Good/Better/Best: Which Hotend is Right for You?
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- čas přidán 25. 06. 2024
- This video is the first in a series of educational-quality to teach viewers about different aspects of 3D printer design. In this episode I will take a deep-dive into 3D printer hotends.
If there are any aspects of hotend design that you feel I left out, please let me know in the comments and I will try to cover it in a future video.
I am planning on making more videos on: Extruders, Design for printability/Slicers, Motion systems/Mainboards, and Part cooling. Let me know if there is another topic I should add, or if you have a preference on which video I make next!
Discord Channel:
/ discord
Amazon Affiliate Links to the Products Reviewed:
KLEMCO V6 Multi-Mount Designed for Creality 3D Printers
amzn.to/2PEDujO
Microswiss Extruder and Hotend Kit:
amzn.to/2W9rrOG (With Extruder)
amzn.to/3lfw2sO (Hotend Only)
V6 Extruder Hotend + Extra Parts (+alternate listings)
amzn.to/3rHEPo6
Voxelab Aquila:
amzn.to/2QbF1hw (The one I ordered)
amzn.to/3d7TEeI (alternate link)
Creality Ender 3 v2:
amzn.to/3bx7sNK
Introduction: (0:00)
Nozzles: (0:30)
Heater Blocks: (2:47)
Heatbreaks: (6:54)
Heatsinks and Mounting: (13:01) - Věda a technologie
![Eminem - Houdini [Official Music Video]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/22tVWwmTie8/mqdefault.jpg)
Finally, an actual guide on the general process of picking a hot end, this should have been the first video to pop up when i searched for this because its the only one that actually fits what i was searching for lol
One of the best hotend guides/tutorials I've ever come across. Thanks. Lots of new avenues to explore, i.e. j head hotends. I'vebeen getting more and more into larger functional prints requiring faster print speeds and higher flow rates and will be looking into some of these different style hotends.
Personally I think a 0.6 or 0.8 volcano hotend is a great middle ground. You can print 1kg in 20 hrs with one of those, and you retain decent quality on smaller details.
I am working on a 1.2mm hotend. I should be able to print a kg of filament in 3-4 hrs. At that print speed, retractions, part cooling, and financing your 3d printing habit get tricky, but bed leveling becomes easier.
This is by far the best explanation I have seen on how hot ends work, and their different designs. And practical too!
Absolutely strong video that is finally understandable. Most videos tend to leave you not understandable how it all really works properly
Thanks for that overview :) i really appreciate your work.
Excellent video. This answered literally every single question I had, I went in knowing 0 about hotends and after watching i feel like a hotend expert.
IF I HAD SEEN SOMETHING LIKE this YEARS AGO I COULD HAVE SAVED a lot of time, materials, and bad moods. Very nice, thanks.
Sounds like you have made some mistakes and learned from them!
Damn this is the sort of video i have been looking for, awesome information thank you for your time
Man... you teach me a lot... thanks master! may the force be with you.
Nice how you explain this. Easy to follow and well-grounded info. I think you commented the two extra screws in the Ender quite well. The MicroSwiss hotend works great if retraction is set correct. Well executed and informative video.
Wow what an awesome through guide Nathan! even picked up something new about the Klemco mount, ill point anyone I know who wants to get into 3D printing or got recently into it to your channel
Very articulated information, structured, straight to the point, Educational level. Thank you
Awesome video thank you! I keep reading on the boards all these terms and I had no idea what they were talking about. Now I know what they're talking about😊
Excellent Video. Thanks!
great video man. im newbie to the subject. and this was a good walktrought explanation of hotends.
Awesome video. Thorough explanation.
this was an awesome video. Packed with info, thank you
thanks for this fantastic video!
Much respect to the thorough video!
Excellent video. Very well explained. Thank you.
Really great, I have a growing appreciation for the complexity of the hotend. Much more of a concern than I originally cared to know - pretty important.
