Good evening folks.
So i know there have been multiple threads on this topic, but i dont know if the solution im using has been used fully yet or not, so i wanted to bring it up.
I am using a piece of aluminum tubing.
KS Engineering from Ace Hardware - its 1/8 x .014 Stock # 8102
It measures 58.5mm as its cut to fit in my extruder.
Ive got some video footage of me installing it and showing it, if someone wants it, or think it would help.
So I had to sand down about 15mm of the tube to allow it to fit all the way from the top of the hex to the hotend part (heating chamber). The rest goes all the way up to the hobbed bolt. This also doubles as a way to print 1.75mm flexible filament, as its guided the moment it comes out of the hobbed bolt all the way to the nozzle.
Ive printed the following temp tower with PLA (just 1 temp) and it came out perfectly. Ill continue to test to see if i have any issues at all using it, but it should be solid.
thanks
Are you using the 3mm hotend and extruder that came with your TAZ 5? If so it was really never meant to extrude 1.75mm filament and therefore nothing to resolve. Getting 1.75mm filament to feed through the 3mm was a best effort type of thing to get people through their existing stashes… Continuing to buy 1.75mm filament for an extruder meant for 3mm, well…
If people plan on extruding 1.75mm permanently you should get the 1.75mm hexagon AO or E3D-v6. It should produce more consistent and accurate results.
Regarding your fix, you nailed it on the head. 
The extruder and hotend needs to be be reduced from 3mm to ~1.75mm. To create the proper vacuum required to get accurate retraction, there’s probably a volume reduction required in the nozzle / heater block… But your fix should work in the real-world.
Yes, i am using the stock 3mm setup. Me personally i have about 40 spools of 1.75m and the possibility of selling off my 2 other printers for a 2nd taz is likely. So I either sell it all (for a massive loss) or use it
I am lazy, yet not at the same time haha.
I dont want to go through the wiring, etc, all of that to put a new hotend on for 1.75mm filament so I did this.
SO last night I printed a FAN shroud in ABS (perfect)
I did that tower in PLA, perfect
I am doing a vase now in red PETG and its about done (perfect).
So far anyway im not seeing “iffy” results, its just results. Things could change of course, but guiding the filament all the way to the melting point should considerably help quality and consistency with this.
EDIT : this just finished a moment ago… magenta PETG 1.75m
I forgot to mention… The prints look awesome!
Thanks
Im hoping it holds up. I see no reason why this shouldnt work… Its essentially doing the same thing, shrinking the diameter.
Other fixes ive seen only reduce it via PTFE in the extruder portion, nothing has previously really addressed the hot end.
Hopefully like i said this fix holds up and continues to produce good prints. I wont know that ill pay $100 to change the hotend if this is working so well (and will likely be a flexy struder by design too)
That last print is beautiful. I wonder if a lathe turned piece of aluminum rod would make it a dual purpose hot end? I am also wondering if a 1.75 hotend could be bored out if it has enough material that is, to 3 mm?
A few things… the gold colored screw in collett thing on the top of the hotend would need to be replaced. There isnt enough material in that piece (at least) to bore it out. Otherwise I would think there may be 1.25mm shared around the inside of that thing to bore out. Has to be incredibly smooth though. Any nick in there could cause issues.
I want to try some ninjaflex tonight . Ill need to put some painters tape down, as that stuff does NOT come off of PEI at all
Perhaps ill try some copperfil too.
SO i just finished my hand print (dang cool design) with ninjaflex and it worked flawlessly. Lot of hairs and some stringing, because i didnt set retraction settings (in fact i had it set to 0). But it never hesitated feeding it through.
So far i have without any issues printed
PLA
ABS
PETG
Ninjaflex
T-glase
I may try copperfil tomorrow for s&g’s but its stiffer than ninja, so i dont presume id have an issue.
Copperfil Abe says “This mod works” haha
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So i didnt want to make a new post, so i thought id put it here… here is what a night in the tumbler + 5 minutes of polishing with the dremel produced. There is a bit more work to be done, but turned out pretty well. .2mm layers too. next time at .1 the layers will be less visible.
BTW, on the right, einstein was post tumbler, no polishing. but this is copper, so we want that dull petina.
Could you post the video of the installation and final product? I think I’ll try something like this for my Mini and see if it works. Thanks!
Regarding your fix, you nailed it on the head. The extruder and hotend needs to be be reduced from 3mm to ~1.75mm. To create the proper vacuum required to get accurate retraction, there’s probably a volume reduction required in the nozzle / heater block… But your fix should work in the real-world.
