The next part of building the printer was putting together the heater barrel part of the Plastruder. The first step was to solder together the nichrome wire and the wire that will eventually connect the nichrome to the extruder controller. When we send electricity through the nichrome it will heat up, then heat up the heater barrel which it will be wrapped around and then heating the plastic that will run through the barrel. We also needed to older together the thermistor to the thermistor wires.
Next, we needed to wrap the nichrome wire around the threaded heater barrel, which is between the nozzle and the thermal barrier. We then attached the thermistor from the nozzle down the heater barrel. This step was all done with the help of our trusty friend Kapton tape. To insulate the heater barrel, we wrapped it with ceramic tape and then added a few more layers of Kapton tape, mostly to hold it all in place, but also because we just love it so much.
The next step was to add on the retainer washer. However, this involved unscrewing the barrier from the heater barrel. Somewhere in the process of unscrewing and rescrewing the barrier from the barrel, the nozzle came loose. This meant that we needed to unwrap all of our lovely Kapton tape, reset the nozzle and do it again. It slowed up progress for us and we recommend putting the retainer washer on in the beginning to avoid the possibility of having to redo it all.
Despite the little bump, we finished our heater barrel assembly. Here are some final pictures:
