Microswiss All Metal Hotend with Slotted Cooling Block for Wanhao i3 w/.4mm Nozzle

I bought two of the cheaper knock-off all metal hotends you can find here on Amazon. In both cases I had trouble with heat creep causing clogging after several hours of printing PLA at 200 degrees. In one case I purchased a new nozzle and heatbreak from the same supplier as the knock-off hotend, and the nozzle was so poorly machined that it wouldn’t extrude at all. The .4mm hole was almost completely occluded with metal. Perhaps a drill or machining chip?Then I bough the Micro Swiss all Metal hotend for my Maker Select v2 3D printer. Should have bought this to begin with. My son has been printing Mandalorian armor almost non-stop for a week. 20-26 hour prints. Not a single clog or air print. Works like a charm! I don’t know what all the differences are, but Micro Swiss has something the knock-offs don’t have. It just works.First of all, the steel lower section is tightly fitted to the aluminum section of the heatbreak. The top hole, where the filament enters the hot end, is deeper and smoother making it easier to feed new filament in. The nozzle is clean and well made. The inside also seems smoother than the others.I’m very pleased with this hotend. I wasted over $50 on the knock-offs. Wish I had just bought this one instead. Lesson learned!

Pros:- Can now print in excess of 280C!- Also able to print far faster and the hotend can keep up, which is very nice.- No more clogging. 4 days print time and not a single clog with any material.- Nozzle is very smooth and of great quality.- Excellent machining quality- Made in USACons:- Directions say to finger-tighten the nozzle, when hot....comes lose like that. Just use a wrench to tighten.- Nozzle replacements are spendy.Other:- So, my heating block was spinning and I couldn't figure out why. So, I tightened the slotted cooling block VERY tight, but that didn't fix it. The issue was the nozzle wasn't tight enough to the hot end...had to use a wrench. Very surprised I didn't strip out the block, because I was wrenching hard!- This is being used on a Monoprice Maker Select V2. Now am able to print PETG and nylon, without an issue. The stock PTFE tubed hot-end is garbage, replace it ASAP.

I've installed several of these over a few years and always found the quality to be good. Clean threads, true sizing, and easy installation each time. Tuning for an all-metal hot end can take a bit, but its worth the work when upgrading a printer.

I recently upgraded my Monoprice unit with this hotend primarily because I don't want to have to deal with tearing it apart every so often to replace the PTFE tube. I'm not so interested about running at higher temperatures, but at least that option is now available. So far, it's been running beautifully. I've been running at lower temperatures while simultaneously printing at faster speeds without any problems. As a result, the amount of residual strings has vastly decreased and the quality of the prints seems to be a lot better as well, although that could easily be confirmation bias. Still, many problems that I was having with the stock front end and PTFE tube have been decreased or eliminated, and it's nice to run my prints at a cooler temp but at faster speeds with no apparent impact in quality.Yes, PTFE tubes are a lot cheaper. But if this won't break your bank account and you're going to tear your extruder apart anyway, you should strongly consider upgrading to this and getting rid of the need for PTFE tubes.

The media could not be loaded. After reading numerous reviews and comments about this upgrade here and on other sites, I decided to try it anyway. My Monoprice maker select V2 had been doing ok but the factory hot end had started clogging or needing some type of attention after every print or every other print so I needed to do something. Since installing the micro Swiss all metal hot end, I have had 0 trouble with it. I have printed numerous items with it in several different filaments and not had a single problem. I also installed a hardened nozzle so I can print specialty filaments. Overall, my prints are better than they were with the old hot end and after some slicer adjustments, I get better quality prints faster with the micro Swiss hot end installed. I did use thermal compound on the tube and nozzle threads and the fan-heat block junction. Other than that, I followed the directions for installation to the letter. I also installed a new 40mm fan while it was all apart since my original one was losing its bearing. Overall, this upgrade it totally worth it, especially if you want to print with higher temp materials.

I will say that I trust the quality of the company, but I just had a bad experience with the product. First, the steel heat break is rounded with two flat sides that can fit a small wrench. The problem is that it's very easy to strip the sides and make the throat near-impossible to remove without using something with teeth- which would cause more damage. This could be fixed better if the break was shaped like a full bolt. Second, the slotted cold block is a great idea, except that the way it's made makes it impossible to adjust the orientation of the heater block. In order to install it on a Wanhao-style machine (MS v2.1), you have to install the throat first, and tighten it since you can't get to that bolt once it's in the carriage. Then, install it onto the carriage, since you can't get to those bolts when the heater block is there. Then properly install the heater block with the nozzle. The last part makes it incredibly difficult to both properly tighten the nozzle and have the heater block oriented the right way for the heater and thermistor. Because of that, my nozzle started to leak PETG, which basically glued the nozzle and heat break together in the heater block, so I ended up losing nearly my whole hotend. These guys are pretty expensive to just lose.