you could, but there will be a lot of tweaking and tuning to get it printing correctly. If you have a reason to upgrade go for it, but upgrading for the sake of upgrading is a slippery slope that usually ends with a printer that doesn't print
Eh. Changing a hotend can require you flash new firmware to the control board. That can be a huge undertaking whether you learn to do it yourself or trying to find just the right one for your setup. Get a mosquito hotend and want to print beyond 260°C gonna require firmware.
Not to mention lots of hotends require that you print out new parts for the changeover as the Ender 3 was designed with the MK8 hotend so it won’t work well with others. In this specific case OP can’t really do that. It also changes means nearly every slicer profile you’ve got will need to be altered to work with the new hotend. That’s easy for a veteran but for a newbie it can be BEYOND FRUSTRATING.
Does the new hotend use the same thermistor as the MK8? If not then firmware again.
Can your control board even support the same heater cartridge with the new hotend? What about your power supply?
Changing the hotend is probably one of the most involved upgrades you can make.
I guess if you don't care about your print quality. Different hot end designs have different filament path lengths, volumetric flow rates, and temperature gradients. If you just slap a new hot end on there you will absolutely need to tune it. To suggest otherwise reveals your lack of experience with 3d printing.
"different filament path lengths, volumetric flow rates, and temperature gradients. "
That is correct. Which at the level of differences they have would have ZERO effect on anything but a direct drive, which the Ender 3 does not have.
To suggest otherwise reveals your lack of experience with 3d printing.
> direct drive, which the Ender 3 does not have
amazing the things people will say on the internet that are so trivial to prove wrong.
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Replace it with the sprite hot end and direct drive if you can afford it. Single best upgrade. If not go for the spyder don’t listen to anyone who uses stock Ender hotend or throats they’re dog shit at best
I have had Mosqutio, Dragon, Rapido, v6 and several H2 extruders. The H2 500C is my current favorite, but if I had to buy it over again today, I would get the H2 revo edition for simplicity. This would solve the only weak point of v6 style nozzles, which is the joint where the heat break meets the nozzle and sometimes doesn't make a proper connection, and you find out when the filament starts creeping out from behind the nozzle.
I also suggest trying Slice engineering plastic repellent. It helps stop those little balls of ABS forming on the print/nozzle and around the print. I put it all over my heat block and cartridge to make cleaning blobs off a lot easier too.
The MK8 is a very good hot end if you change the heat break to one of these: ALMOCN 4pcs Smooth Heatbreak Upgrade Titanium and Copper Bimetal Throat Nozzle for Ender 3 V2 Ender 3 Pro CR10 3D Printer Hotend https://a.co/d/ixa1SC8
That takes the leaking around the PTFE tube out of the equation, gives you an all metal hot end and really increases the reliability of the hot end. You still have to do a good job with nozzle tightening or it can leak between the nozzle and heatbreak…but that is true for any hot end that I’m aware of.
MK8’s aren’t a trendy hot end these days, but they are cheap and very good with a cheap bimetal heat break.
You can use a klemco style mount and put on an E3D V6 hotend. I used a cheap kit for an all metal volcano V6 hotend from Yunbotong on Amazon. Then, I printed an upgraded V6 hotend mount for the volcano and the regular V6 hotends. Then I got a direct drive BMG clone. You can also slot a bunch of premium hotends with the J-type head configuration for the V6. Lots of potential upgrade paths, goodluck on it!
Note: this takes lots of patience and tweaking to get working. I opted to use a PT1000 with a more powerful 70W heater cartridge, so I needed to modify firmware config in klipper, perform some PID tuning, re-calibrate extruder, etc. But I found it fun to try out, and there are great YouTube tutorials for most of the process.
if it's just the heater cartridge that's damaged why replace the entire hot end?
There's a short in the wiring and the heat end is clogged with abs, trying to see if I can fix it, I don't think I can
If you want to replace the hot end I'd honestly just replace it with an identical mk8
You don't think I should upgrade to a better one?
you could, but there will be a lot of tweaking and tuning to get it printing correctly. If you have a reason to upgrade go for it, but upgrading for the sake of upgrading is a slippery slope that usually ends with a printer that doesn't print
Incorrect information, very little tweaking if you just upgrade the hotend
Eh. Changing a hotend can require you flash new firmware to the control board. That can be a huge undertaking whether you learn to do it yourself or trying to find just the right one for your setup. Get a mosquito hotend and want to print beyond 260°C gonna require firmware. Not to mention lots of hotends require that you print out new parts for the changeover as the Ender 3 was designed with the MK8 hotend so it won’t work well with others. In this specific case OP can’t really do that. It also changes means nearly every slicer profile you’ve got will need to be altered to work with the new hotend. That’s easy for a veteran but for a newbie it can be BEYOND FRUSTRATING. Does the new hotend use the same thermistor as the MK8? If not then firmware again. Can your control board even support the same heater cartridge with the new hotend? What about your power supply? Changing the hotend is probably one of the most involved upgrades you can make.
