Finned extruder

As you can see in the photo below, I've looked at the possibility of using fins to keep the entrance end of the Polymorph extruder cool. I got the idea off a gas-powered soldering iron pictured on the right. The 12mm aluminium cylinder has fins carved half-way through. These were made by rotating the cylinder in a power drill and hacking away with a large hacksaw.



Heating the cylinder up to 180C with a soldering iron resulted in a 10C temperature drop across the fins. Further experiments will use more fins, wider gaps between them, and some form of variable power supply for the soldering iron. We'll need at least 60C of temperature drop across the fins in order to reach the extrusion temperature of 120C Adrian was using without prematurely melting the incoming Polymorph.

The new AS5040 magnetic sensor samples from Austriamicrosystems arrived today, and let me say that these people really know how to provide sample kits. They even provided a small, battery-powered demonstration board with the samples and a little magnet. Vielen dank, guys!

Vik :v)