3d printing for metal casting

[roon4660]

I was just curious to see if there was anyone in this forum doing metal casting with 3d prints.

[Ender5r]

don't have any way of generating temps that high.

[roon4660]

You certainly need some space and equipment to cast metal, but I've been watching amateurs on Youtube doing 'lost PLA' for awhile. It is more interesting to me than these special metallic filaments. Probably cheaper too.

[Ender5r]

Certainly metal would produce more durable parts. I did some casting in high school. We went and got scrap metal, aluminum & magnesium because we didn't have furnace capable of melting steel, from junkyards. We mostly used pistons from wrecked cars.

[roon4660]

When I was a teenager we used to melt lead in an old cast iron frying pan on the kitchen stove. I always burn out my clogged nozzles on my stove.

[Ender5r]

Yeah lead you can do on a stove, but it's not much use for anything practical. As far as clogged nozzles are concerned, I haven't had one yet, but they're so cheap I think I would just toss a clogged one into the recycle.

[roon4660]

I would have gone through a lot of nozzles in the last year and a half if I did that.

[Ender5r]

Based on my usage so far, I wouldn't use more than 1 or 2 a year.

[roon4660]

My ender 3 pro is printing fine for the moment but I still occasionally get a clog. It is usually just before the end of a long print to give maximum frustration. I think it is caused by heat creep.

[Alan]

My ender 3 pro is printing fine for the moment but I still occasionally get a clog. It is usually just before the end of a long print to give maximum frustration. ....

<quiet voice> It's like they know. </hides>

[Ender5r]

Nah, it's the universe's way of giving you the finger Ever notice how, when you go to pull an extension cord so you can use it somewhere else, it will always find the most ackward thing near it to wrap itself around. Even though the odds of it getting caught up on this thing are, like, a billtion to 1, it still does it. How does that happen? I'm tellin' you, it's the universe givin' you the gears.

BTW, do you have Capricorn blue on that printer?

[roon4660]

I only have a short piece jammed between the nozzle and the bowden tube. It is following Chuck's idea on CHEP yt site except I don't use or need a washer because there is no room. I never get any leaks but I;ve shown you that the heat climbs up the nhot end and swells up the plastic all the way to the bowden tube when I do have my blockages.

[Ender5r]

Yes, I recall about the heat creeping up. I don't recall, is this the stock hotend, or did you change it? I don't seem to get any heat creep, so it seems a little odd.

[roon4660]

I have a Creality hot end. Probably the same one you do with the same fan. In fact I have 3 Creality hot ends and an all metal hot end I haven't tried for awhile.

[Ender5r]

In the slicer, do you let it control the fans automatically, or do you have them on 100% all the time? I wonder if having them on 100% would make a difference.