How to find the best HotEnd? - Ultimate HotEnd Testing - Episode #1

[@giusn]

FINALLY someone is testing all hotends with a consistent method.... we badly needed this. THANK YOU!

[@patprop74]

Have an idea of the cost involved in such testing, hope you consider supporting the task at hand. supporting is not just for onlyfans girls lmaooo

[@giusn]

@@patprop74 actually I sent a small donation as soon as I watched this video and I'm planning to do the same after each episode of this series. Because companies do not publish useful benchmarks anymore we need independent testers in order to make informed purchase decisions and award the companies who actually do valuable r&d. We have benchmarks for PC, cars, phones, audio equipment, even vacuum cleaners but not for hotends. Without them we are at the mercy of marketing and this is unacceptable.

[@Kalvinjj]

@@patprop74 I suggest the combination of hot girls and fast printers to achieve the maximum money throughput to keep the crazy fast printing going.

[@Kalvinjj]

Agreed, there's only so far subjective tests can go, the "Look how pretty this disposable trinket is, good hotend!". CNC Kitchen does good tests as well, there thankfully are a few engineering minds out there that help it when it comes to pushing limits or getting the best consistency on results.

[@dcold]

Well, it took him over 3 minutes to get to the point,

[@jaimeleboeuf]

5 years ago I introduced 3d printing to MirageC and now THIS!!!! I'm very proud of what your accomplishing and keep up the work, you are well pushing the boundaries of 3d printing!

[@MirageC]

This is so true!!! It's all your fault that I am now stuck in this rabbit hole! Lol! Thanks man!

[@OriginalAirsoftGasser]

Was he as much of a narcissist then?

[@MirageC]

@@OriginalAirsoftGasser Of course not! I was much worse back then!

[@XeroShifter]

Very excited for this to continue. This could end up being one of the most important series of tests/videos in 3d printing. It serves at least 3 purposes. 1 it could help people tune their existing hot ends. 2 it could help people select what hot ends to buy, and 3 it could serve as a huge source of information for future development of hot ends attempting to improve maximum printing speed.

[@marcus3d]

Yes, I've never waited more for the next episode of any series!

[@MattSmith-ud4nn]

100% this is a huge deal. Thank you for advancing the art of 3D printing!

[@247printing]

One of the best videos on 3D printing I’ve seen in a long time. No oink.

[@MirageC]

Thank you mate! This means a lot to me coming from you! :)

[@247printing]

@@MirageC naaah, just a big fan here waiting for videos like this 🍻

[@marsgizmo]

excellent video! 👏😎 looking forward to your next discoveries!

[@MirageC]

Thanks for the encouragements man!

[@VladOnEarth]

So much work has gone into this! Love the outcome! Was worth this! Crazy amount of data and detail! Hats off! 🤠

[@free_spirit1]

Thank you Mirage, from the bottom of my heart, for letting the data be free, as it should be! Long live open source innovation!

[@vladl990]

This video is amazing in its quality of engineering thought! Such a great value for 3d printing community. And great example of how to organize engineering research process and glimpse into what physics is about - learned a lot from this video! I’ll be rewatching this time over time. Great job MirageC!

[@miklschmidt]

I have been waiting for this! I cannot emphasize this enough, this is AMAZING. The amount of work here is crazy, i can't wait for the rest! I'm sure i speak for many in the community when i say: BIG thank you for all your continued contributions! Awesome work, will be very useful for all of us going forward!

[@MirageC]

Thank you Mikkel! It means a lot to me coming from you! See you around :)

[@CircsC]

I'm very excited to see you doing a video series like this. You're the kind of thorough the community needs.

[@gabortoth3300]

Finally, I was looking forward to someone to do such a standardised and detailed comparison for the hotends. My compliments. Please allow me to point out, that every filament type has it's own rheological behaviour characterised with the melt flow rate (MFR) or also called melt flow index (MFI), which is a standardized industrial method to test the flow capabilities of the plastic. As I have done a flow comparison between filaments myself with the Flowtesttool from CNCKitchen Stefan (and being in the plastic processing business for all my life) I know, that the MFR is one major influencing factor for the flow capabilities of the hotend. My advice is, that during the olympics it is important that you use the same filament, even the same batch if possible, as the MFI is changing between plastic batches as well. Otherwise the test results will be not comparable. Can you please indicate the actual MFR of the plastics you used for the test, just out of curiosity? PLA filament MFR values we can buy are ranging from ~5 to 15 g/10min. The difference in flow between MFI 5 vs. 14 on a Prusa Mini hotend with 0,4 nozzle is 11mm3/s vs. 22mm3/s when they reach 10% underextrusion.

