E3D-V6 disassembled after one year of use

After more than one year of printing I disassembled my E3D-V6 today. It was still printing fine, I had nothing to complain, it's because I wanted to change the x-Carriage.

 

Impressive, how dirty this piece of hardware is, if you take a closer look. I could not get a good view on the hotend because of the way it was mounted. This is going to change now. So, while disassembling and cleaning, I tried to take some pictures.

If you look closely, you can see that the filament was melted exactly up to the mid of the heatbreak. Behind this point is has it's original diameter of around 1.65mm. The heatsink had never touched any molten filament and is dirty, too. Probably because of condensing ABS-fumes. But the heaterblock and the nozzle were the dirtiest:

The one thing I was curious about the most, was the nozzle-tip. Keep in mind: This is one year of printing with probably all of the faults a beginner does. It was mounted on my first printer and is my first hotend, too. Looking through a magnifier, the battlescars appear:

I cleaned this nice piece of hardware and put a new nozzle in. This time, the thermistor was set in with thermal compound. Looks like new!

 

Tags: E3D-V6