OPAM water cooled metal hot end

OPAM is a new all metal jot end with water cooling from Singapore developed by Leong Khit. It will be open sourced when the Indiegogo campaign finishes.

The design is simplified by:

• Combining the nozzle, heater block and heat sink into 1 single piece of SS304
• Using water cooling as it is far more effective than air cooling
• Removing any PEEK or PTFE material

The benefits of a One Piece design are as follows:

• No leaks/jams between the nozzle and heater block's contact surface
• No galling of the nozzle's thread (since it is built-in as part of the design)

Key Features:

• 1 piece construction (the nozzle, heater block & heat sink is combined into 1 single piece of SS304) to eliminate jams
• Water-cooled for high temperature extrusion of up to 350°C
• Short & Sharp transition from cold to hot portion (just 4mm)
• Built-in stainless stain nozzle
• Compact design (Light weight of 40 grams) for high speed printing
• Price: 60 USD for early-bird backers on IG

It is on Indiegogo now:

https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/opam-water-cooled-hot-end

Here is a detailed review by well known Thomas Sanladerer:

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Aquero self filling 3D printed bottle

3D printing is used in water desalinization / purification and water cooling projects, but here is a innovative approach by Project Aquero to use 3d printed machine to create water from air. The cooling  element is thermoelectric metal unit.

Here is a project description for their page:

Project Aquero is an effort towards creating the world’s self-filling water bottle and it has thus far been successful. Our prototypes generate 50mL of water per hour in standard conditions of 80% Relative Humidity and 24°C. In a world where less than 2% of freshwater is drinkable, an alternative means of collection is necessary. Aquero condenses vapor in the air into potable water.

It is portable with a footprint not much larger than that of a standard refillable bottle. It is cost efficient, using key innovations and modern manufacturing to maintain low prices. It is effective, optimizing condenser technology to produce the greatest water yields.

They plan to use solar panels to provide electricity on future models.

Video promo:


Project homepage:

http://www.projectaquero.com/

Related Reddit thread:

http://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/31kb6c/researchers_have_developed_a_water_bottle_that/

I really wander will this project be implemented. Prototypes look interesting ... but I see many obstacles ... For full production and distribution injection molded plastics is much cheaper but still it would be great to have open sourced 3d models ...

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DIY 3d printed water cooler block for small electronics

Instructables user Unprecedented developed a useful little 3d printable cooling block for his Raspberry Pi. It holds a copper penny on the bottom as contact to hot chip and it has plastic tubing taking in cool and taking out hot water and thus cooling the chip.

It can be used on variety of electronic parts with Raspberry Pi and other small computers being the obvious choice if you are into overclocking. Water cooling is silent and can take away large amount of excess heat. It goes without saying, if the water leaks out it will badly damage your electronics.
You could also use 3d printed peristaltic pump to push the water or just have it stream from faucet ...

It would be interesting to see how much could the design be enlarged ...

3d printed cooling block attached to a Raspberry Pi. Copper penny is on the bottom touching the chip ...

You can find all the instructions and files to make it yourself at:

http://www.instructables.com/id/Raspberry-Pi-Water-Cooler/?ALLSTEPS

Here is a video of heat conductivity test:

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Liquid cooling modification for E3D v4 and v5 extruders

E3D extruders are very popular and well designed. Here is a water / liquid cooling modification for v4 and v5 models designed by jkoljo.

Thingiverse page with files and instructions: http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:247599

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E3D Kraken full metal extruder with optional water cooling - first presentation by Sanjay Mortimer

It looks great ... it has optional water cooling if you want to use it with heat chamber or high speed / high temperatures ...

Here is summary by Sanjay from Ultimaker forum: http://umforum.ultimaker.com/index.php?/topic/1877-e3d-all-metal-hotend-for-ultimaker/page-3

Concerning water cooled and multi-nozzle hotends

Because there seems to be a bit of speculation/confusion surrounding this I am going to let the cat out of the bag.
We have on the way a small prototype run of a 4 nozzled, water cooled, bowden fed hotends.
We are calling this new hotend "Kraken" - A multi tentacled water borne monster! 

The total footprint of the hotend is only 30*40mm in XY plane, the Z height from top to tip is under 40mm, and the 4 nozzles are arranged in a rectangle only 20mm*18mm apart. The weight without electronics looks to be around 110 grams, which is barely the weight of 2x E3Dv5 hotends. Each nozzle to have separate temperature control. Each nozzle can be individually levelled and adjusted in height to be planar with the bed in a very easy and quick way.

The small size and weight despite 4 nozzles is due mainly to the high efficiency of water cooling, even with only a tiny amount of water flow and a small cooling channel we still have a massive excess of cooling capacity. The second reason is a new way of mounting/gripping bowden tubes which has all the convenience and grip of pneumatic push-fit couplers, but with significantly less bulk and weight.

We intend to keep the price reasonable, and below the price for buying the equivalent number of E3Dv5.

But to be clear - Kraken is not a replacement for the normal v5 hotend, which will remain our main product that suits most users. The Kraken is designed purely for multi-nozzle bowden feed applications. Futhermore it is not finished! We will be shipping the majority of our beta prototyping run to trusted testers. I expect problems to occur and tweaks to be necessary. I will start a separate thread once things are ready, and the final version of Kraken will be developed in a public/interactive manner so the community can input what it wants/needs so that we can give you guys what you want.

Kraken will be open-source when sold publicly.

Cheers,
Sanjay

Update:

Here is the new E3D mixing extruder preview:

http://diy3dprinting.blogspot.com/2014/01/preview-of-e3d-filament-mixing-hotend.html

Update 2 (24.5.2014.):

Sanjay released new v6 hotend:

http://diy3dprinting.blogspot.com/2014/05/e3d-v6-hotend-released.html

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