[@MirageC]

I bought large amount of spools from the same brand. Ill have to check if they are from the same batches. I will investigate about the MFR. This is unknown territory to me as of now. Any literature I could educate myself with?

[@VinokDesign]

Can you not donate him a MFI meter :P , its not that difficult to use. Used it daily at petrochemical company that was making LD-PE. anyhow i donated you some money, it could definably be a very good improvement/investment to you research

[@VinokDesign]

@@MirageC to keep it very simple: you have a cilinder with at the end a very precise hole. you put a plunger on top of the melted pellets. you ad a precise weight, I think it was 1 or 2kg. and then the meter will start to count how long it takes to extrude 10 mm. that measurement is then converted to MFR. you just have to watch that there are no airbubbels trapped when extruding in those 10mm he is metering.

[@gabortoth3300]

Actually you can misuse your own hotend setup to be a MFR comparison machine: run the same test with different spools of the same filament and you can verify, if the result is nearly the same. Then you can be absolutely sure, that you compare apple to apple. Not like Jeremy Clarkson with "Car time - xx:yy (wet lap)".

[@gabortoth3300]

@@MirageC en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melt_flow_index

[@MalvixStudio]

Excited for this series! Would love to see how a CHT nozzle changes the flow potential for hotends that could take it, to see how much could be pushed without an entire upgrade

[@MirageC]

Yes, once I have a few hot end tested, I will do one episode on the CHT's impact on those already tested hotends.

[@GuilhermeTorelly]

Wow, your work is amazing! This analysis is more complex, complete and well explained than many scientific articles. Thanks for such a great job. The relationship between temperature, flow and pressure is really complex, but your analysis explains it very well

[@MirageC]

Wow, thank you!

[@VinokDesign]

Amazing what You are doing, you are just answering all my questions i have with high speed printing, making a vez3d clone and im struggeling with the heated end. I donated some money for doing awesome science, thanks for your time and keep doing great work!

[@MirageC]

Thank you very much for your support! This means a lot to me and its helping me big time!

[@noanyobiseniss7462]

Rewatching this now that I know a little more about the tech and I gotta say the shake you added to the "Dong" was a hilarious addition that totally flew over my head the first time I watched! :D

[@properprinting]

Awesome! I'm looking forward to the rest! I mainly focused on the extruder, but the hotend is at least just as important, nice setup!

[@marcoferrari4285]

This is the most scientific thing related to 3d printing I have ever seen, amazing!!!!

[@MirageC]

Thank you! I am still working at making this project happening.

[@Solipsfilm]

Wow, this must've taken a crazy amount of work! Super interesting, I'm curious to see future results and tests 👌🏻

[@us7876]

Dude I'm getting into 3d printing and this has been one of the first videos about the matter I've seen. Is the community always like this? Focusing on variables that affects the printing, getting loads of data... Are you guys secretly building a 3d printed rocket to take over the world or something?? Impressive stuff👏👏

[@802Garage]

My man, this is an insane amount of work. Fantastic.

[@danobot12]

This is great work. Love the insane attention to detail, data capture, visualisation, analysis and explanation. Really great work man. Subscribed!!

[@Vez3D]

Incredible video man !! You da best !! Thanks for doing this for the community. I know how much time and work you have put in this one... It is very well done and documented and very professional, bringing science in. Hats off to you my brother. You deserve a big bottle of rum!! Everyone should be buying you a paypal beer :)

[@MirageC]

Thank you man! Thanks for all the motivation talks you gave me while I was down under with unsorted raw data output. You gave me the courage to finish this one! Now that the train has left the station, it should be a bit easier to produce the other episodes.

