Boost your 3D printer with this essential upgrade

Almost all the best 3d printers can be upgraded in some way with new parts and accessories. One of the biggest potential upgrades is to the machine’s hot end assembly, which controls the temperature at which your printer prints and houses the nozzle that helps determine filament flow.

THE Quick Change Revo Six is a replacement hot end for your 3D printer. It comes from E3D, a company that has been making parts for 3D printers for years and is one of the go-tos, especially for nozzles and hot ends. This new model has really changed the way I use my 3D printers and the way I think about the models I make.

With the Revo Six, you can easily swap out the nozzle portion of a printer’s hot end, allowing for many variations in materials and line thickness for your project. Normally you would remove the filament from your nozzle, heat the nozzle to loosen the threads, undo it with a socket wrench while it’s hot, then let it cool. After that you can install your new nozzle, but you must install it cold and then retighten it once it is hot.

The $93 (£77 GBP) Revo Six takes a lot of steps in making the nozzle and other parts of the print assembly one piece and fully removable by hand. Take out your filament, immediately unscrew the nozzle and swap it out. This saves a lot of time when replacing worn nozzles, but the real magic is swapping out different sized nozzles for different models.

Why do you want different nozzle sizes

Often the purpose of your 3D model dictates the parameters you will use to print it. When you print something delicate with a lot of detail, you need a smaller nozzle diameter. With something structural that requires strength, you need a larger diameter. Most 3D printers come with a 0.4mm nozzle as standard, which is fine as a middle ground but won’t always be enough either way.

The genius of the Revo Six is ​​the ability to change nozzle sizes almost on the fly. Each nozzle size is color coded and available from 0.15mm up to 0.8mm and can be replaced in less than a minute. The $89 kit comes with one 0.4mm nozzle, but the $139 fully loaded kit includes four nozzles ranging from 0.25 to 0.8mm.

I printed a set of brackets for a machine I needed to mount on the wall. The support is completely hidden and the layer lines don’t matter, so I used the 0.8mm nozzle to print very thick, very strong parts as quickly as possible (larger layer lines also means faster printing). As soon as I finished the supports, I immediately changed the nozzles of the Revo Six to the 0.25mm ones and started printing a Flower Dragon with tiny Fotis Mint details. Having this flexibility in one machine is fantastic. It saves money on different printers and more importantly it saves time, which I have very little on a daily basis.

Upgrade upgrade with the E3D Obxidian

Like all good 3D printing accessories, even the Rapidchange Revo V6 can be upgraded. Not only did E3D produce low cost replacement nozzles for all the different sizes you could want, they also made a special nozzle for exotic filaments.

The Obxidian (pronounced obsidian, like rock) is a nozzle from E3D specifically designed to help combat the wear and tear you get from using abrasive materials infused with other media, such as wood or fiberglass. carbon. It’s made from copper, rather than a brass alloy, and has a special coating that helps move fibers through the nozzle without sticking. It is also designed to work with the Revo system for a quick change.

Buzz phrases like “the last nozzle you’ll ever need” sound hyperbolic, but at the same time the longevity of the Obxidian at $59 compared to standard nozzles – it can last indefinitely as long as you don’t use a glow in the dark filament at high speeds makes me wonder if it’s even worth buying a standard Revo nozzle again. In fact, the Obxidian only comes in 0.4mm and 0.6mm diameters, so it’s worth having the other nozzle sizes around for other print jobs. Filaments containing other materials – wood or carbon-infused PLA for example – benefit from high throughput, so larger nozzle sizes work better for the Obxidan. For standard prints, however, the Obxidian has it all covered.

An accessory that elevates your entire machine

All the best 3d printing accessories improve your experience in some ways, but the Revo Six paired with an Obxidian nozzle will fundamentally change the way you print. Since many manufacturers have used the E3D V6 hot end in one way or another, the company has been able to create easy-to-replace Revo Six systems on a wide variety of 3D printers. From Creality to Prusa, E3D has Revo to help you convert.

I’m confident the Rapidchange Revo Six is ​​the next big change to hot ends going forward, and while I haven’t been able to convert all of my 3D printers, if you only have one or two, then investing in a fully loaded kit is definitely worth it.