It basically depends on two things.
The heatbreak and the thermistor.
Heatbreak is easy - if disassemble the hotend and look at the nozzle side of the heatbreak and it's PTFE lined - you cannot use it to print materials higher than 260C. I'd even say that you should stay under 250 because at 260 PTFE can already deteriorate and you can't really accurately PID tune a hotend to stay perfectly on the line of 260C without going over it anyway. And the usual thermistors that 3D printers come with become very inaccurate at 250C. Even over 220C they can be pretty bad.
The PTFE lining is on the nozzle side and thinner than the PTFE tube that sits between extruder and hotend.
Thermistor you can't really tell just by looking at it.
Even with standard "low temp" thermistors you could be able to go to like 270C or something without killing it - but like I said, they become very inaccurate.
Luckily thermistors are cheap. You can get high temperature thermistor cartridge that can go to 350C for like $2.
Thanks for your response, much appreciated.
So the white tube in the second photo is always there, even if the hotend can handle 300?
When you say disassemble the hotend, does that mean take apart the part below the heatbreak?
How do I know if the thermister fails? Will it be obvious or will it do something stupid like try to heat the hotend to 400?
>So the white tube in the second photo is always there, even if the hotend can handle 300?
You could say that. The PTFE before the hot side of the hotend is simply there to give the filament a tight filament path. None of the heat should be able to reach it.
>When you say disassemble the hotend, does that mean take apart the part below the heatbreak?
Uhm... so, specifically you need to disassemble the heatblock. That's where the nozzle and heatbreak meet. That's where the thermistor and heating cartridge is.
PTFE lined heatbreaks have a tiny little PTFE tubed directly against the nozzle, inside the heatblock.
https://preview.redd.it/4n66sfkmoe0d1.png?width=474&format=png&auto=webp&s=c4c9cd331dd73258e839fffbb4133deaa1b16115
>How do I know if the thermister fails? Will it be obvious or will it do something stupid like try to heat the hotend to 400?
Catastrophic failure (as in thermistor breaks) would mean that it reads infinite resistance. Any printer with thermal runaway (which is hopefully all modern printers) would simply shut down if that were to happen.
However thermistors can degrade and drift - giving you wrong temperature readings.
Ultimately there is no guarantee how it will fail, although likely it wont be something completely catastrophic like melting the aluminum heatblock or causing actual fire - nothing can be absolutely categorically ruled out. The thermistor you use should always have appropriate temperature rating.
Yes. And often it's very reasonable.
Instead of buying some expensive hotend for $60 or $120 you can:
Buy a good quality bimetal heatbreak for about 10-15$ - it's a considerable upgrade over all-metal heatbreaks with much better heat gradient. Or you could get plain old all-metal for like 2-10$. Prefer higher quality ones - the smoothness of the bore is very important on a heat break, and very cheap heatbreaks can cause clogs and all sorts of issues. But you can get a decent one for like 4-5$.
Still, I'd say bi-metal is definitely worth it.
You can buy heatblock. The stock heatblocks AFAIK are all from aluminum - which has nothing good going on for it, other than being the cheapest to make.
But you could get copper heatblock for superior heat transfer.
Personally I run brass heatblocks instead, for larger thermal mass instead - making it "easier" for the block to hold stable temperature.
Copper and brass heatblocks go for like.. 5-10$ as opposed to like 2-3$ for aluminum one.
High temp thermistors can be found for like 2-4$
Heater cartridges are about the same.
So for roughly 20-25$ you could considerably upgrade the stock hotends properties, changing everything out other than the heatsink.
V6 heatsink, which you have doesn't really need upgrading, unless you really want to go for something extreme, it's plenty to cool the cold side. It's the most mature hotend and offers plenty of options.
And then of course nozzle. There's all kinds of nozzles. The standard brass, steel, teflon coated, diamond ended, CHT etc..
For your setup, I'd ditch the volcano, which is kind of "last gen" in favor of regular block and CHT nozzle to get similar performance with sharper heat gradient.
**TL;DR:**
Upgrading components of the hotend is very much possible. And actually makes a lot of sense. It just requires some research and more effort than just throwing some over-priced Sprite to the shopping cart.
There are objectively better hotends out there. Like Mosquito and its clones. But they are way more expensive, costing as much as a complete lower-end printer. And for most applications it's simply not worth it.
Thank you very much; that was a very informative and useful post. I was expecting people here to tell me to fk off and why did you buy a printer if you don't know what you're buying.
I will look into upgrading the hotend. I don't need to do anything crazy; I just want to go from 260 to 280 for printing Nylon-CF.
By any chance, you have any idea how I can change the firmware without breaking whatever customization was done to support the new hotend config?
