Friendly competition lowers prices and encourages more innovation! Edit: I get that if the 'knockoff" is just straight up copying the design, with no benefits, and/or can make them significantly cheaper or quicker to make than anyone else can, it can lead to the knockoff becoming a monopoly and stifling creativity once again. The knockoff in question had changed around some ideas and ended up with a debatable improved end result. Nothing is black and white, there is always complexity with subjects around choice Thanks @@Hex for some of these ideas.
I just read the patent, it is probably not a coincidence that the copper block from Aliexpress did not have holes in it, it was instead 3 channels that were open on one side each. Probably because the patent specifically mentions holes. This could be another way to circumvent the patent.
remind me of a video vsauce trying to debate/explain how many holes a human has. the definition of hole is actually undefinable if they really want to get technical about it.
This aliexpress type is probably like 100 times easier to manufacture than drilling 3 holes at an angle and at the smae times gets more heat into the inside. This design is simply superior on a value level.
And the wear resistant CHT is probably insert based for the same reason. Especially since tool steel is a lot harder to machine, with means when you cross holes you are far more likely to break the drill than when drilling C36000 leaded brass.
If I had to guess the copper in the clone is free machining too, like C14500 as pure copper is ridiculously difficult to drill due to its gummy nature.
cheaper and better which is actually a smarter design. the CHT hardened core nozzle came after these clones... so... in a way... bontech also benefits from stealing designs from the chinese
@@soundspark I would certainly hope they'd be well aware as to exactly what was going to happen the second the drill crossed into the previous channel, to be honest
Only because the standard nozzle and high nozzle are the same except for the insert. So the same item can be used for two products. Otherwise, making the holes in the insert is about about the same difficulty and time consuming as the Bondtech. The insert approach has a higher number of operations to produce.
@@DimaLegoFUN Since it gets the job done, and are $2.25 ea. delivered, one could say, sure, but would have to ask why, when it was shown to work just fine at higher flow rates than anyone currently could use (outside of a Bambu...)
Pattents are stupid they only hold back innovation. Bondtech makes things overpriced by there marketing department with overpriced products and buzzwords that do not deliver anything that someone can call real innovation. Let them waste money with there legal case and still lose market. I hope this company will go bankrupt next year cause they are toxic for the opensource community.
Well, in the case of CHT there IS some innovation (but then the chinese variant, or the Bondtech insert, isnt' itself a further innovation, so worthy of patent itself? =) ). What I find ludicrous is Slice Engineering's patent (pending): they basically patented a couple rods (that keep still the heatblock). I'm not usually against patents, when they make sense (and in the mosquito's case I find none).
The issues happening with retraction length remind me of when I ran a color-mixing hotend. Since due to the complex internal structure you aren't directly pulling the filament in and out, you're just changing the pressure in the chamber by pulling on the filament. Retracting too much will break the suction and allow the nozzle to drip again. I found smaller, slower retractions to work best with that hotend (Geeetech A10M stock hotend)
Being a novice /hobbyist at 3D printing, I was confused when he said he LOWERED the extraction length to DECREASE stringing. I thought he had it backwards, but it was I that was wrong. Your explanation clearly explains the reasoning. Thanks.
Retraction always just changes the pressure inside and never actually pulls the filament out. The filament is molten at the tip, so you can't pull it out like you think.
The insert is really clever, but the execution could be a little more refined. It wouldn't hurt to have chamfers on both ends to make install completely foolproof and to help with retracts, probably. I thought the insert would be too loose for transfer enough heat, but it looks like it works very well. Maybe copper expands more than brass so when the nozzle heats up the two parts fuse together nicely.
Heat expansion coefficients: Brass 18,5. Copper 17,0. So no, the insert will not expand into the brass. The absolute expansion if the insert (assuming it is 4mm wide) would be around 0,017 mm. Which would be a very good value for a press fit. However, looking at the pictures of the insert it is pretty clear that this kind of precision is not used in the manufacturing process. Also the body would need to be out of Invar to not expand away from the insert but Invar is a bad heat conducter. A good pressfit would be considered "attached" so the patent claims would match.