Yeah, I will be doing an episode on the mosquito hotend soon, that thing is a beast. Phaetus rapido is also pretty crazy
This video is very informative! Thx
Really thorough and cleared a lot of stuff up for me. Thank!
Thank you!
Wow,
Comprehensive talk, well done.
Excellent information, thanks!
Really amazing explanation!
New to the channel, but enjoyed this breakdown! I feel like the tendency is for people to say, “do this upgrade” without explaining the why and the pros/cons.
Hopefully this series is something you consider revisiting in the near future!
A cheap and good way to improve hotend on Emder 3 is to use an all metal heatbreak (best titanium) and taking off the 2 screws between heat block and cooling ribs. This is a much good solution for me! Thanks für this perfect hotend guide, it's very well produced i think and very informative 👍😊
Excellent Video.
Video on point 👌
Wow this is such good info.
Best guide for this topic. Continue the 3D printing university series please
Wow! That was fantastic. I'm a beginner and this exactly answered all of my questions regarding a hotend. Thank you so much for posting this. My only complaint is that I have a Prusa and you specifically mention the Ender, but not the Prusa. But I can go and search from here.
Thanks! The prusa has the v6 style hotend and heatsink. Good luck in your search for knowledge!
YOU ROCK!
Excellent
Great explanation of the concepts and constraints. Unfortunately I'm just past the point where I could have used that info. Still an awesome package!
The cartridge style thermistors are WAYYY better than the glass bead thermistors. Mine used to jump out no matter how well I secured it. It finally got eaten by the molten filament blob monster and I decided to upgrade it to E3D's cartridge thermistor. A quick change in Marlin and PID tune and I've never looked back. Bonus points for now having the wiring disconnect so if/when I replace it, there's no more cutting or soldering. Just disconnect the old and reconnect the new.
12:05 Chep recently debunked the myth that the two screws joining the heat block to the heat sink result in heat creep. Whether he used the screws or not, the heat sink ran at a paltry 32’C. The screws resulted in that temperature being reached sooner in the print, but if 32’C gives your filament trouble, your filament is not up to the job. The heat sink’s cooling capacity far overwhelms the heat creep of the screws.
I saw that video after this one, probably would have had addressed that in the video if I had seen it.
I think a big reason is the screws don't actually touch the heater block that much, other than a few points of contact on the threads. It would be different if it was threaded into the heater block and threaded into the heatsink, because then it would have a lot of contact area on both parts.
I wonder if it would make more of a difference at high temperatures
You can also get hotends that use thin titanium screws here again making the heat transfer very minimal whilst still allowing easy nozzle changes.
Very useful video. New to it all still so these vids really help. Was kind of hoping to see bi-metal heatbreaks talked about though.
At the time of filming I had used one bi-metallic heatbreak and it fell apart, so I wasn't sure if they were a good idea. I think the bugs are getting worked out and the new ones from reputable manufacturers should be plenty strong.
I have one from Slice Engineering I am going to test out soon. I'll do some thermal imaging comparing it to the stock setup, probably in a couple weeks.
Nice explanation
Good info for rookies like me. But a couple of potential corrections from an old electron pusher on the electrical section. First, the Ohm's law thing is likely to give a false indication of actual wattage of the heater. Resistance heaters (including old tungsten light bulbs, etc) have resistance that changes (goes up) as they heat up. The low 'cold' resistance causes a large surge of current when first powered on, which tapers off rapidly to the 'running current' as it heats up to normal operating temperature. The other issue is the thermistor statement, saying that as temps go up, resistance goes up. Thermistors come in two basic flavors, PTC and NTC. As one might guess, NTC stands for 'negative temperature coefficient', and PTC indicates 'positive temp....'. If the printer is using an NTC thermistor, resistance will go down as temperature goes up.