[@ResistanceLion]

The best video quality in the topic, i hoped so much to see a real tests to be put out in any review and finally i saw them. Also, i laughed a lot from jokes about 2m/s extrusion and 1g conversion for average "3d printing" auditory. My respect for yours work. Definitely remember to donate smth after the war

[@ericlotze7724]

Absolutely Amazing Project. I think this kind of data like the "Filaween" Series by Thomas Sanladerer, or all the testing done by CNC Kitchen, or the "#SpeedBoatRace" "Speed Benchies"; even just all the amazing calibration/diagnostic prints people have designed and posted online are seriously what push the movement forward. Seriously Amazing Work, This is Pushing Your Channel to Another Level, and no need to rush things, This Will Be Well Worth The Wait !

[@MirageC]

Thank you!

[@userblame632]

holy crap. I LOVE the amount of detail youre putting into these tests. This is MORE than a 3d printing channel.

[@slightwave]

Man, you're just crazy. I can't believe you made and filmed all this... UNBELIEVABLE!!!!

[@maharbatc]

My god you're taking this in a serious and scientific way, such a good work, you earn us a lot of work thank you so much for your intense work

[@kylelongstaff]

Ayo as a french Canadian I congradulate you on the script. It shows you really spent time to spell check and get the proper definitions

[@MirageC]

I know it is far from perfect, but I am working quite hard on my English from Abitibi! :) Thanks for the encouragements!

[@heyspookyboogie644]

I was just looking for some mosquito hot end alternatives or what was the latest innovations I should be looking at. I don’t normally check reviews from random channels I’ve never heard of. And in the rare cases I do, I almost never watch the whole thing, and don’t think I’ve ever subscribed. But I was so thoroughly impressed by this video (aside from the opening that almost made me leave from the overlapping audio) that I had to subscribe. Very well thought out tests and an incredible amount of thorough and considerate work went into this and that certainly earned a sub from me. Well done!

[@notmyrealname1335]

The quality of this video is incredible! So much info presented in an extremely clear and logical way. Just the 3D models alone, goodness. Well done!!🎉🎉🎉

[@thorgraum1462]

13 min into the video. this content is insane! i really appreciate you as a content creator

[@laguel336]

I'm looking forward to seeing the next episodes! Your projects and videos are amazing! Thank you for your contribution to the 3D community!

[@dva_kompota]

What a return! Great to see you back, Olivier!

[@dirkmiller9872]

This is the most important 3D printing series in a long time. Thank you for doing the legwork!

[@MirageC]

Glad you like it!

[@tomaszszczepaniak2101]

Cant wait untill next episode !!!! First time when im donating someone for this crazy job you had done

[@TheAnoniemo]

This is gonna be AWESOME! Best of luck and I'm looking forward to the results!

[@arlomaguire7363]

wish i had talked to you before, ive been working on an extremely similar design/testing for over 2 months now (although very slowly due to time limits). Great work!

[@rmatveev]

Actually - measuring the force needed to push the filament into the hotend is one of the objective which is really reflecting what is going on into the melting zone. Most of the studies available here on KZbin uses wrong approach of the skipping extruder (which can be a result of million things but the processes ongoing inside the hotend).

[@arlomaguire7363]

@@rmatveev yes, ive been using a load cell for some parts of this, as well as an lgx which makes skipping harder.

[@GoldenJaguar3D]

I’m looking forward to see the result of all these hotends, great job thus far

[@lam_xyz]

Hey Mirage! what a thorough methodology!! Is there a chance for further episodes? I would be eager to see my Vorons Dragon HF in comparisions to rapido and revo... Additionally, it would be great to have a glimpse at real prints of the different hotends, maybe a benchy for each? Thanks a lot for your great work!

[@changer1403]

What an amazing series. I loved every second of it. You're going the extra mile in every aspect and we (the community) can't thank you enough for your hard work.

[@MirageC]

Glad you enjoy it!

[@danielfeil8232]

Great test! Excited to see the next one

[@alanb76]

This is a very thorough data intensive approach to the subject. Thank you and looking forward to this and learning more about this critically important component of 3d printing.

[@yotortellini]

Been waiting for this to come back for the past year!

[@justinmoritz6543]

I thought your analysis of the cross section was really interesting! Very good idea to easily examine the elastic deformation of the filament post extrusion.