@@exi Would the expansion of the brass pick up the slack here? Sure the OD of the copper wont expand so much but the ID of the brass will also get smaller.
@dixieduffy7 That's actually a fairly common misconception. When a ring shaped object thermally expands, it's somewhat reasonable to think that the ID would shrink as the material expands inwards. However, the ID and OD both expand.
I'm guessing that the fit gets tighter when it heats up even though as explained the Thermal Expansion is slightly higher for brass. Here is the logic and I believe how it works. When a hoop expands, the length is the "circumference" that is getting the largest change so the diameter is changing at C = Pi x D (or D = C / Pi). This means the diameter is increasing at about 1/3 the rate of the circumference. For the insert, it is expanding outwards and therefore is growing faster than the nozzle.
Thanks for testing this! The knockoff actually looks like a much better design. It *might* be supplied in 2 separate parts to circumvent the patent application thought I have not reviewed it personally. I'd be tempted to press the copper insert into the brass external nozzle to expand it radially and make even better contact with the inner walls. Also, nickel plating the copper may help avoid copper oxidation. Whether the patent is ultimately issued and depending on any actual claims allowed, the knockoff may be able to make a lot of money before/if the patent is issued. Interesting...
I bought a pack of 10 of these off of amazon for about $20 and they work great! I am able to run my ender 3 pro at nearly 90mm/s as opposed to the 30mm/s that I was running before to get a good print. I am having some problems with stringing, but it could also be that I upgraded to a .6mm nozzle too and am still working on getting everything dialed in, but there is a definite difference in extrusion speed! I even had to upgrade the extruder to a dual gear one so that it could keep up. great video!
A tiny speck of 'hi-temp' or silver-bearing solder to secure the insert into the body would work wonders! Solder has good heat-transfer, so it might work even better! Cold pulls with this aren't even worth considering: I'd get a whole bunch of these nozzles, keep one for each type/color of filament. It seems like a good 'production' tool.
On the one hand, I freely applaud Solex for bringing this improvement over to mainstream 3d printing from the other industries that have already had it for decades, and would love to tell people to purchase the original CHT from them for that reason alone. Unfortunately, like with Slice Engineering and Apple, I cannot in good conscience support a company that manages to brazenly get away with unlawfully patenting concepts and designs that already exists in other fields or in the public domain (see: Prior Art), or even companies that try but fail to do that very same thing. As a result of this particular immoral business practice and even bearing in mind that Solex have to date proven, if not necessarily helpful in all ways, non-obstructive to lone individuals and famous figures such as Stefan manufacturing and testing similar designs for comparison purposes and private use, I find that the only recommendation my conscience allows is to tell people to purchase only the knockoffs unless and until Solex ceases to misuse the patenting system and limits such intellectual property grabs to actual original designs as both implicitly intended and explicitly laid out in international and most national patent laws.
Maybe it was different back when the patent law was first introduced, but today it seems clear that patents overall hinder innovation more than it encourages it
@@neelsg a patent is supposed to include all the information so that someone in the same field could use the patent to recreate the invention ("ordinarily skilled in the art") unfortunately, too many patents do not do so, and try to make such broad claims that it's not clear what they cover, let alone how to build it. because someone else is supposed to be able to follow the directions and build the invention, it's obvious that it should NOT prevent people from making their own version of it for testing, only preventing someone from selling (or I suppose a large company could mass manufacture something for internal use) patent and copyright maximalists have been pushing for a long time to make people think that they prevent anyone from doing anything similar, which is NOT what is supposed to be happening.