Now, a request from this printing rookie: How about a video that quantifies the diameter/thread pitch/length of nozzles, heat breaks (including sleeve diameter where they go in the heat sink), heater diameter/length/voltage/wattage, thermistor type/diameter/length, connector types used for each heater and thermistor, etc, for each hotend type. It would be nice to know the same info about each printer. Some of this stuff *looks* like it could be mixed/matched, but that obviously isn't always true, even within the same brand (at least if it's Creality...).
Thank you for all the work I know it takes to create this content, and I hope you didn't mind the thoughts on the electrical stuff.
good vid nice work
for the heat break there's the mosquito style (like the 2 part blue and copper one) which has the rigidity of additional standoffs while avoiding the heat creep.
the standoffs avoids the heatbreak having to hold the heater and nozzle, which allows it to be even thinner.
Thank you.
I did an experiment on my Ender 3 Pro. Measured the temp of the heatsink with and without the 2 screws fitted. It was only around 2-3 degree C different. I dont believe the screws are that much of an issue wih heat creep.
This video is very useful for the community i request you to please make more videos like this. It will clear all doubt for any beginners like me.
Thank you Maan. I have another video on Extruders planned, which will discuss some fundamentals of wheel grip!
@@NathanBuildsRobots i hope we as community get as soon as possible aslo please make videos about bards and kinematics because that is the most fun part, most maker l ii ker wood workers and metalworker will benefit from your yours. We actually wants to to get involved in 3d plastic printing
Cool video very informative. Yeah about video suggestions, there’s no one yet doing a video of really measuring the temperature creep..
Previously without Bowden there seems to be just extruder then the hotend. There’s no heat break, heat sink or Ptfe tube. The nozzle goes right thru the heat block straight into the extruder only a 2.5mm gap. It would be cool if u can make a video measuring the different type of fancy heat sink heat break just to know if the temperature really creep so much up. Your explanations are great and well presented. Thanks for making such a video.
@4:17 Yeah, true: an aluminium heater block will melt if you try to print with a temperature above 660 degrees celsius 😂
Yeah, and AL has the tensile strength of butter when you get to the 400+ range
First off, you posted this on my birthday! Awesome, you also answered every question I had about the problems I was having with my Ender 3 and Sunlu S8. Now I just want a recommendation for a printer I can use with a 1.2 Nozzle!
Well, the main thing is you want a good dual gear direct drive extruder.
It will really help feed that 1.2mm nozzle. Most cheap printers don't have dual gear direct drive, so you if you buy something cheaper you'll probably have to upgrade the extruder.
The ender 3 S1 has a good extruder out of the box that will be able to extrude 25 cubic mm per second, which is about 5x what a typical cheap bowden setup can do.
@@NathanBuildsRobots I have a Sunlu S8 with dual gear extruder. I'm nervous about trying it is my problem. I'll try it one good weekend or holiday. I originally wanted to build bigger models for selling but discovered it was easier to sell files. However I still want bigger models done fast. Your video made it easier to comprehend
Thanks for this explanation. I notice that for filament exchanger system, versions like Bambu Lab cut the filament, while Prusa just retracts. To save the extra part for a filament chopper, it seems like retraction is the way to go. But so far, I haven't been able to come up with retraction settings that don't leave a plug that is of larger diameter than then original filament, which eventually results in deforming the PTFE filament in the hot end. I've just got an all metal hot end, and I'm working on getting it dialed in to just make normal prints work reliably, let alone be able to remove the filament from the system. However, I'm now thinking that forcing users to go with an all metal hot end would add just as much cost to the system as a filament chopper!
Was really looking forward to the snarky joke 🤣
Not sure where theres room for a joke here. It's just a 15 minute video about how to get the most flow out of your nozzles.
You open my eyes, dude. I don't want any longer the volcano, but to upgrade to copper 👍
Lol not sure that’s what the takeaway is. If you look at an overall thermal model the material choice matters less than you’d think. The big lump of thermal resistance is between the nozzle and plastic. Check out CHT nozzles
This was pretty informative. Now i understand better why I'm having poor results with my Gulf Coast Robotics hot end...
so good.
