Different Hotends  

RE: Different Hotends

so as I dive furthe into printing with the mosquito, I read here in this thread that nozzle swaps can be done cold ? 

RE: Different Hotends

It can be done cold, btu I still warm it up a little.  

RE: Different Hotends

I do nozzle swaps cold and the main thing is there will be a higher "breaking" force to loosen the nozzle as you will have to twist the plastic on the inside. If you warm it up around 100c+, the plastic should be pliable enough and reduce the breaking force. It doesn't really matter as long as you properly support the mount and loosen.

Also if I remember correctly, you also got a sock. I was able to still do nozzle changes with the sock on, just had to push the wrench up to compress the silicone. Only need a little of the nozzle exposed to get it removed.

RE: Different Hotends

Posted by: @4nthonylin

I do nozzle swaps cold and the main thing is there will be a higher "breaking" force to loosen the nozzle as you will have to twist the plastic on the inside. If you warm it up around 100c+, the plastic should be pliable enough and reduce the breaking force. It doesn't really matter as long as you properly support the mount and loosen.

Also if I remember correctly, you also got a sock. I was able to still do nozzle changes with the sock on, just had to push the wrench up to compress the silicone. Only need a little of the nozzle exposed to get it removed.

Thanks! that's good to know about the sock, that is perfect. I'm going to possibly swap to a .2 nozzle soon. Is a cold pull reccmeneded before swapping ? 

RE: Different Hotends

I'm not sure if it is recommended but it's unnecessary to do a cold pull. The leftover filament should be pushed out next time you place it on the printer.

Only exception is if you had just used a higher temp plastic such as ASA, PC Blend, you should purge it with PLA/PETG. Otherwise if you forget what material is in the nozzle, you can run into issues when trying to load PLA when ASA was previously loaded. In that case I just purge my nozzle with PLA/PETG.

RE: Different Hotends

Still considering the Mini, but stock hot end seems suspect. Is there a drop on replacement targeted at reliability (rather than performance)?

RE: Different Hotends

One thing you can do is install the Bondtech Heatbreak https://www.bondtech.se/en/product/bondtech-heat-break-for-prusa-mini/ in conjunction with the Bondtech extruder most likely. The extruder would require EStep configuration at start g-code.

However I read that people with the bondtech heatbreak still saw this issue occasionally albeit at a reduced rate. If the Mosquito is too expensive, I would suggest either a Mosquito clone like the Dragon Hotend, E3DV6, or Copperhead. You would need to either design a mount or find a community one.

RE: Different Hotends

Yea I would not bother with the bondtech heatbreak, it didn't help my situation. The mosquito solved my issues. If you get a mini try it before anything else ,you might luck out and have no issues.

RE: Different Hotends

I will eventually buy another mini to tryout more hotends and extruders.

RE: Different Hotends

@4nthonylin

This is very good news. i actually got my mini to print pla and petg without any problems on stock gear but as i want to incorporate some flex filaments, i ordered the bondtech extruder. should arrive this week. i almost ordered a mosquito, too until i read your post and now i'll wait for a possible preconfigured one for the mini. good call, thanks! 🙂

RE: Different Hotends

WHAT?  This is really Alarming for me -  just about to buy a Mini. I am on a disability pension and there is no way I could afford an alternative head. I can barely afford the Mini.  I mention this because it would be inexcusable to sell something broken...period, but for people on lower incomes - double so. I am sure it would be the same for many - as it sits firmly in the "1st Printer" slot.

Have Prusa not acknowledged this?  It does not matter at all that the mini is so much cheaper - It should work. 

I'm off to see if I can find anymore about this, feel free to send me in that direction....

WillB Xx

I need to know if it has been sorted out, or if it is the same for all Mini's. 

Feeling a little disillusioned right now - but if this is not fixed - glad I found this page.

RE: Different Hotends

Posted by: @william-b47

[...] Feeling a little disillusioned right now - but if this is not fixed - glad I found this page.

I suggest you continue to monitor here as well as 3rd party groups like the various Reddit 3D printing discussions. Keep in mind that people come here with problems and only rarely report that things are going swimmingly well. While there are definitely problems that some users are encountering, there are a lot of people NOT having issues and getting good results.

You always have to ask yourself "as compared to what?" I like to look at "first print" posts and compare those with prints generated on other printers. The Prusa prints tend to be pretty good. I can tell you that there are lot of people buying printers not much cheaper than the Mini that don't have near the success rate, nor the support that Prusa users can expect. 