@@davidelang I understand how patents are supposed to work and what they are meant to achieve, but that is not the reality. Given how they are abused and how effectively corporations can use them to be anti-competitive, I just think we would be better off and have more innovation if those laws were scrapped altogether
The even worse thing that happens a lot is when companies patent something, or buy a patent, to prevent a (likely superior) alternative competing with their existing products. Patents really need to have a "use-or-lose" aspect, say they last the existing 20 years if you're actually producing (or licensing) the design, but if you aren't actively producing, developing, or licensing the design, simply blocking it from being used, it becomes public domain in say 3 years. Another part of the Intellectual Property realm that needs overhaul is that software being covered by copyright doesn't make any sense anymore. When software began to be created, it was just dropped into copyright law which is meant to cover creative works, which I don't think software fits neatly into. That was probably what made the most sense at the time out of existing options, especially with early software that was mostly manually written. But software typically involves both functional aspects (how it works, "under the hood" aspects) that should be covered by a patent (in the same way a tool such as a hammer might be) and creative aspects (aesthetics, user interface, storyline of a game, etc) that would make sense as a copyright. Some software, such as CAD, or say a 3D printer slicer, is mostly the "functional" side, while a game might be more the "creative" side, but all software would have at least some of both, thus not fitting neatly into either a patent or copyright. So what really needs to happen is a new category specifically for software that isn't either, but covers both creative/aesthetic elements and functional elements. Though the reality is that I feel like IP-law isn't really used in software anyway, instead they incorporate other methods built into the product to prevent software being copied or used without a license.
The altenatives work fine, just don't drop the copper insert on a dark carpet. They perform a lot better in terms of flow rate than the standard Creality 0.4 nozzles. For whatever reason, the ones I have tested are prone to pick up PETG around the nozzle tip but that may just be a retraction setting. Great review that was very useful. 👀👍
In my experience, PETG does not print well at all with brass nozzles. I buff a stainless steel nozzle with 3M Polishing Paper before installing. Then I clean it vigorously with a melamine foam pad after each print. For some reason, none of the gurus have ever picked up on this problem with PETG (?). I'm wondering whether I can drop the inset into my E3D SS nozzle. (The cheap SS clones tend to have wrong dimensions - making the adhesion problem worse.)
I really like seeing these comparisons between the knockoffs and the genuines. Personally, I think patents are sometimes used to gatekeep innovations because they can be so vague that it stops others from attempting to make an improved version, but I really don't know if this particular knockoff is worth using. I certainly wouldn't consider it due to the questionable machining, but if it was of a higher quality I would consider it, because I'm just a hobbyist and $20+shipping is too much for a nozzle. Although I don't think these nozzles are designed for hobbyists anyways
Of course, even a low power magnifying glass will reveal the exact quality of machining you have in your hands, and at $2.25 ea., one of the most reasonable chances one could ever take to improve their flow rates.
@@brianmi40 The chatter marks in each of the three channels most likely won't be an issue but you could try making your own with a polished surface if you wanted to test out the difference. Also trying other materials for the insert even though we know copper is the ideal choice testing other materials wouldn't hurt. These are most likely made in two ways... By hand using a steel jig with the three entry points with a second op for the chamfering or (most likely) a small cnc lathe with a live tailstock / toolpost drill that performs the operations via indexing of the spindle and it goes drill > chamfer > next index. They wouldn't use a regular drill, instead a micro endmill would be the choice here to avoid the tool from wandering off specially since you have both a "grabby" material and also an interrupted cut.
Depending on a patent. They CAN be used for gatekeeping BUT for smaller manufacturers/inventors/businesses they are essential. Every one knows that a product can be copied and manufactured in China much faster and cheaper than anywhere else. Patent is there to help the ORIGINAL inventor to recoup the money and time they spent on R&D. You wouldn't want to put time and effort into something and then have a bigger business copy it and take all your business? Why would you ever invent something and put money into something that you are then basically donating?
