Are the some cheaper alternatives for the bowden tube for CR10s PRO ?
You only have two types of hotend Boden Tube or direct drive. Boden is generally the cheaper alternative but not always. It is the actual hotend/extruder that costs the money and there are many to chose from.
That I know, but I mean the actuel TUBE - I have the blue Capricorn - it’s way too expensive I think.
Capricorn is the best. The best deal on Amazon is $20 CDN for a meter plus fittings (sometimes you can find bundled deal which make it less) that I could find. That might seem expensive but it will last for years. If you use the Luke Hatfield hotend trick then you only need 11/2" in the hotend and cheaper stuff for the rest. In that case 1 meter would last a lifetime.
If you buy it make sure it is the real thing there is a lot of blue coloured fake tubing out there.
Yeah the Capricorn tubing is the best,
The cost is definitely much greater than any of the other tubings, but the product is so much better quality and it will last you so much longer than the cheaper stuff that you may find the price versus how long it lasts to be a much better deal.
I’ve heard that for years about Capricorn tubing and, I have to be honest, I haven’t seen any kind of significant difference in performance - or even experienced problems with el cheapo PTFE tubing that would make me feel like I had to have something better. Just looking around at my printers, I have one (my Zortrax) that has had the same piece of no-name PTFE tubing for ten years that I have had to trim twice because it sometimes pops out of a plastic clip and the end gets cracked. For the other four, two have Capricorn and two have tubing I purchased on AliExpress and they’re all over at least a year and have an honest 2,000 hours on them with no difference in functionality or appearance.
On the other hand, I would always highly recommend Gates belts over anything else as Gates just don’t seem to wear out and can take a fair amount of damage without losing functionality.
So what do you see in Capricorn that I don’t? I know in the past we’ve had discussions like this and I tend to see things differently from the average user but I just don’t see any tangible difference between Capricorn and the cheap stuff.
Capricorn tubing is tighter tolerances. I am not sure that is better in all cases. It might come down to application. An alternative to teflon tubing there isn’t one. Just different brands. 1/4 inch tubing for a different usage will not perform correctly. High pressure water tubing is the same diameter but will not tolerate heat and is very loose.
Tubing isn’t expensive compared with filament, printer, nozzles, and other consumables. I get the trying to save some money but it is a bit penny wise pound foolish.
Personally from my experience I have always noticed less issues and more reliability when using capricorn tubing, especially when the printer is running fairly frequently.
I think some of the cheaper tubing can be a bit hit or miss, I have had some like the one on my zortrax as well, which have been fine for quite some time, and I have had others which have been complete duds. Personally for the extra couple of bucks it costs to get the capricorn even the peace of mind is well worth it in my opinion. I have never had to replace the bowden tube on a printer using a capricorn tube, and I just end up running into less extruder related issues on bowden printers.
If I need some tubing in a pinch and I have some of the bargain bin special laying around I still won’t hesitate to use it, doesn’t make too huge of a difference. But for longer use cases it just has proved more reliable.
I have not the best experiences with Capricorn - I think it too quick get loose in the fittings - because it will be scratched too fast and the increasingly gets more and more loose.
I plan to use a short piese of Capricorn in the hotend and then a ‘cheaper’ tube from there back to the extruder - where I plan to use a ‘trumpet’ solution - like on brake pipes.
The 1 meter Capricorn will do for this solution for a long time - and I can’t recognisz that the Capricorn should be stron enough to hold for year as some proposed earlier.
That’s why I’m lookin for a cheaper tube solution.
If you do this, I have had ZERO hotend problems since I did, you don’t need to change the fittings. Movement on them becomes irrelevant to the operation of the printer. It is movement of the tubing at the hotend that creates problems and putting the short piece of Capricorn tubing in it will stop movement in the here.
Yeah I don’t see any reason this would be a bad idea. I have known a lot of people who have done something similar with their printers and have had a lot of success.