The extruder tip ("The Hot End") caused me quite a bit of consternation - so many choices, so many variations, what to do????
While I am happy enough to try my hand at simple electronics work (hand soldering, but no surface-mounted stuff!), and basic "carpentry" level fabrication (cutting, sawing, filing, etc), I don't have any machining skills or equipment, so in the end, I decided to keep it simple, and ended up buying the standard "Geared Extruder Nozzle" http://thingfarm.org/product.php?id_product=34 from thingfarm.org in the UK (£28.33 + £7.00 P&P to Australia), which includes all the bits you need, including PTFE thermal barrier, PEEK insulating / mounting block, 0.5mm brass nozzle, aluminium heater block, resistor (heater), and thermistor (100k). This kit only took about 1 week to arrive in the post:
Update (24 September 2011):
ReplyDeleteIt looks like ThingFarm aren't selling this any more (the link above is "dead"). Here's the RepRap Wiki entry describing my chosen Hot End: http://reprap.org/wiki/Geared_extruder_nozzle