The Extruder - Printing in Plastic: Build Your Own 3D Printer - page 240

Some Soldering Required
Before you begin, you need to be aware that building the Extruder is going to require soldering. This
means that a soldering iron and solder will be used at one point in the assembly for making solid
connections between wires and certain components in the Extruder.
If you don't know how to solder or are uncomfortable soldering, we highly encourage you to
outsource this part of the project. It's highly likely that you know someone (a friend or co-worker,
maybe) that has the proper equipment and knowledge. The required soldering will take less than 15
minutes total so it's not going to require a huge time investment.
Another option to consider is placing a “help needed” request on a site such as craigslist.com ; you
should expect to pay anywhere from $25 to $50 for the soldering work if you choose to hire someone.
If you've never soldered and would like to learn how, you're in luck; for less than $30 you can
purchase a decent soldering iron from Radio Shack that will be more than adequate; tubes of solder can
typically be found for less than $10. You could spend more, but unless you expect to be doing a lot of
soldering in the future, try to keep your costs down by buying the minimum tools that you need. In all
honesty, you're not going to need a $100 soldering setup for the work required here, so don't go crazy.
Some great soldering tutorials can be found on the Web; one such tutorial that can help you decide
if you'd like to tackle the job yourself is on the Instructables web site at www.instructables.com/id/How-
to-solder/ . Check it out; we think you'll find that soldering isn't as scary and complicated as you
might think.

■ Note Soldering produces fumes that can be dangerous to inhale. Read all instructions on your soldering

equipment as well as the actual solder purchased and follow the guidelines to stay safe.

Prepare the Extruder
Your first step in assembling the Extruder is to screw in the nozzle and feed the cylinder into the heater
core. Before you do this, however, you need to coat the threads on both the nozzle and feed cylinder
with the anti-seize grease that will help prevent corrosion and rust inside the component over time (it's
included with the Extruder kit). Collect all four components as shown in Figure 14-1.