I’ve damaged my heating block, likely beyond repair, so I’m writing to see if anyone can point me in the right direction for a repair/replacement part.
I’m running a Wanhao Duplicator i3 Plus with it’s original heating block but with a Micro Swiss all metal hot end installed.
Earlier this week after a number of consecutive failed prints, I tore the hot end down (not my first time in the two plus years I’ve been using this machine) to see if I could ID the problem. What had happened is the nozzle had backed out of the heater block a little resulting in melted plastic getting all over the hot end, and of course tereribly inconsistent prints.
So I tore the hot end down, cleaned off all the misplaced and charred plastic, check the fit of everything, reassembled everythingh and got to the point where I heated the extruder to 250 C and started tightening the nozzle to its final position.
This is where I screwed up. I overtightened the nozzle into the heating block and stripped the threads out of the alluminium block.
The first 4 photos below show the damaged block as I tore it down. Note that the original block has a hole for the thermistor plus a small adjacent threaded hole for the screw/washer required to secure the theristor.
Luckily I had a spare heating block on hand. However unluckily the replacement block does not have a threaded hole to allow me to secure the extruder thermistor in place. See photos 5 and 6 and you’ll see the holes are not all the same as my original block.
Can anyone suggest where I might be able to order an appropriate replacement heater block, with a suitable extruder thermistor if I need a new one?
I’m located in Canada so Amazon.ca would be ideal but I could still order from Amazon.com if they might have a solution.
I’ve tried 3D Printing Canada and there’s nothing I can see on their website that’d be a one-for-one replacement.
Thanks.
