Let me start off by saying I love my Creality Ender 3. I have owned mine for around 6 months now and it has been a complete workhorse. I added a BL-Touch to mine for auto bed leveling as a first upgrade. Aside from that and a BuildTak Flexplate for convenience, the unit has been running completely stock without much of a hiccup. However, I recently decided I wanted to push this 3D printer to the next level by installing an all-metal hotend.
My normal go to for hotends, is the all-metal E3Dv6. This has been installed in nearly every machine that I have owned and there is no denying it is a great option. I decided that I wanted to see what else was available which is when I discovered the Micro Swiss branded hotends. I had heard of them before but did not know very much about them. The Creality branded hotends, are a clone of the Micro Swiss hotend, and from my luck with them, I was confident that the authentic version would not disappoint.
One huge highlight of going with the exact same footprint of hotend, is that there is very little that goes into installing the new hotend. It is really as simple as unplugging and unscrewing the existing components and putting them into the new hotend. I made a video showing the process:
The swap was pretty flawless, with the only change that needed to be made in my software was my retraction distance (I believe I went to 4mm). I have been printing out my usual PLA, PET-G, and recently, a spool of Carbon Fiber infused PET-G. This was very exciting for me, as I had never printed in something like this before. The resulting part looked great and the added Carbon Fiber gave added strength and a very awesome surface finish. Next on my list is going to be trying to print Nylon on the Ender 3, which is a higher temperature material.
The Micro Swiss all metal Creality upgrade, not only makes your hotend all-metal, but it also has a plated copper nozzle. This nozzle will allow you to print in abrasive materials. This means not only can you print with higher temperature materials such as Nylons, but you can print in glow in the dark, wood fill, metal fill, carbon fiber infused, and fiberglass infused filaments. This opens up a whole new world of opportunity to create awesome looking functional parts.
I highly recommend this upgrade to anyone looking to take their Ender 3 or really any Creality 3D printer to the next level.