I purchased my Mk3 not long after release, and the first year was similarly filled with similar reports of "completely unplayable" problems. Most of those were worked out and the Mk3 is now the workhorse reference printer. The "602 issue" was decried as a major problem, with similar reports by users claiming it was a disaster. In the end, general consensus is that it's a lighting issue, present to some degree on all FFF printers.

I recently purchased a mid-range consumer-grade printer from another manufacturer (Artillery Sidewinder X1) and can tell you that results are nowhere near the same without a lot of work, and support is abysmal (60+ days for replacement parts). I've spent most of my time resolving QC assembly issues and a bad AC bed cabling design could have been a fire hazard. After 3 months, I'm only now getting consistent prints that rival what my Prusa kicked out on day one.

I'm not here to evangelize Prusa or any other brand. Just observe other discussions and compare what the general experience tends to be before panicking over a relatively small number of "this sucks!" messages. It's also interesting to watch these issues be worked out over on the Prusa GitHub pages. Unlike most printer manufacturers, Prusa lets us observe this process. Prusas aren't perfect by any means, but they're still the benchmark against what most competitors are measured.

RE: Different Hotends

Re: Mini Copperhead Adapters - After significant testing time, I feel comfortable posting this adapter.

Thingiverse: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:4573866

PrusaPrints: https://www.prusaprinters.org/prints/38862-prusa-mini-copperhead-hotend-adapters

Comments, critiques and constructive criticism welcome.

RE: Different Hotends

@jasii

This looks awesome. I'm still on the fence if I'll get a mosquito or a copperhead. other than being able to coldswap the nozzle, is there any other advantages to the significantly more expensive mosquito?

thank you so much for sharing your work!

RE: Different Hotends

@strandedbandit

“The Mosquito™ has a radical design featuring a protective roll cage around the most thermally efficient heat break (85%!) available on the market. It allows for cold, one handed nozzle changes.”

RE: Different Hotends

@charles-h13

are you selling them? 😀

RE: Different Hotends

@strandedbandit

Mosquito vs. Copperhead? As always, it depends 🙂 I have both. My MK3s/MMU2s has a Mosquito and my MK2s/MMU2s and Mini both have Copperheads. So just a few quick thoughts.....

Basically, if you are not going to replace the stock firmware, heater and thermistor to print higher temp, exotic filaments then either will do you better than stock. If you are going 'exotic' then the Mosquito would be my choice.

• Both have eliminated my clogging/jamming issues especially with the MMU2s
• The Mosquito is more efficient with tighter tolerances in its all-metal filament path (No internal PTFE like Copperhead & E3DV6)
• The Copperhead allows for a single, continuous filament path if you have a Bowden setup (Mini)
• If you swap nozzles a lot (.4 to .2, etc) then the Mosquito allows single tool replacement
• ...I can keep going with this list praising one or the other but it it is really up to what you want to do!

Note: My choices reflect that I just print PETG (95%) and PLA (5%) w/.4 nozzle on all machines.

Jerry.

RE: Different Hotends

@jasii

Thanks again for your thoughts! I will give these some pondering. As for exotic filaments...is nylon considered exotic already? 
The Mini is my first and because of limited space probabyl only printer for a while, so I'd like it to be a powerful machine yet I don't want to try to make it print things it's just not capable to do. 

At the moment no jams with petg on stock hotend and bondtech extruder. I want to try flexibles but i'm afraid to ruin my stable setup 😀

i guess copperhead and mosquito both can do flexibles just fine as long as the extruder can keep up?

Best regards

RE: Different Hotends

@strandedbandit

"...is nylon considered exotic already? "

No. I believe from a temperature standpoint Nylon can be used for small prints with the stock MK's and Mini. I just haven't had occasion to try. There are some posts in the forum stating both positions. 1) Prusa says you shouldn't on the Mini, & 2) Been doing it on my Mini and it works fine.

As far as working 'fine', if you have no complaints and the printing is doing what you want then I wouldn't change a thing. I do some very long prints, 24+hours, and it was just jamming too much with stock.

RE: Different Hotends

@jasii

and again thank you. "Fine" is not having to think about starting a 3-hour print and just getting the result, I'm hoping for. I'll slowly up the print-complexity and -time and will see then, if I encounter any problems.

For precaution I'll print the mounts for the mosquito and the copperhead before finally deciding. 🙂