E3D-v6 on Velleman K8400

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Installation guide for the E3D v6 hotend on the Velleman K8400 VERTEX 3D printer

Why upgrading?

  • The E3D v6 hotend improves the print quality of the Velleman K8400.
  • The original hotend has a design flaw which cause overheating due a bad placement of the thermistor.
  • Less jamming and maintenance.
  • Heat up your nozzle much faster.

Materials we need

1 Tools

  • 2,5mm hex wrench
  • 2,0mm hex wrench
  • 3,0mm hex wrench
  • Solder iron
  • Multimeter
  • Wire cutters and strippers
  • 3D printer

2 Materials

  • E3D v6 metal only 1.75mm bowden[1], you can find it in the E3D-online.com store under 'v6 HotEnd Metal Parts Only - 1.75mm Universal'.
  • The original heater cartridge from Velleman (15V 33W) since E3D-online only provides 12V and 24V heater cartridges.
  • An 100K thermistor[2], you can buy these separately from E3D-online.com under 'Spares and Extras'.
  • 30mm fan 12V [3] and the fan holder for the E3D v6 hotend [4]. These are also under 'Spares and Extras'.

You can also buy a complete kit[5] since we use everything from the kit except the heater cartridge.

  • M3x30 bolt (3 pcs)
  • M3x60 bolt (4 pcs)
  • M3x15 bolt (3 pcs)
  • M3 ring (3 pcs)
  • M3 nut (7 pcs)
  • M2.5 nut (2 pcs)
  • M2.5 bolt (2 pcs)
  • STL's from Thingiverse (see installation)
  • 12V separate power supply (I used a 12V@15A power supply to power also my heated bed)

Installation

1. Download the following STL's from Thingiverse.com:

  • E3Dv6 mount for Velleman K8400 [6]
  • Endstop extender [7]

2. Print the parts for the E3D mount in ABS (or another type of temperature resistant plastic). This is absolutely necessary since ABS is more temperature resistant then PLA. Use enough infill because it has to be strong!

3. When your prints are done, remove the Velleman hotend from your K8400 printer. Keep the parts somewhere safe because you never know if you need some of them later in the future.

4. Disassemble the hotend mount in order to install the printed parts.

5. Install the new parts. You need the 4 M3x60 bolts and 4 M3 nuts as a replacement for the original M3 bolts. You can reuse the M3 nuts that were provided by Velleman if you wish.

6. Put the hotend mount back in his place and align the belts. A good align guide can be found here[8]. Take your time for this step!

7. Test your K8400 to make sure the X- and Y-axis can move freely.

8. Assemble the E3D v6 hotend as instructed on the E3D documentation wiki[9].

We use the original Velleman heater cartridge since the motherboard can't handle the current from the E3Dv6 12V heater cartridges.

9. Install the E3D v6 hotend by fasten it with 3 M3 nuts, 3 M3x30 bolts and 3 M3 rings.

10. Connect the heater cardtidge, thermistor and 25mm fan to the electronic board.

11. Connect the 30mm 12V from the E3D to a separate 12V power supply. I also use this power supply to power my heated bed.

12. Heat up your E3D v6 to fast the nozzle even more as instructed in the E3D assemble guide (step 8).

13. The 30 mm fan will collide against the Y-axis belt when you try to home your K8400 VERTEX printer. In order to avoid that you should install the endstop extender that you printed before.

14.The Velleman firmware has some serious configurations flaws when using a E3D v6 hotend. I made some modifications to the original firmware in order to use the E3D v6 hotend on the K8400 VERTEX printer. This version supports only one extruder head.

You can install it by downloading it from here: Download the modified firmware here[10]


And follow these instructions (provided by Velleman) under 'CHANGING/UPLOADING THE FIRMWARE':


Instructions[11]

15. The original Velleman hotend has a 0,35 mm nozzle, however the standard E3D nozzle is 0,40 mm so we have to change that in Repetier-Host. Go to 'Printer Settings' → 'Extruder' tab → 'Diameter' → write '0.40' → close the dialog.

16. Since we have changed the firmware we can tweak also our slicer settings. You can download here my Cura slicer settings for the E3D v6 hotend: Download the new Cura settings here[12]


Happy printing with your brand new E3D v6 hotend!