US patent office granted a US company a patent of figgin spacers. US patent office rejected a European company patent on nozzles. Why is this not very surprising to me? ;-)
Patent systems a lot of times it's just stupid because it's arbitrary and subjective. Also, a lot of brands just patent better product that they are producing just to slow down innovation and competition (thus, maintaining their exact same product at high price with no changes) For me. If a patent is not really used by it's creator, it should revoke. And if another brand can create a better product using you patent as a base, it should not infringe Also, the people at the patent system don't know everything and they not are masters of EVERY matter in innovation. That's way you can't patent the wheel, or the internal combustion engine in it's whole. But they could patent a motion system, hotend configuration or filament management....... Removable extruder/nozzle are patented... it's insane
@@hebijirik Comes down to having patent lawyers in whichever country knowing what they are doing. I wouldn't be surprised that slice has a good legal team to draft patents whereas the EU mfgs are just filing electronically.
I got cht clone from "high quality" manufacturer and it looks the same as this one. Insert was well... inserted. Yes it gives more flow, especially on 0.6 nozzle size. However flow control was worse for me. Linear advance test prints are inconclusive and looks like it should be a negative value, single wall prints with retractions usually have holes in perimeters... Stefan can you take a look at retractions and linear advance in more details? I asked a few people with the same nozzle and they agreed that flow increases but linear advance becomes harder as well as retracts.
I would also like to see this. I tried a clone as well for a little while, and it worked but I also felt like flow control was bad. I didn't feel like doing real testing with it at the time so I swapped back to a regular nozzle but seeing that other people had a similar experience, I think I'll give it another shot soon and see what happens.
I can imagine that the stringing with high retraction values occurs because you actually lift up the copper insert inside the nozzle but gravity drops it down instantly and pushes out a bit of material.
Sounds plausible. The next step in this evolution (from one-piece that is difficult to manufacture, to two-piece that has the loose part but is easy to manufacture) would be the two-piece design but as an interference fit, and the insert pressed in rather than loose.
After thinking for a while, its highly unlikely that the patent would stand in court. Very similar hole-structures are used in almost every plastic extruder and it's called the "breaker plate". The only marginally new thing here is that it is built into a nozzle and not a separate part... but the aliexpress one is a separate part so even more similar to the old and proven breaker plate.
Makes me wonder if the Aliexpress version could be improved if the insert was threaded into the outer part (which would also be threaded). It'd give a higher surface area for heat transfer into the insert, and it might fix the stringing issue you mentioned with retraction.
This could backfire due to filament sticking in the threads and also filament change would be interresting Might be executed with full core, not "open" to the sides but still there must be atleast a little thread left exposed at the end of the channel.
I wonder if the knockoff is more difficult to purge? Like switching from black to white filament, wonder if you’d get bits of black coming out of the cracks inside the nozzle halfway thru the next print
It seems that you could sharpen the copper blade with a fine file if you want. As an alternative, you could hammer the copper part into the brass injector to make the heat transfer even more effective thanks to tighter connection.
You can clean out the chips with a micro drill bit. Also, between the straight holes and copper being much softer than the brass, it would wear out faster. But the difference in wear is low enough to be WELL worth the price difference. It will wear out between two and four times as fast, depending on the material used, but it costs just 1/10 as much. How ever you break it down, you're money ahead, and in cases like mine, you can recycle the nozzle into something else. Just more brass for the crucible, AFAIC.
I doubt the insert wearing would be the limiting factor on nozzle life anyway, the nozzle orifice would be. For one thing, I would imagine wear happens fastest at the orifice, the smallest part that material is shoved through at high speed against the wall. Plastic more slowly oozing past the heat exchanger insert won't wear it so quickly. For another, the nozzle orifice has critical dimensions for print quality. 0.1mm worn off the surface (making the nozzle 0.2mm larger) and not having the desired dimensions will cause print quality problems. 0.1mm worn off the heat exchanger insert probably wouldn't make any notable difference whatsoever. These reasons are why ruby-tip nozzles have the ruby just at the nozzle orifice, the rest of the nozzle is the usual brass. So even with the insert a softer material, the nozzle will probably be "dead" due to the orifice wearing out before wear on the copper insert is a problem at all. Perhaps this was something the designer of this insert considered.