Be sure to take any cartridge thermistor apart and check them, most are cheap and the thermistor is just floating in side and not thermally coupled to the metal at all.
Personal Self Notes:
- PTFE in HeatBreak is used to reduce amount of friction inside of the hotend to get cleaner extrusion,
- for an all-metal hot end to get similar levels of performance it needs to be highly polished on the inside but to me the main advantage of an all-metal hotend is that you don't have to be heating up this ptfe liner to the melting point because it'll start to release volatile gases
- Screws that are used to secure hotend in place increase heat transfer up to heatsink
Thankyou for the video. The Ender style hotend has another issues with the two bolts as they are offset from the centre of the heat block towards the back. As you do them up, the heater block bends upward at the back because of this offset. Any difference in the tightness of either bolt and the block twists side to side as well.
fyi a lot of more expensive non stick pans use a ceramic coating which is good to like 300C instead of ptfe (though the handles and glass lids are recommended for
Great explanation on hot ends. On the micro swiss do you have problems where the heat break meets up with the hot end? I'm not sure I like how it just sandwiches together.
The plastic should always be solid in that region. I have heard reports of ppl having it jam in that interface due to the plastic being molten and solidifying in the nooks and crannies of that joint, but I have not experienced that myself.
I did the metal throat replacement like you did in 12:49, but once in a while it would clog. I put some canola oil into the tube and burn them off inside for a coating and it worked much better.
That is an interesting idea. I may try it.
You sound like one of those cast iron people! 🍳 😅
Nice idea, seasoning it.
Clever! I would love to see if it also reduces resistance while printing
3:40 - V6 Nozzle is 12.5 mm in length, Volcano is 21. This is 68% of advantage for Volcano (not "twice").
Moreover: we need to take into concideration that the plastic melting not only in the nozzle - bottom part of the heatbreak is a part of the melting zone as well. So the real difference between V6 and Volcano is 11 vs 18 mm3/sec. Which is also significant.
1:20 - this is not how melting zone works. Molten plastic behaves like a liquid - it is not able to desrease its volume under the preasure.
The thing you have described heppens between the feeder and the *beginning* of the melting zone as filament able to stretch and shrink in favour of the diameter.
I have seen two experiments to determine if the two Screws increase the heat transfer to the heatsink on the MK8, the increase was negligible in both experiments.
Just watched CHEP's video on the topic, very interesting.
czcams.com/video/eM-rJWBuWhw/video.html
It would be interesting to see a full heat transfer analysis on the hotend, taking into account radiative, conductive, and convective heat transfer.
Do you have a link to the parts that you use. Excellent post..
I will do dedicated videos on each machine soon, will share about them then. Which build were you most curious about? Can always ask for some details on the Discord!
12:00 you can just remove these screws. I experienced a lower temperature of the heatsink after removing them and had no noticable effect on printing quality/reliability. Just make sure to snug up the nozzle real tight to the heatbreak while everything is hot, so that the nozzle and heatbreak can't move.
Yeah, aren't you supposed to unscrew them ? I thought it was only used for when you need to change the nozzle to keep everything straight.
this video is too good for these low views. Thank you!!
I wish someone explained this to me before I bought my Ender 3. I feel like this is almost required information before you get started because 3D printing is so maintenance heavy.
Going from the 2 screw creality mount to a klemco mount, don't you need to change the y offset ?
Yes, if you want to do it the "right way"
I'm somewhat convinced the bore diameter for the nozzle is 2mm
Ok my question is does the heat break have to fit the whole length of the heat sink? I have a tronxy core xy. That shipped with a cracked heat break. It took a month to get a replacement from them. But I couldn’t find a 35mm long heat break. Plenty of 27mm and a few 30mm. I ended up trying my ender hotend but the length was a few mm short.
It's not strictly necessary
A gap in the heatsink can cause the filament to be more difficult to feed, but it should work fine once it is fed past that point.
It's kind of like a kink in the line that the filament can get caught on, but once it's past that point it won't get caught on it, if you know what I mean.
