything cooler and the extruder would click and wouldn’t feed material through.  The material would load/unload with no problems, but once it started printing it wouldn’t work anymore.  I was messing around with the settings for about 2 weeks and didn’t have any luck.  I was also having problems separating the raft from the print.  I experimented with the first-layer gap setting and that didn’t help.  The raft was either part of the print that need to be cut off with a razor or it wasn’t attached.  Eventually the prints got worse and I had to keep increasing the temperature up to around 270°C to get anything out of the extruder.  Soon after that nothing worked.

I decided to give the ZT-HE a shot and I also replaced the thermocouple and heater element.  Once it arrived I’ve been printing non-stop for a couple days using eSUN PLA+ with no problems at all!  The models are nice and smooth and the look and feel like how 3D printed models should be.  I printed a few calibration cubes and found 210°C works the best.  The settings in Z-Suite (version 2.3.2.1) are the standard PLA based filament settings with a 210°C hot end and a 65°C bed temp.  My raft is now much easier to separate from the print with a good first layer appearance.

I want people to know that if they want to use a 3rd party material with a Zortrax printer, you need to get a ZT-HE hot end.  The Zortrax V2 hot end simply does not work.   My personal experience is with the eSUN PLA+ (only used black so far).  I’m sure other brands and colors would work just as well, but I haven’t tried them yet.  I couldn’t find user reviews like what’s on Amazon, just what’s on this forum, so I wanted to include a first-hand experience review on this product to help anybody else having problems with 3rd party material and don’t want to drop $100 on something they’re not sure about.  Hopefully this will help you decide and make your life a bit easier.  Get a ZT-HE hot end.

Julia Truchsess

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Re: ZT-HE Hot End Experience
« Reply #1 on: March 11, 2018, 07:15:42 PM »
Thank you, AL3, for that glowing testimonial! If you have to go to 250º+ to print PLA, there's definitely something wrong, lol. My desire to print PLA was the reason ZT-HE came to be. I usually print PLA at 200 - 205º using the Z-ABS profile and Z-Temp, but every PLA brand is a little different.
"Character is doing what's right when nobody's looking." - JC Watts Jr

AL3

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Re: ZT-HE Hot End Experience
« Reply #2 on: March 20, 2018, 09:13:07 AM »
My original post was for printing small/medium parts.  But I’ve been printing some large parts lately and I had some warping, even with PLA+.  I believe that was mostly due to the raft not adhering to the perf board very well.  I switched the material setting from PLA-based to ABS-based like you suggested and it does a better job of using more material and moving the hot end closer to the platform.  My last print was 78 hours, 750g, and the size of the entire print platform and I didn’t have an issue at all!  My settings are shown below:

Material: ABS-based filament (this is just in the setting, I’m still using PLA+)
Layer: 0.19 mm
Infill: 30% (PATT 0)
Fan speed: Auto
Seam: NormalSeam
Outer contours: 0
Holes: 0
Surface layers SurfaceLayersTop: 6
Surface layers SurfaceLayersBottom: 3
Support Lite: True
Smart bridges: True
Print speed: +0%
Extruder flow ratio: +0%
Top layer infill (%): 100
Bottom layer infill (%): 100
Extrusion temp.: 210
Platform temp.: 70
Retraction speed: 50
Retraction distance: 2
First layer gap: 0.27 mm