@@louisvaught2495 Meh. Maybe. If I had the setup for that, I probably wouldn't. For me, anyway, it would be better to just get new of the superior knockoffs and recycle the worn-out nozzles. As Quill mentions, the hole in tip would wear out faster than the insert.
@@taitano12 It may be less complex and difficult than you're thinking. If you have the fluid on hand, electroplating takes a 9-volt battery, a nickel plate, and some patience. Also, you can electroplate the whole thing at once. A thin layer wouldn't mess with the dimensional accuracy of the nozzle much, but could decrease wear by about an order of magnitude.
I bought the bondtech nozzle immediately after you showcased it and I've been very happy with it. As for which one I'd choose, having seen that metal flake ready to fall off and block the nozzle I'd definitely avoid it. I don't mind the design, but I'd rather go with a brand name part for something in the melt path just for piece of mind. The melt path is critical, so it pays to spend a little extra, unlike the extruder where a knock off is often good enough. The price of the bond tech nozzle is not exactly expensive and unlike my early 3d printing days where I'd buy a large pack of cheap chinese mk8 nozzles for my CR10 and just throw them away if they ever blocked; these days I tend to only use my 3D printer for more important functional parts, so I take much greater care of my printer and its setup, use the right nozzle for the job and do everything I can to avoid blockages (filament cleaners really should come as standard on printers).
It's 7 TIMES as expensive or depending on pricing on Aliexpress at the moment, and surely you would agree that the chances of seeing a burr like that from manufacturing more than rarely will quickly show up in reviews. Since I, and many, print with .6mm nozzles, I've never once had any get blocked. Regardless, the pressure on Bondtech now would seem likely to cause them to reduce their price somewhat since any machinist could tell you that their price for those materials and machining make them highly profitable.
@@brianmi40 I think that if bondtech decided to make a newer nozzle that used a similar design to the aliexpress model and improved on it like making a coated version or making the bores more heat efficent it would have a leg up on the aliexpress models and people would trust it.
@@gkolesnitsky I don't think the issue is trust. It was shown to work fine, and at rates that exceed the ability of most printers to utilize, unless you are using large nozzles like a 1mm. I just see most people don't need anywhere near these flow rates with a stock .4mm or or upgraded to a .6mm nozzle. However, at $2 now instead of $17, it's a strong invitation to play around with one. I run a .8mm on one of my Anycubic Mega X's for making small to medium storage boxes, but I'm fine with the stock flow rates so don't really have a burning need, but at $2 may give it a play to see if I can push it a bit.
In your video a year ago where you try to make a hi flow nozzle, I suggest exactly this in the comments, a loose slug, but I think I suggested a press fit. Nice that it works, more cheap parts to the community!
Great idea, I wonder if we can drill out already existing nozzles, I have some unusual length ones where the insert would be good for! One thing not mentioned here is the CHT nozzle is coated, the cheap one is not.
As another said, there are nickel coated knockoffs available also... Pretty much anything that works becomes a magnet for a knockoff, which, is as it should be...
FYI UPDATE - It appears that all the "CHT" knockoff have been removed from Ali. You are very hard pressed to see pics of the nozzle entrance and "CHT" has been purged from the descriptions. However, The same vendors are selling "High Speed" nozzles that appear to have a *single* hole copper colored insert. These are the new knockoffs. Just got some today. They still have the 3 way split, but it happens lower in the nozzle. Really weird everything went away almost overnight, you don't see that happen often overseas.
Yeah, I know. I just got a CHT clone like 3 weeks ago and I searched last week, all the listing are gone, except few ones are selling for $15 for each. I wonder what happened, because it’s still really easy to find cht clone on taobao.
If the Bondtech wear resistant nozzles get good reviews, I will be putting them on all my machines. I have bought Chinese knock off CHT nozzles and they are functioning well as the insert is firmly attached to the nozzle. That served as a cheap experiment and now that I know this is a proven design, I'm happy to pay for the real thing.