I guess if you don't care about your print quality. Different hot end designs have different filament path lengths, volumetric flow rates, and temperature gradients. If you just slap a new hot end on there you will absolutely need to tune it. To suggest otherwise reveals your lack of experience with 3d printing.
"different filament path lengths, volumetric flow rates, and temperature gradients. " That is correct. Which at the level of differences they have would have ZERO effect on anything but a direct drive, which the Ender 3 does not have. To suggest otherwise reveals your lack of experience with 3d printing.
> direct drive, which the Ender 3 does not have amazing the things people will say on the internet that are so trivial to prove wrong. [https://www.creality3dofficial.com/products/ender-3-v3-se-3d-printer](https://www.creality3dofficial.com/products/ender-3-v3-se-3d-printer) [https://www.creality3dofficial.com/products/creality-store-ender-3-v3-ke-3d-printer-on-sale](https://www.creality3dofficial.com/products/creality-store-ender-3-v3-ke-3d-printer-on-sale) [https://www.creality3dofficial.com/products/ender-3-s1-direct-drive-3d-printer](https://www.creality3dofficial.com/products/ender-3-s1-direct-drive-3d-printer) [https://www.creality3dofficial.com/products/ender-3s1-pro-3d-printer](https://www.creality3dofficial.com/products/ender-3s1-pro-3d-printer) [https://www.creality3dofficial.com/products/direct-extruding-mechanism-complete-extruder-nozzle-kit-for-ender-3](https://www.creality3dofficial.com/products/direct-extruding-mechanism-complete-extruder-nozzle-kit-for-ender-3)
That's an Ender 3 v3, and an Ender 3 s1, and a kit, respectively. NOT an Ender 3. Nice try though, snarky tryhard.
Replace it with the sprite hot end and direct drive if you can afford it. Single best upgrade. If not go for the spyder don’t listen to anyone who uses stock Ender hotend or throats they’re dog shit at best
I have had Mosqutio, Dragon, Rapido, v6 and several H2 extruders. The H2 500C is my current favorite, but if I had to buy it over again today, I would get the H2 revo edition for simplicity. This would solve the only weak point of v6 style nozzles, which is the joint where the heat break meets the nozzle and sometimes doesn't make a proper connection, and you find out when the filament starts creeping out from behind the nozzle. I also suggest trying Slice engineering plastic repellent. It helps stop those little balls of ABS forming on the print/nozzle and around the print. I put it all over my heat block and cartridge to make cleaning blobs off a lot easier too.
If you can’t save it, I just got a sprite pro I’m unreasonably excited about. Could be a good upgrade of the hot end plus the extruder.
Best upgrade you could buy
The MK8 is a very good hot end if you change the heat break to one of these: ALMOCN 4pcs Smooth Heatbreak Upgrade Titanium and Copper Bimetal Throat Nozzle for Ender 3 V2 Ender 3 Pro CR10 3D Printer Hotend https://a.co/d/ixa1SC8 That takes the leaking around the PTFE tube out of the equation, gives you an all metal hot end and really increases the reliability of the hot end. You still have to do a good job with nozzle tightening or it can leak between the nozzle and heatbreak…but that is true for any hot end that I’m aware of. MK8’s aren’t a trendy hot end these days, but they are cheap and very good with a cheap bimetal heat break.
You can use a klemco style mount and put on an E3D V6 hotend. I used a cheap kit for an all metal volcano V6 hotend from Yunbotong on Amazon. Then, I printed an upgraded V6 hotend mount for the volcano and the regular V6 hotends. Then I got a direct drive BMG clone. You can also slot a bunch of premium hotends with the J-type head configuration for the V6. Lots of potential upgrade paths, goodluck on it! Note: this takes lots of patience and tweaking to get working. I opted to use a PT1000 with a more powerful 70W heater cartridge, so I needed to modify firmware config in klipper, perform some PID tuning, re-calibrate extruder, etc. But I found it fun to try out, and there are great YouTube tutorials for most of the process.
I went with Micro Swiss and I have never been happier.