E3D Titan Extruder – Front Panel Cracking

E3D Titan Extruder

E3D Titan Extruder Cracking Front Panel

I like all things E3D, I have a V6 hotend on my Ultimaker 2 3D printer and recently i added a Titan Extruder.

It came very well packaged and it looked a well engineered product.  The installation was easy and it took no time to install.

All was well for a few months, then my print quality was dropping.  Having check all of the normal things, it left me scratching my head for a while.  Then I found it the only thing I had not actually looked at.  the clear front panel had cracked badly which was allowing the bearing  to wobble around.

E3D Titan Extruder Cracking Front Pane 

E3D Titan Extruder Cracking Front Panel. This was the trouble.  The pressure of the pinch wheel appeared to be too strong for the clear plastic material that has been used to manufacture the clear cover plate.

You can see on the lower left corner that the plastic has cracked all around the ball race bearing position, the bottom corner had dropped off.

I design a cover plate that would fit over the titan clear plastic plate.

Here we can see the design on the CNC router table which has just been cut.

As seen it has two pockets / recesses that will allow the rasied E3D logo to fit.

The Fr4 was stuck onto the MDF spoilboard of my CNC router.

I used 50mm wide masking tape.  This was applied to the Fr4 and the MDF.

Then i spread beads of medium super glue on the masking tape on the back of the FR4.

Then press the Fr4 on to the CNC table.

For those of you that have a CNC router you may want to give this holddown method a try you will be amazed.

The weakest point of this holddown method is the masking tape on to the MDF spoilboard.  The masking tape always seams to peel off when you lever up the part.  This is not to say that the joint is weak in the horizontal plane its very strong and i have never had a part move.

The two parts were glued together.  I did use 180 grit on the face of the Fr4 and the clear Titan cover plate to help with the bonding process.  I left it to set overnight.

I made sure that no glue could run into the bearing by using some silicone grease and making sure the bearing was upper most so that no glue would run down into it.

The parts looked as though they glued together well.  No air bubbles could be seen and the cover felt very stiff.

Longer screws were required as the new Fr4 cover plate added 1.6mm.  I found some very long m3 cap heads that i trimmed dowm.  It assembled well as expected and i am now printing again.  I just need to find some smaller washers.

I know that this new plate is not see through like the E3D Titan one don’t see that as disadvantage.

E3D do not list a cover as a spare part but as mine was only a few months old they sent me a replacement.

If you are reading this post then i assume that you also have a Titan and i would be keen to hear if you have had any problem like mine.

Conclusion

E3D have now issued a replacement front cover and bearing as they found the grease in the bearing made the cover crack. 

Good on E3D for finding the problem and sending out a free replacement.

You can purchase a new cover here

Notes from the E3D website

This kit contains the new Tritan Titan lid & two new bearings suitable for Titan and Titan Aero.
Previous to February 2018, Titan lids were made of polycarbonate and occasional failure was occuring due to the the chemical composition of bearing lubricant. The solution to this is now in place, but if you want peace of mind even if your old kit’s running smoothly, this low-cost kit has everything you need to update your Titan or Titan Aero.