Good Day!
Let's just *Leap* right into it. Today is the last day of February, and the Chube preorders have not shipped yet. We would like to give you guys very specific updates so you aren't left with burning questions, and since you've placed your trust in us, we want to reward that trust with transparency. You have my sincerest apologies for not getting this communication out sooner, but It's been quite a busy last few weeks!
Chalice Heatbreaks: The titanium heatbreaks are currently in the process of receiving their treatment, which creates significant extra abrasive resistance while making the inside extra slick for the best possible prints! We just received an update from the treaters, that those will ship by the end of the week. They are not terribly far from us, so I estimate they will arrive after 2-3 days of shipping (that is with making space for some shenanigans, as both UPS and USPS seem to be tricky lately).
Heatblocks: A batch of the heatblocks are in the process of being plated right now. As we receive them, the first to order will be the first to receive. The platers stated 3 days ago that there is a 5-7 day lead time for the blocks they currently have in hand. So if we go by 7 business days, they should ship on the 6th (hopefully) at the latest. My shipping estimation is that we would then receive the blocks at our location between the 8th-11th of March.
Of course, that means that if someone ordered a Conduction, they might get their order before someone who ordered an Air, just because they have different blocks, assuming all other parts are available. I don't anticipate this pattern happening for long, but want to put it out there.
Additional blocks are still being machined, the shop ran into a capacity issue and will resume shortly. Here's a quick video of an air block being machined!
Meltzone Adapters: All of the meltzone adapters are machined and plated. There will be no holdup due to these.
What's a meltzone adapter, you may ask? Well, one of the cool features of Chube we've been promising is that the entire meltzone is replaceable. In addition, many of you have your own collection of nozzles, whether it be v6, volcano, and any size in between.
The Chube hotend uses a threaded-in meltzone adapter to connect the heatbreak to the nozzle, meaning that in the (hopefully near) future, we'll have an option to swap out your meltzone adapter with a shorter one to use the volcano nozzles I know some of you have!!
Hardware & accessories: All hardware is ready to go. We even have little extra hardware baggies kitted, waiting to be added to your packaging! This will speed up the assembly line appreciably.
Shrouds: This is our internal name for the Titanium Tube that makes up the exoskeleton of Chube hotends. We have about 60 of these ready to go, and the first in line orders will be shipped first, accounting for both Luke's Laboratory & Northprint3d. The machinist that we paid for tooling, programming time, and have worked with him on prototyping/qualifying the parts we have unfortunately had to part ways with due to not fulfilling any orders that we've placed since October. The order for shrouds was one of those orders placed in October, and they have not been received. He was not transparent with us that they were not coming (regardless of our frequent conversations on quantity, paperwork, down payments, etc) , so we have found a new, more local, shop to make the shrouds, with an extra advantage of significantly more capacity to keep even more Chubes rolling.
Heatsinks: The machinist who originally made these is the same one we parted ways with, with the same problems on communication on part creation status. The heatsinks have been moved to the same shop who will also be making the shrouds. These should be made fairly quickly, and are ahead of the shroud in manufacturing right now.
The lower shield: We got those all day 😄
A few other questions I've seen floating around:
Q: Will there be an EU vendor?
A: There will be a few EU vendors (in process), but only after supply stabilizes.
Q: Why don't you publish flow figures, are you hiding something?
A: We don't want to publish numbers that we can't back up or can be taken out of context. Every single setup is different, between the filament, nozzle, temperature, cooling, extruder, and 10x other factors. It's our goal to match other industry standard testing in the future, but we wanted to provide a measurable and independent means of comparing the performance of our hotend with the others, namely the length of the meltzone!
Q: Will Chube's availability be a batch or limited availability?
A: No. We are fully tooled up and committed to high availability. Once we get through this first wave of orders (unless demand is insane) expect to have continuous availability and access to Chube. We think you'll replace most of your hotends with Chube eventually, and are rising to meet that goal. I do want to add that this preorder is a massive help for small shops like myself with limited capital, so I appreciate you.
Q: Will Spare/replacement parts be available?
A: Absolutely! Most items will be available to directly purchase separately, with a few exceptions which will be available upon request.
Q: What mounts and other things are available for Chube?
A: Integration CAD is here: https://chubehotend.com/integration-information-78/
Currently, there are metal plates available for k3 at both My shop and Northprint3d. Archetype has setups for the Chube for Voron printers. A3DP put together a "mountie" for the Chube as well!
I am in possession of prototype all-metal toolhead (shoutout to Verris for making it so quickly) for Vorons and my LabMagi printer series that will have great cooling, modular extruders (and more hotend mount points, if you're so inclined to mount something else to the toolhead) and will be available somewhat soon. Pictures are attached of this, CAD will be posted when it goes for sale. Should be compatible with 6 and 9mm belts.
I am also working on direct LGX-mounting similar to the LGX ACE for Chube.
Q: Will I need BN paste or thermal paste?
A: You'll need BN paste to properly install your heaters and temp sensors. If you ordered a heater+thermistor with your Chube, it will be pre-applied for you as part of the complete assembly, but otherwise we recommend having it on hand. We've gone ahead and stocked it if you need a small tube. The heatbreak will be thermal-pasted with your heatsink out of the box no matter what.
If you've made it this far down this wall of text, I appreciate you taking the time to read it. I want to express my gratitude for trusting me and the rest of team Chube, and as a thank you, am going to offer 29% off (to celebrate Leap Day, which is also my wedding anniversary with my lovely wife and partner, Audrina) 3dxtech filament until Chubes start to ship. Use code SORRYLEAPDAY when placing your checkout.
