this is a micro swiss cr-10 hot end but the eagle-eyed of you may be able to notice right
away that this is not a genuine micro swiss hot end it is in fact a clone but here's
the thing it's actually a very good clone in fact it may even be better than the real deal
where there is a good idea there is a chinese manufacturer waiting to clone that idea and
sell it back to the general public at a fraction of the cost of what the original manufacturer
has it listed for and this is absolutely no difference this one comes from a manufacturer
called mellow and they're found on aliexpress now typically people look at chinese clones as
cheap knockoffs but in this case we found something that is a bit perplexing
because this isn't a cheap knockoff in fact it's an improvement over the original design
and that is interesting how could microswiss an american manufacturer
fall behind a chinese knockoff in terms of quality or progress well the answer unfortunately
is complacency microswiss is very content with manufacturing the things that they currently make
as they do sell well they've already got the tooling to manufacture it and don't really feel
like they need to change anything about what it is they have designed the chinese market has listened
to the requests and demands of the 3d printing consumer and have thus improved upon an already
nearly perfect concept it's hard to really even know where to start with all of this because on
chinese market websites like aliexpress there are so many different variations of this design
that it really should have micro swiss concerned now i have talked to microswiss about a few of the
features that i have seen on the chinese markets that i think are worth paying attention to but
alas i've been told that microswiss either does not have the capacity to do certain things or
simply prefer to keep doing what they're doing in order to maintain a certain level of compatibility
with extras that they have designed such as their direct drive system for hot ends like this
so let's dig into the various components that we see before us and talk about those variations that
the chinese manufacturers have come up with and why i think microswiss needs to start taking this
as a serious threat to their business in order to maintain simplicity we'll be working our way
from the top of the hot end down to the bottom the first thing we'll talk about is the heatsink and
the eagle-eyed among you will notice immediately a few things that are different about this heatsink
compared to the stock one that comes directly from the genuine article microswiss you'll notice that
there's no countersinking on these two holes where you would put your bolt that screws this
heatsink into the x-axis gantry typically the bolt is rounded not flat so there could be some issues
in terms of final placement once tightening down this heatsink to the x-axis gantry because of that
however you could always just use flat headed bolts instead of the round heads if that really is
a problem for you next you'll notice there are two holes beside the center hole if you're
familiar with a standard mark 8 heatsink you'll know that they often come with two bolts that go
from the underside of the heat block and screw into the heat sink and this helps maintain an
extra amount of rigidity however it's completely up for debates as to whether or not that should
even be done as it may transfer excess heat from the heat block to the heat sink unnecessarily
but one thing we simply can't ignore is the most common complaint that i see
about micro swiss cr-10 heatsinks it uses a bowden collect instead of a pneumatic coupler
a lot of people report that their bowdoin tubes slip up and down inside of the heatsink because
a bowden collect does not grip a bowden hot tube hard enough now there are manufacturers out there
on aliexpress that have simply pre-tapped some threads into this exact same heat sink
which allow you to screw in a pneumatic coupler in its place microswiss has told me they have no
plans on doing such a thing because they want to continue using the bowden collect as it is
intentional the low profile design allows microswiss to continue ensuring compatibility
uh with this heatsink and other various products from microswiss such as their direct drive system
so if you are not a fan of bowdoin collects you can get this exact heatsink that'll work
with microswiss components that use pneumatic couplers instead of a bowden collect that's one
area i think microswiss might need to look into other competitors have noted this common issue
and have made solutions but microswiss says that would create too many unnecessary variations so
for their purposes they're perfectly fine and content with manufacturing what they
already manufacture moving on from there we have tc4 versus grade 5 titanium heat breaks
they are the same metal it's just they are graded differently in china compared to the united states
and just like the genuine thing it bottoms out inside of the heatsink at a predetermined location
and is held tightly in place by a grub screw
things begin to get very interesting the moment we start talking about the mark 8 heat block
now to be fair it's not like micro swiss designed the mark 8 heat block it's relatively universal
as long as your heat break screws into these threads and your nozzle does the same it'll fit on
just about anything and credit to where credit is due microswiss uses the proper grade of aluminum
for this application one that blends strength as well as heat conduction which is exactly
what you'd want in this application but where they fall short is customization and compatibility with