Is there a difference between the T-V6 nozzle versus a V6 for your Rapido? Are they both compatible?
The important dimensions are all the same, so it should be cross compatible.
3dprintbeginner.com/ultimate-3d-printer-nozzle-comparison/
"The T-V6 brass nozzle is similar to the sharp version but it has more it has a different design with more copper on the tip. This should help maintain a constant temperature of the filament right to the point where it leaves the tip."
I don't think smoothness inside the bore has any effect.
After couple of hear cycles, metal what ever it may be will oxidate causing that smoothness to be mine existent.
It won't become rough, it's just it won't be slippery as it was when it was freshly machined.
Do 3d printers get hot enough to significantly accelerate oxidation? I've seen drastic surface finish changes on plain steel and copper a low as 150C.
Nickel, aluminum, stainless steel, and titanium usually don't look much different after being exposed to those temperatures. Even at PLA temperatures, i think they would be fine.
Stainless can go up to 400C before I start to see a difference (heating up a new soldering iron for instance), and with nickel Coated brass, I think you'd have a good chance of maintaining a polished surface at very high temperatures.
Is there a difference between the shape? The ender 3 is .looks more pointer but it's also the same size.
Yes, they will have different print speed characteristics and ironing performance, but the differences are really minor.
Unfortunately, these PTFE liner heatbreak hotends can clog too. I ran into these issues when printing PETG on an Anycubic i3 Mega S machine. It can deliver amazing print quality, but when you use very high retract settings to prevent PETG from stringing, it can clog the PTFE tube, whether the PTFE tube has been degraded (became tighter) or not. So just don't simply use these crazy high retract settings of 5..6mm or even more with these hotends, do some tests to check where the PETG really starts stringing and use the lowest rectract distance possible.
0:53 - Larger nozzle diameter allows print faster but less reliable and with lower quality. Trying to increase prtinting speed with larger nozzle is one of the biggest misconceptions in 3D printing world.
If your hotend capable to heat some amount of plastic in certain time - you will not increase that amount with bigger nozzle. You just allow to push more unredheated plastic, resulting in poor layer adhesion and other problems.
Heat-transfer into the plastic plays a role, here you either use a volcano style nozzle or one of the splitting ones to increase heat area on the filament, works nicely and is cheap.
The default nozzle is not 0.6mm anyways as slicers are more capable of dealing with different size extrusions.
I already have a ruby tip nozzle in the mail. Any experience with these? I saw a diamond tipped one as well for $100.
Copper is probably the best price to performance. Ruby is supposed to be good for abrasive materials, but I haven't used one.
The diamond one is interesting, I saw them on Amazon. Probably too expensive and not worth it compared to tungsten. I think diamond nozzles are powder formed Nano diamonds, which decompose at high temperatures and is not as strong a a solid diamond would be. But it's also much much much cheaper to produce.
If I'm spending that much on a nozzle I want it to be good up to 400C+, like copper or tungsten are.
@@NathanBuildsRobots price to performance-wise, I'm thinking it will pay for itself over time with it's durability (especially if abrasives aren't your thing).
Regarding heat, I am still rocking stock hot end so I'm not trying to crank it yet.
But I heard durability was phenomenal and I am willing to try at least one
So swiss end and for get it.
The creality mk8 hotend doesn't transfer enough heat to do anything I believe it was 3d nerd or another well known content creator tested it multiple times and found very little.
Mate , good content,but the sound lets you down, you really need to minimize the echo and get close to your mic.every bit counts when you want to make a good video
Thanks, I just got a new mic that I can clip onto my shirt. I've been using a boom mic on my camera for all my videos so far. I'll see how the audio turns out, hopefully its an improvement.
Why perpetuate the myth that the screws on the ender hotend contribute to heat creep?
Especially right after you mentioned that the thermal conductivity of steel is so low?
The screws are a route for conductive heat transfer, so they do contribute to the amount of heat moving from the hotend to the hotend heatsink. It is so small as to be negligible on a stock setup as I learned from CHEP's video after publishing this one.