Same as I did with the BL-Touch. Got the clone from Trianglelabs 1st, saw how it performs on my setup, can't go back to manual now and after it eventually broke (...no idea how a diode on it's board simply blew up. There's a hole in it...), I got the original Antclabs one. One can make the argument on games/movies/music as well making new fans through _unofficial_ means. Few are wiling to try out with big buck.
Any real experience with engineering composites, like CF Nylon? Filament manufacturers tends to recommend at least 0.6 nozzles for them, so I wonder if they are more prone to nozzle clogging or not.
@@WeedleTomato That's an excellent point. I am standardizing on 0.6 for all my printers with the Bondtech CHT nozzles but I haven't printed any CF Nylon yet. That's a good question for Bondtech.
@@WeedleTomato i recently clogged a .4mm cht with marble filament (light grey pla with black flakes) so it could be more suseptible to chunks...i just swapped nozzle and the filament, and havent prodded the cht nozzle yet
I don't understand the logic behind your point. Let's consider the reverse with the exact same logical steps. If the Chinese knock-off had proven otherwise, i.e. to be junk while the original was excellent (but you didn't know that, cause never tested) you would have stopped considering them equally bad?
I think the copper insert is a better idea. I think having it be removable would make it easier to clean the nozzle if you had a bad clog. I cant imagine you could do cold pulls on the original, you could in theory have an insert with a single hole that would allow you to still do cold pulls potentially like if you had some junk at the very tip.
I can get up to 39 mm3/s (at 1% underextrusion) with a clone V6 CHT + volcano adaptor in my clone volcano with an Orbiter 2.0 extruder. This really is some excellent performance. It also means that there's still a lot of life left in older hotend designs such as the volcano. No need to switch to a Dragon or other fancy new thing as long as your extruder is able to support it.
@@jaro6985 Which is why the insert approach used by the "knock-offs" make sense for those hardened nozzles. The insert does not have to be made from a really hard material since most of the wear should occur at the tip. You can make a multi piece nozzle, with each piece made from a different material. A copper alloy body with high thermal conductivity, a tungsten carbide tip, and an insert made from a somewhat harder copper alloy or steel. A one-piece wear resistant CHT nozzle would be a nightmare to make. Even the official Bondtech wear resistant CHT nozzle uses inserts.
Feels like a bigger innovation than to simply increase heat transfer area, even I had the same idea. But making the production efficient that requires some thought.
If someone sends you a second one you should drill out a volcano nozzle and put 2 of those brass inserts into, you may need to braze or solder them together so they don't miss align though
Hallo Stefan, thank you for the test. I wish you had tested 'what happens when you change filaments': can you successfully change to a different color filament without having remains of the other color suddenly appear in the new print? Meaning, when you put a new filament, are we sure that all three channels will be purged from the old filament fully? Danke und schöne Festtage
I have a clone. What's interesting is that I was able to print abs at pla temperatures. At proper abs Temps, I can print my 1mm bore stuff very fast compared to a standard nozzle
the thermal expansion of Copper and Brass are (slightly) different. The loose insert can get press fit in the Brass Nozle at working temperatures. I would call this a smart design decision
Additional improvement idea: Outside threads on the copper part and inside threads on the brass part. Larger area for heat-transfer, and better contact due to thread-preload. 11:42
If you look at threads cross section, you'll notice that threads have very limited contact points. Best approach is to press fit insert very tightly, like bondtech does with volcano CHT. It's hard to do at home though. Not impossible but requires some tools
@@shadyb Makes sense - nonetheless, it shall be significantly more than a cylindrical fit. Note also that the two materials being dissimilar, any pre-tension shall help to maintain contact in spite of temperature-change. A conical (instead of cylindrical) fit may also be worth considering, provided preload can be appropriately applied. I wonder if solder (in its molten state) may be functional as a conformal gap-filler at printing temperatures (~220*C)
Personally I think patenting 3 holes drilled in a threaded rod is at least at the brink of patent trolling. Why stop here, why not go for a single hole? Or the mere idea of increasing heat transfer by enlarging the contact area. Oh, of course they already did it :) Selling a nozzle for 20 bucks is just ridiculous, as long as it doesn't include some special manufacturing method or basically anything that would justify the extreme price point.
