HT Hotend Upgrade  

RE: HT Hotend Upgrade

Short answer: Pure PEEK is not printable on the Core One L – not even with the HT Hotend Upgrade.

PEEK requires a complete package that the Core One L simply can’t deliver:

Nozzle: 360–440 °C → The HT Hotend does reach 400 °C, but that alone isn’t enough.Bed: 120–160 °C → The Core One L isn’t designed for that range.Chamber: At least 120–133 °C for proper in-situ crystallization. The Core One L passively reaches ~55 °C max, and the firmware aborts at 65 °C. Bridging the gap from 55 °C to 133 °C with mods isn’t realistic – the Loveboard, steppers, belts, lubricants, and the Nextruder’s loadcell aren’t rated for those temperatures.

Without sufficient chamber temperature, you’ll only get amorphous PEEK, which takes a massive hit on nearly every relevant property (strength, chemical resistance, thermal resistance). Post-processing annealing can partially compensate, but it introduces significant warping.

What the Core One L with the HT Hotend can do: PEKK-CF, PPSU, PPA-CF, PPS-CF – all high-performance polymers that tolerate much lower chamber temperatures (~60–90 °C). Depending on your application, PEKK-CF could be a viable alternative.For actual PEEK, you’ll need a dedicated high-temperature machine (Intamsys, Apium, CreatBot PEEK-250, or the Prusa Pro HT90).

PS: There are already several threads in the forum covering this topic – e.g. “Chamber temperature”, “Maximum Nozzle Temperatures for XL, Core One, MK4/S”, and “Core One / Print Temperatures”. You’ll find more details and real-world experience with chamber mods and their limits there

PPS: This text was generated by AI. I asked a question and received an answer.

RE: HT Hotend Upgrade

Hi, thx for reply but that was not the question 🙂

RE: HT Hotend Upgrade

Hi, thx for reply but that was not the question

I know 😉 .... I just wanted to give you a heads-up.

The nozzle won't be released until the firmware for it is available.

RE:

Presumably you read the reply though, which stated that it can't print PEEK? Since you claim you bought it for PEEK, you will have to get a different machine and then you no longer require the HT nozzle.

Posted by: @elementarladung

Hi, thx for reply but that was not the question 🙂

RE: HT Hotend Upgrade

Yes, but it can 

PPS-CF
PPSU
PPA-CF

filament that could also be considered. But whatever—it’s not coming anyway.
What can we learn from this?
Don’t buy things just because they’re announced; only buy what’s actually available.

Now we've turned our attention to other printers.
That’s how you lose people’s trust.

RE: HT Hotend Upgrade

@elementarladung The HT hotend is not available for purchase yet anyway. Anyway, I suspect they had every intention of selling it from 6 months ago but then ran into a variety of issues. One of which was them having to redesign the Nextruder idler arm to allow for more brittle filaments to pass through. Regardless, it's my opinion that if you really need to print PPS-CF and PPSU then you are on the wrong printer anyway. 

RE: HT Hotend Upgrade

I’ve already spent nearly 700 euros just on materials for my HT conversion. I knew that going in, but I don’t care. This is my project, and I can see that I’m making progress because everything has worked so far.

Of course, not everyone has the same patience, perseverance, or time to undertake such modifications when you’d really prefer to have something like this from Prusa right out of the box.

Anyone looking to print in HT is currently in the wrong place with Prusa. Even though the HT90 is one of the most expensive models on Prusa’s shelf, the general public is still left out in the cold. Chinese manufacturers—regardless of the brand—are flooding the market with devices that I’d also like to see from Prusa.

We’ll have to wait and see—maybe there are a few surprises in store.

RE: HT Hotend Upgrade

Imagine running a company knowing there is zero R&D risk to your cashflow because your government is subsidizing you and the cost of labor is low. Same reason why Chinese EVs are so far ahead of Detroit and Japan. Innovation is rewarded. Prusa can't compete in the consumer sector anymore. It's just not possible. Where they can shine (at least in the US) is with education, business and the military. That's one area where Chinese printers are still off-limits. 

So back on-topic... With regard to HT materials, unless Prusa creates what would be essentially a Qidi 4 but for 3000 USD I don't see a path forward for them in this space. As Jan pointed out there is the HT90 but then for only a few thousand more there is the 22-IDEX which is a MUCH better printer. 

RE: HT Hotend Upgrade

Argggg... Can no longer edit my posts.... What I meant to say "... what would be essentially a Qidi 4 but for less than 2000 USD ..."

RE: HT Hotend Upgrade

Supposedly June the HT ships, PPA-CF & PET-GF can finally be in reach with the proper nozzle temps.  This will finally complete my C1L HT MMU3 build and just enjoy printing, instead of months of building/improving it.

RE: HT Hotend Upgrade

It is easier to go with Prusa HT90 if You live in Europe, same as for the IDEX22 in the US 😀
There is indeed some of us who are eager to get hands on this new HT Hotend upgrade, just because we don't want to go and do those fw mods ourselves.

@jan.d.slay
You have done great mods. You should be proud. 😀

I have made DIY hepa/carbon filter and a passive 60W convection helper floor heater to aid in chamber preheat and temperature retention. I will control it from GPIO, just to have it automated. For now it works flawlessly.
I will probably post about it sometime in the future. 😀

RE: HT Hotend Upgrade

@jan.d.slay
You have done great mods. You should be proud. 😀

Yeah, that’s me too.

That’s also why I like Prusa. For me, open source is a way to bring my ideas and visions to life exactly the way I want.

But would that have been so easy with Bambu Lab if they hadn’t had HT?

RE: HT Hotend Upgrade

Prusa ¡s far from open source nowadays.

On truly open source machines, such as Klipper based printers, upgrading to a HT hotend is easy peasy. You just replace the standard thermistor for a Pt1000 and change a couple of lines in the printer.cfg file. That is,  provided your current hotend has already a decent heater block ( made of copper, not aluminum ) and the nozzle is not brass but copper/steel/TC.

RE: HT Hotend Upgrade

Idk why You suspect this couldn't be the case here?
Only difference is You need to compile a change in a few lines of code on a Marlin based machine. And install new FW You Yourself compiled. 😀

RE: HT Hotend Upgrade

@geco0on it's more than a few lines of code. You also have to compile it, which depending on your hardware is not trivial. Also. installing the firmware requires physically breaking a fuse on the Buddy board which voids your warranty. 

RE: HT Hotend Upgrade

Updating alot of lines code and you'll have to do this for every new version. Once wouldn't be bad but each release is very tedious. 

Breaking the appendix seal Does Not Void your warranty, https://help.prusa3d.com/article/flashing-custom-firmware-core-one-l-core-one-mk4-s-mk3-9-s-mk3-5-s_814967

Compiling the code does not take long if you have a decent pc. Understanding how to compile it was the hard part, the instructions are far from comprehensive. 

RE: HT Hotend Upgrade

Fair enough, but the wording seems a bit ambiguous. Anyway, I've compiled the firmware on MacOS and it was not trivial. Might be better on an Linux box though. And you are definitely correct in that if Prusa doesn't merge your PR, then maintaining it across versions will become a headache. 

Breaking the appendix seal won’t void your warranty, so you are free to flash custom firmware.However, since there is no way for us to verify or test every single custom firmware on the internet, we disclaim liability for any kind of damage or harm a printer with a broken seal may cause (e.g. in case of a fire). So, please, don’t mindlessly flash suspicious files!