Just got a pico-hotend by surprise. And only by looking at it, without even trying, I get VERY suspicious… There is no heatbreak! So I was googling reviews about it, and found zero objectiv reviews. What I did found were some deep-burried G+ Posts with complains about heatcreap and jams… Someone willing to share his experience with this? imho this can’t work without a heatbreak…
Haven’t personally used it but I’ve been up close and personal with one. It’s trash. Looks nice to the eye but not engineered. Stay away from these!
I ran three, two of them in dual. The stem is the heat break. It works fine but you need better cooling of the heat sink than the instructions recommend. They basically recommend blowing air in the general direction of the fins and that’s dumb, I made a clip-on fan duct and it worked fine without grief. I think the real problem is the body is stainless steel, limiting melt rate. Also, the spring that holds the thermistor in place fatigues easily and can release the thermistor from the body. I ended up drilling the mount hole out a little bit and fusing the thermistor in place with fireplace cement.
This would work just fine with a ducted fan, no problems at all.
That spring is bizarre though, seems a really unnecessary and silly idea.
The spring is strain relief so you don’t break the wires as it moves. Its actually a very good idea.
The amount of heatbreak you need is depended on the material you print with, and the amount of retraction you use.
So, some people will report good results, some people will curse it.
If you are planning on using PLA, or a bowden setup, I would stay away from this.
@Branden_Coates n=1.
I’m just stating my 4 years of seeing hotend design happening at Ultimaker. ABS, Nylon and Peek are pretty easy materials to extrude. I’m talking hunderds of hours of printing PLA before we say “this design might work”, with lots and lots of retractions.
Great if it works for you, really, as it looks like a sleek design. And the price is also good.
Mine vibrated apart, That pulled the thermistor out. That caused it to heat up very hot. The printer kept printing . It dragged the super-heated head through the first part of my print. It almost burned my house down. They gave my money back. beware.