[@andrasbenke2577]

There are no words for that how amazing work you did!

[@TheTechnicGuy1]

actually so excited for this series, nice to have some really care and approach it in a standardized scientific manner

[@confusedtx5]

This is exactly what I've been looking for that the internet didn't seem to have. Lets Goooo!!

[@jimmym2719]

A very professional test comparison work done👍👍👍. Awesome details, remarkable CADs, lots of data & graphs 💪. Thank you very much for sharing your wonderful work💕

[@Etrehumain123]

Im new in 3d print and in 5 mn you provided me all the vocabulary I couldn't understand elsewhere. Hotend hotsink, ect, thank you !

[@MirageC]

Glad it was helpful!

[@AdventurePrinting]

Good lord this video is the sacred graal of extruder videos and has only 40k views. Gj, that’s awesome!!

[@jezclark4882]

Me: Olivier's channel has been quiet for a while. Olivier: I've been testing absolutely goddamn EVERYTHING Love your work; as a fellow data nerd, I cannot wait to see more results.

[@MirageC]

Cannot wait me neither! lol! Now need to find a way to automate some stuff to speed up the process.

[@Abyssaal1]

A very professional movie and it's a pleasure to watch, lots of graphics effects added and explained very well. You do things right got a lot your experience and you put a lot of work into making this movie, thanks for it.

[@MirageC]

Thank you very much, glad you liked it.

[@zez000]

Excellent content! Would be nice to include the humble cr10 too, with so many Enders out there it would help many people know exactly how much performance they'll gain for each of those upgrades

[@JulianMakes]

Very cool. I’ve been looking for help setting up flow rates for my mosquito magnum, can’t wait for that! Cheers

[@karlosss1868]

Love IT! This could be the definitive quide on which hotend to buy for a particular use for quite some time.

[@cyrikdnamps]

j'ai pas d'autre choix que de te lever mon chapeau pour tout ton travail ouffff et hop un petit Don... continue comme ça c'est des personnes comme toi qui font avancer le 3dprinting!!!!

[@MirageC]

Merci cousin ;) est-ce bien toi? ou on partage simplement le même nom de famille ?

[@cyrikdnamps]

@@MirageC On est pas cousin du moins à ce que je sache ... mais il se peut que nous ayons des liens... je suis de la région de Lévis à la Base ... Bref, Keep Going, tes videos sont écœurant et très instructif. Bien aimé celui de la gear de l'Extruder ....

[@MadmanInUkraine]

Amazing work @miragec i love it! Keep up the good work! This goes so much further then speedy benchy printing video's. Stuffs becoming a science this way. Merveilleux!!!

[@MadmanInUkraine]

Donated 35 cad since this is really good stuff going on.

[@MirageC]

@@MadmanInUkraine much appreciated ! Working hard on the next épisode.

[@amoose136]

I like the methodology of this and appreciate the empiricism. Looking forward to the next in the series.

[@MirageC]

Thanks for teaching me a new word! love it! EMPIRICISM all the way!!

[@Cfontes82]

This is gold! You deserve more subs!

[@MirageC]

Thank you! :)

[@bitosdelaplaya]

A big thanks for this share 👍👍👍 What an important thing (for me that i'm a 2 years beginner in 3d print) : the center of gravity. I'm trying to make my proper 3d printer and it's an important thing to take in account.

[@joshua43214]

I have long contended that not only is the moment of the hot end mounting critical, but also the limiting factor for printing is the dwell time of the filament allowing it to melt to the center. I have one criticism of your methodology: the max pressure should be scored statistically, not by observing the print quality. Pressure will increase more or less linearly, so for each step, you calculate a linear regression using all the previous steps (you probably have to discard the first steps). This regression is used to predict the next step. When the next step is significantly different from the projected value (t-test is probably appropriate here), you have reached the maximum acceptable pressure. Since you have all the data, you can do this anytime you wish :) Really appreciate this. I am a bio-informatics scientist, and it is nice to see someone doing tests that do not suck.

[@brianwgDK]

this is going to be the gold standard for hotend testing 👍👍👍👍👍💪

[@GreySectoid]

Insanely useful information, I have never hit the subscribe faster.

