3D Printer Upgrades: For Improved Print Speed

If you're looking to speed up your 3D printing, one of the best 3d printer upgrades you can make is to your hotend. The hotend is the part of the printer that melts and extrudes the filament, so improving its performance can have a big impact on your print speed. Here are three hotend upgrades that can help you print faster:

Vertical heater cartridge: #

A vertical heater cartridge is a type of hotend that holds the entire heater cartridge in a vertical position, rather than just a partial section of the heater cartridge in horizontal style hotends. So more of the heat is directed into the filament, making it easier to melt and extrude. One of the main advantages of this design is that it can help reduce heat loss, allowing you to run your hotend at a lower temperature and still achieve the same level of performance.

Longer melt chamber: #

Another way to improve the performance of your hotend is to increase the length of the melt chamber. A longer melt chamber allows the heat to transfer more fully into the filament, giving you more time to transition it from a solid to a liquid. However, one of the drawbacks of a longer melt chamber is that it leads to more oozing during travel moves, because there is more time for the filament to flow before it is extruded.

High temperature capability: #

When printing at high speeds, you may need to run your hotend at a higher temperature than normal in order to get the heat into the filament fast enough. This can be especially important when printing with materials that have a high glass transition temperature, as they may require more heat to melt properly. It's worth noting that all metal hotends allow for much higher temperature printing than PTFE based hotends. Just be sure to keep an eye on your hotend temperature, as running it too hot can cause problems like oozing, and crystallization of the filament.

If you are running your hotend hotter to print faster, there are many considerations to keep in mind. For example, if you are printing a large model and your printer does a long travel move from one end of the bed to the other, your filament will be cooking inside the hotend during the whole travel move and may also ooze out of the melt chamber. In these cases, it can be beneficial to spend time setting up your slicer to mitigate large travel moves, or possibly enabling combing.

Layer Cooling: #

In addition to these hotend upgrades, it's also important to have good layer cooling ability in order to solidify the filament that you printed. This can help improve the overall quality and speed of your prints.

3D Printer Upgrade Conclusion: #

So there you have it – three 3d printer upgrades that can help you print faster and more efficiently. Whether you're looking to reduce heat loss, increase the melt chamber length, or run your hotend at higher temperatures, these upgrades can all make a big difference in your print speed. Just be sure to consider the pros and cons of each option, and choose the one that best fits your needs.

Happy printing!

Pst! after reading all that you must be wondering... what possible hotend has all of these upgrades?