aftermarket modification to an extent this is something that they could rectify very easily
let's talk about these holes now this big one right here is for your heater cartridge
micro swiss does have a design that utilizes two bolts on the bottom that screw into the top
portion of the heat block and it clamps down on the heater cartridge which
is indeed a better design to prevent the heater cartridge from slipping out but let's get into
some other areas where i think they could improve now you'll see the smallest hole right up on top
is indeed for your standard glass bead thermistor and this right here is a bolt that screws into
the block to retain that glass bead thermistor if you don't like glass speed thermistors you can
always take that bolt out and use a hex bolt type thermistor that screws into where this
retaining bolt would go but where microswiss falls short is this last hole down here e3d
and their v6 j-head style heat blocks utilize a cartridge type thermistor or a pt100 thermocouple
either of those require this size diameter hole now if you ever planned on heating up your heat
block past 300 degrees celsius you would need a pt 100 thermocouple or a pt 1000 because
your standard thermistors just simply don't read above 300 degrees celsius accurately and that's
where this hole comes into play but if you're also going to heat up to that temperature aluminum may
no longer be a viable solution aluminum will start to degrade at a certain temperature which is where
chinese manufacturers have yet again beaten microswitch to the punch on a solution you
can get this exact block made in copper it's just not bare copper either it's nickel plated copper
it's not going to have any degradation due to heat at least not until you get past
500 degrees celsius they also make mark 8 nozzles that are copper and nickel plated
to accompany that now this is something that e3d does they make copper j head heat blocks and
nickel plated copper nozzles for when you want to go to the extreme in terms of temperature
that's also why their heat blocks support pt100 thermocouples but microswiss doesn't have these
as available features and yet you can go on aliexpress and from the same manufacturer that
makes all these components mellow you can get a copper nickel plated heat block in a mark 8 style
that has all the available options for measuring temperature and have a nozzle to go with it
that is capable of going over 500 degrees celsius i did talk to them and they said that they have in
fact been contemplating a design for high heat applications because once you start printing in
materials like peak or pei you really do have to go really high in temperature the last thing we'll
talk about is the nozzle and we're going to be focusing specifically on mark 8 nozzles because
that's what's used in this particular kit that replaces the hot end on the cr-10 or the ender 3.
now here's the thing microswiss provides either a plated copper nozzle or
a plated hardened steel nozzle now they are both good nozzles they are rather expensive but they're
machined exceptionally well and they're coated with something special to reduce the friction
on the inside of the nozzle and that allows for a more smooth flow of molten plastic but microswiss
does offer m2 hardened steel nozzles for other hot end kits that they make
not the mark 8 but other ones and i think that's a bummer because in terms of wear
resistance m2 hardened steel is well it's going to last the longest out of those three options
so mellow decided that they would take the opportunity to manufacture an m2 hardened steel
nozzle that fits on the mark eight and here's the thing it is machined exceptionally well
i don't know just how good i can get the focus from my camera onto this nozzle without some
sort of macro lens but i can assure you that it is a very nicely machined nozzle and it is one that i
think microswiss should be afraid of this is not the same as a knockoff of a ruby nozzle because
well ruby nozzles have their own problems this is a well-known material and it's nothing even
particularly exotic but it's offered in a style that is used on one of the most common hot ends
in the world and yet microswiss doesn't offer this option and if they did offer this
as an option i would almost most certainly choose the microswiss over the mellow
because microswiss has that special coating that reduces friction on a metal like this friction
does become a concern especially with materials like pla that can be rather sticky
so where does that leave us exactly well i'll tell you this much it leaves me scratching my head
there's a clear market for american-made high-quality components that are machined well
and work well for this market 3d printing is huge and it's only getting bigger
micro swiss has on their hands a very very competent design but it's becoming clear
that either through complacency or through the sheer lack of ability to produce such things
whether it be from lack of resources or perhaps lack of time lack of manpower etc
they are falling behind their chinese competition and they are falling behind incredibly fast
the chinese manufacturing market is massive there's no denying that
microswiss if you see this this is what you're competing against
you're competing against companies that have the manufacturing capability to deliver what people
have been asking of you for a very long time now there was certainly a time when chinese knockoffs
were seen as inferior copycats but we have now gone to a place where the chinese copycats have
surpassed the design that they were copying they've improved upon it the students
has become the master and that should concern microswiss greatly