[@SunshineDude]

Dude, that level of data gather and analize. You get yourself a subscriber!

[@VidiotGeek]

This is spectacular! I'm eager to see the results and how this all shakes out. A huge resource for open source 3D printing.

[@175griffin]

I would love to see a klipper feature which uses a rotary encoder for some kind of active flow compensation. I guess the hot end could be characterized, but it would be really tedious to do that at every temperature with every filament and flow rate.

[@rmatveev]

I think that it is a wrong approach. If you need to push the filamen hard through the nozzle, that means that it is too cold which will result in bad prints. Klipper could make accelerations depending on a speed (more acceleration at low speed and less acceleration at higher speeds) which would make printing significantly faster. To make filament melting faster you don't have any options but to increase the contact area between hot end surface (nozzle internals) and the filament. Volcano does this by its nozzle elongation, CHT with its complicated surface curvature.

[@175griffin]

@@rmatveev it wouldn't allow for extruding past the max flow rate, but it could compensate for under extrusion while approaching the limit and prevent over extrusion when going slow. And you would never need to tune your flow rate multiplier for different filaments or extruder tensions.

[@aharkey1077]

I'd be more interested in a filament runout sensor that could also detect jams with an encoder

[@175griffin]

@@aharkey1077 it could do both. Maybe even detect potential nozzle jams before they happen.

[@aharkey1077]

I plan on doing an encoder to detect runout and jams as that seems like low hanging fruit, closed loop control, while interesting, is a completely different can of worms.

[@cimjohansson4878]

THIS, is the kind of videos im looking for when planning out my build. very well done.

[@gordon6029]

So cool that you take the time to do these tests. I really appreciate it, thank you.

[@thatautomotiveblog]

Top Gear reference is all I needed to trust this. Thank you!

[@allted]

So much data!!!! Thank you, I love it. Very excited to see the trends that start to form.

[@davethetaswegian]

Great stuff, looking forward to seeing the results. I think this could be a valuable resource even for those not chasing ultimate performance. For that reason it would be nice to see some other more modest hot ends included. For example, the Revo would be something I would like to see run through these tests, although I know it wouldn't be near the top of the leader board.

[@bluemonxterDIY]

Great stuff. Cant wait for the next part. I am starting a new printer build and this will really help me in selecting the hotend.

[@jamesdangercarpenter]

Just discovered this! This is awesome. Cannot wait to watch more of these

[@doron910]

amazing video explaining important phenomenon in 3D printing and crucial to understanding bottlenecks.

[@r0311]

wow, what a task. I really appreciate your work and wait anxious for the next episode!

[@MirageC]

Thanks a lot!

[@NicksStuff]

What an incredible amount of work you're setting yourself up for!

[@knoopx]

great to see some proper study behind this. now I know for sure 220 is the sweet spot for PLA and that PETG prints faster, things I had observed but wasn't completely sure. Cant wait for the next videos!

[@KidCe.]

Ayyyy finally it's out ! 🤩

[@FazioFamilyLights]

Are there any published results yet?

[@YouMakeTech]

Awesome video! Looking forward to see your complete test results. After this, you need to design the ultimate hotend!

[@gafrers]

Fantastically Detailed and Nerdy Kudos for TopGear reference

[@vvega007]

Loving it bro :). Glad you’ve spent the time getting it right !!

[@madbull4666]

Hey, absolutely brilliant video! I can't wait until new episode release, can't come soon enough! Brilliant presentation and I can understand it pretty well as I'm not an engineer. So many different data points your using and that's incredible for finding out different hotends for our needs, the amount of time and effort this requires must be pretty intense. Just wondering what schedule are you going to be releasing these videos? Once a week, month, day etc? I suspect you've done the vast majority of the data collection now and it's just the presentation to do now?

[@trix4rix]

Crazy excited. Love most of your methodology, I'd be interested to see differences with wattage changes in heater cartridges.

[@MirageC]

Wattage will mainly affect heat up time and will allow crazy cooling solutions. Given we are not exceeding thermal output capacity of a low power heater and that both units have been properly PID tuned, there would be no extrusion flow gain from installing a more powerful heater.

[@eddietheengineer]

This is fantastic! I can’t wait to see the rest of the series

[@tomasis7]

Best review I've seen ..I look forward for next one!