But it may still be relevant when running a wimpy Noctua silent fan, or when using an all metal heatbreak with a skinnier tube connecting the hotend and heatsink. A thermal model would help shed some light on this but for now it is just speculation.
I would like to make a lumped model of the hotend system, I might do it on a future video and make an online calculator to to pay with the variables and see the steady-state temperature of the hotend heatsink.
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lumped-element_model
i cringe when you suggest removing the ptfe liner, My first 3d printer i missed installing that part back in first years of 3d printers....it keept becoming jammed. A few months later i discovered that put it in and i could print 300% better :P well proboly wasent polished
PLA sticks to metals when around it's glass transition temp, either overkill cooling or PTFE lining is the solution.
Or you give up after constant heatcreep issues that never fucking leave you be the switch to PETG.
The microswiss heatbreak isn't designed very well. Very easy to get heat creep and clogs. Especially with a Bowden system.
Interesting. I can see that happening, since the throat is so short. It could pull molten plastic back up into the heatsink and get stuck between the top of the heatbreak and the heatsink and solidify.
That said, I haven't had that issue on mine or the one I used at work, which have a couple thousand hours between them. Maybe I'm using better fans? I haven't run any of them in an enclosure and have printed a lot of PLA, PETG, and a little nylon. Or maybe you have some plastic stuck in that gap and its easy for the plastic to re-stick to it compared to a clean setup. Or maybe the tolerances on yours are a little off.
The one I used at work was on a CR-10 capricorn bowden setup. The one I have at home was running the Microswiss Ender 3 DD kit. I don't use either anymore since I started using the Phaetus Rapido, that thing is friggin great.
@@NathanBuildsRobots What retraction settings should you use with the MicroSwiss hotend with the shorter heat break? Do you need to reduce the retractions right down to 1-2mm? What kind of speed to you use on those retractions aswell? Very informative video aswell. Cheers.
I wouldn't use "a couple" when referring to a LOT of different items. A couple only means 2, no more.
why aren't brass heat blocks good?
They are heavier and don't transfer heat as effectively as aluminum.
It does have slightly higher temperature capabilities, but you can also get that with copper.
Brass is an alloy of tin and copper, and the loss of resistance from adding even a small amount of tin makes it much worse than pure copper.
But it's also naturally more corrosion resistant..
There are always trade-offs, but plated brass is king IMO, with aluminum being nearly as good since it's significantly lighter.
sorry, copper and zinc? I don't recall the exact alloys
at 1:40 I cringed so hard
"Nozzles"
Aluminum block performs very well. There is no reason to pay extra for copper because there is no measurable difference.
Above 300C aluminum loses strength pretty rapidly. So 300+ it should definitely be copper.
But in terms of heat transfer both get the job done well enough.
@@NathanBuildsRobots I didn't take the strength into account as I have never printed over 260-270C.
Just heated up to 290 to melt the clogg
No combination of ptfd tube and hotend is a good design. All metal hotends are the only solution.
AGREED!
@@NathanBuildsRobots Not true for PLA. PLA can clog in an all metal hotend and is more reliable in a PTFE "down to the nozzle" design.
I have pet birds and one of the things they say is to never use Teflon (PTFE) cookware because of fumes and birds' sensitive respiratory systems. Having PTFE tubing butted up against the nozzle is just as bad or worse. It's all metal hotends for me or nothing. That, and make sure thermal runaway protection is active.
It's already been proven those 2 screws don't transfer heat into the filament zone bud. Watch filament friday.
There is some contribution to heat transer. It appears to be negligible on stock setups.
meh. i found all hotends to be junk, made my own.
it will melt a brass nozzle. thats about 950C. i dont run that very often though. just its there if i want.
no heatsink required.
people get so stuck in a rut, copying each other, and forgetting to go back to basics, consider the problems, and go on a hunt for alternatives...
more details pls