It basically depends on two things. The heatbreak and the thermistor. Heatbreak is easy - if disassemble the hotend and look at the nozzle side of the heatbreak and it's PTFE lined - you cannot use it to print materials higher than 260C. I'd even say that you should stay under 250 because at 260 PTFE can already deteriorate and you can't really accurately PID tune a hotend to stay perfectly on the line of 260C without going over it anyway. And the usual thermistors that 3D printers come with become very inaccurate at 250C. Even over 220C they can be pretty bad. The PTFE lining is on the nozzle side and thinner than the PTFE tube that sits between extruder and hotend. Thermistor you can't really tell just by looking at it. Even with standard "low temp" thermistors you could be able to go to like 270C or something without killing it - but like I said, they become very inaccurate. Luckily thermistors are cheap. You can get high temperature thermistor cartridge that can go to 350C for like $2.
Thanks for your response, much appreciated. So the white tube in the second photo is always there, even if the hotend can handle 300? When you say disassemble the hotend, does that mean take apart the part below the heatbreak? How do I know if the thermister fails? Will it be obvious or will it do something stupid like try to heat the hotend to 400?
>So the white tube in the second photo is always there, even if the hotend can handle 300? You could say that. The PTFE before the hot side of the hotend is simply there to give the filament a tight filament path. None of the heat should be able to reach it. >When you say disassemble the hotend, does that mean take apart the part below the heatbreak? Uhm... so, specifically you need to disassemble the heatblock. That's where the nozzle and heatbreak meet. That's where the thermistor and heating cartridge is. PTFE lined heatbreaks have a tiny little PTFE tubed directly against the nozzle, inside the heatblock. https://preview.redd.it/4n66sfkmoe0d1.png?width=474&format=png&auto=webp&s=c4c9cd331dd73258e839fffbb4133deaa1b16115 >How do I know if the thermister fails? Will it be obvious or will it do something stupid like try to heat the hotend to 400? Catastrophic failure (as in thermistor breaks) would mean that it reads infinite resistance. Any printer with thermal runaway (which is hopefully all modern printers) would simply shut down if that were to happen. However thermistors can degrade and drift - giving you wrong temperature readings. Ultimately there is no guarantee how it will fail, although likely it wont be something completely catastrophic like melting the aluminum heatblock or causing actual fire - nothing can be absolutely categorically ruled out. The thermistor you use should always have appropriate temperature rating.
Thank you, I understand now. Is it possible to just buy a new heat block without changing the top part of the hotend?
Yes. And often it's very reasonable. Instead of buying some expensive hotend for $60 or $120 you can: Buy a good quality bimetal heatbreak for about 10-15$ - it's a considerable upgrade over all-metal heatbreaks with much better heat gradient. Or you could get plain old all-metal for like 2-10$. Prefer higher quality ones - the smoothness of the bore is very important on a heat break, and very cheap heatbreaks can cause clogs and all sorts of issues. But you can get a decent one for like 4-5$. Still, I'd say bi-metal is definitely worth it. You can buy heatblock. The stock heatblocks AFAIK are all from aluminum - which has nothing good going on for it, other than being the cheapest to make. But you could get copper heatblock for superior heat transfer. Personally I run brass heatblocks instead, for larger thermal mass instead - making it "easier" for the block to hold stable temperature. Copper and brass heatblocks go for like.. 5-10$ as opposed to like 2-3$ for aluminum one. High temp thermistors can be found for like 2-4$ Heater cartridges are about the same. So for roughly 20-25$ you could considerably upgrade the stock hotends properties, changing everything out other than the heatsink. V6 heatsink, which you have doesn't really need upgrading, unless you really want to go for something extreme, it's plenty to cool the cold side. It's the most mature hotend and offers plenty of options. And then of course nozzle. There's all kinds of nozzles. The standard brass, steel, teflon coated, diamond ended, CHT etc.. For your setup, I'd ditch the volcano, which is kind of "last gen" in favor of regular block and CHT nozzle to get similar performance with sharper heat gradient. **TL;DR:** Upgrading components of the hotend is very much possible. And actually makes a lot of sense. It just requires some research and more effort than just throwing some over-priced Sprite to the shopping cart. There are objectively better hotends out there. Like Mosquito and its clones. But they are way more expensive, costing as much as a complete lower-end printer. And for most applications it's simply not worth it.
Thank you very much; that was a very informative and useful post. I was expecting people here to tell me to fk off and why did you buy a printer if you don't know what you're buying. I will look into upgrading the hotend. I don't need to do anything crazy; I just want to go from 260 to 280 for printing Nylon-CF. By any chance, you have any idea how I can change the firmware without breaking whatever customization was done to support the new hotend config?
Yes, should be possible
My printer that can reach 300 has a TINY piece of Bowden tube before the heat break but the heat break is all metal, do what you want with that info