[@MacroAggressor]

Excellent format, looking forward to additional episodes.

[@turbostang65]

I don't see why the moment is such an important factor in the final score. If artifacts because of flex are so important, then the stiffness of the mounting interface probably matters atleast as much. If we are concerned about the twisting forces on the carriage then the overall moment including the extruder is much more important. I am not trying to step on any toes, I am really looking forward to this whole series. I am just thinking that making the moment so important to the final score really confuses the results.

[@MirageC]

I understand your point, but since this is a series about hotends, we need to isolate the hotend caracteristics. A difference should be made between a Volcano mounted on a V6 heatsink VS a VolcoMosqu mounted on a Mosquito heat sink. Both will have similar weight, but quite different lengths and CofG values. What would be your proposal for final score? Flow/weight? I am opened to suggestion. I am trying to retain as much data in the table as possible so we can look at the results using different indexes.

[@turbostang65]

@@MirageC It may be the best to simply rank by flow. Which hotend someone chooses to use needs to fit their individual use case. A hotend that has the best CofG or moment is worthless if it doesn't flow enough for your application. Some are going to pick a hotend based on value (flow/cost). If you want to print really detailed models fast, maybe the lightest thing that flows enough (not that much) is best? If you have a very stiff carriage (metal?) and a very robust motion system then the weight and the moment don't matter near as much. If you are trying to balance the moment of an extruder above a linear rail for example, a longer moment may actually yield better prints in some case? I definetly see the value of including CofG and moment in the chart, it is great information to have, but I think having it be such a big part of the score could confuse those who don't quite grasp all the info. I think it would be better to rank based purely on flow, because the impact of all the other data is going to be very different based on the design, and intended use of the printer it goes on. And I just want to say again, I am just trying to have a constructive conversation. I think what you are doing here is incredibly usefull to anyone trying to pick a hotend, Thank you so very much for all the time and energy you are putting into this.

[@turbostang65]

@@MirageC In the case of the Volcano mounted on a V6 heatsink VS a VolcoMosqu mounted on a Mosquito heat sink, what about the mounting system? If we are talking bout artifacts due to flexing at high acceleration values surely the mounting system maybe be as, or more important then the CofG and moment? The design of the carriage? How far away from the linear rail? I would suggest those using all this amazing information you are providing would pick a hotend that meets their required flow based on their design parameters, then balances the other characteristics to meet their goals. But I think that is what those in the know will be doing already, I am just concerned that placing so much value on the moment may confuse those starting out, or a little less knowledgeable. I guess maybe this is an opportunity to make a video about wading though all of information you are providing once it's all out.

[@SliceEngineering]

Thanks for setting up this huge test! We're excited to see the upcoming episodes!

[@MirageC]

Big thanks to you for the patience and level of trust!

[@jrep]

Thank you very much for doing this for the community.

[@LightwalkerN7]

It's been a long while since your last hotend test. When can we expect a new video?

[@jingyewang3527]

That's quite a project. Good job! Very impressive!

[@stevehanwright481]

Is there follow on work? Have you done testing on other hotends and extrudes?

[@matthewlloyd956]

this is great series as I am just looking at upgrading my hotend and extruder for faster printing

[@keeweeles]

Wow , Great work , and yes lots of time , Thanks For your great efforts !

[@jspikeball123]

We need more of these episodes!

[@AwestrikeFearofGods]

Excellent work. I love the graphs, but I prefer when they aren't zoomed in...meaning both axis start at 0, and all graphs (PLA vs PETG vs ABS) are scaled to the same maximum value (i.e. 35.0 mm3/s). This makes it easy make an "apples-to-apples" comparison, visually. If other people like the zoomed-in views, then perhaps include both. It's important to note whether the extruder fails by filament slipping/grinding, or by the motor stalling/skipping steps. One could be improved by adjusting spring tension and preparing a better gear surface. The other requires a stronger motor. P.S. Subscribed.

[@flamepygmy]

Amazing stuff. Can't wait for the other episodes.

[@philtobin9510]

That is a huge amount of data, I like you level of accuracy.

[@romualdaskracas2402]

How did these Olimpycs end up? Rly curious to see any more tests😮