Well before the clones came out it did exactly that, it is harder to manufacture and it gives a flow rate increase. I'd say without knowing that the clones exist the cht nozzle is still quite impressive
Wow, that's what I need right now! I'm not able to order genuine CHT for some reason, so I'm waiting that replica from aliexpress. Will see if it will work for me.
check and straighten the head by sanding, heat will not transfer if it is not flush with the spacer, heat will transfer through the flat surface in addition to the thread.
I'm not totally anti patent but - If they priced the product fairly - nobody would feel the need to copy it and sell it much cheaper. $20.00 for a nozzle just because it has 3 little holes drilled in it at an angle is highway robbery and taking advantage of the consumer. It didn't cost crap to develop that. They probably stole the idea from someone else anyway. More power to the knockoffs in this case.
I have been using full metal hotends + nozzles + other stuff more than 3 years now. From AliExpress and local shops. Yes premiums are nice but if you have understanding on electronic + mechanics you can have killer machine 1/10 of prices.
@@WhiteG60 I agree with you. Even the 3d print services don't have this "hurry" 3d printing world poisoning with biased reviews and total unnecessary products for unrealistic need in real world.
I bought two; a 0.6 and a 0.4. after tests, on my sovol sv06 using cura and my own test, I was onlly able to achieve 18.5mm3/s with both nozzle. I suspect that maybe the printer has something to do with it, but I am very disapointed.
Hi Stefan. Thanks for as always a very good video. I have also tested the CHT clone and found when it works and when it does not work well. I tested it on an Ender 3 V2 bowden tube fed MK8 hotend with an all-metal heatbreak and a Voron with Afterburner, DirectDrive and Dragon HF. On the MK8 hotend, I saw performance drop of flow for the CHT clone of 10-15% while on the Dragon HF I saw performance increase of flow for the CHT clone in the order of 25-35%. I have posted links to data graphs, but apparently it got deleted. Anyway the conclusion is that the bowden fed MK8 hotend cannot as easily push filament through the nozzle compared to a standard nozzle because, the filament upon arrival at the nozzle split is cold and to difficult to split and bowden system not powerful enough to press through hence resulting in lower performance. On the Dragon HF with direct Drive, the HF part of the hotend esily soften the filament before it arrives at the split and the Direct Drive easily pushes the filament through. That is the explanation why the CHT clone works very well for some and not at all for others. Data on graphs available in the video here ua-cam.com/video/HypllFpZkXM/v-deo.html
@@piisfun Yeps, they were deleted again. Posted again and deleted again. Or it could be Stefan deleting comments although I find that unlikely. ANd I can't post pictures here in the comments. So no data.
Everybody is talking about faster printing speeds, but I see this new type of nozzle as a way of allowing the use of smaller/lighter stepper motors for direct drive setups.
Like with most things, I think if you have money, you should buy the original, but if cash is tight going with the 'knock-off' is ok. Especially in this case, as it is pretty different.
The insert design could likely be improved by having a slight taper, matched with a slight taper on the cavity. That would ensure a tight fit, and improve heat transfer.
I actually just started testing the aliexpress nozzle and so far im very impressed, i havent been able to fail a print yet, going over 250mm/s on speed.
And let us know how well it holds up - that copper insert aught to be much softer than the bondtech design so it may well abrade quite quickly in comparison - though the filament you print will define if that matters much to you.
@@SianaGearz Depends on what rate it is lost and where - too fast and it might shed lumps that will block the nozzle, it is in the end going to interfere with it delivering heat to the filament too. And as it doesn't really have any great cutting edge when new it may just stop feeding altogether especially against the higher temp or tougher filament - plastic not soft enough so it starts skipping before the filament really get into the multi channel melt zone proper.
@@alexandrevaliquette1941 Update: so i uh... failed at failing. I started experiencing hardware limits on multiple parts of the printer before under extrusion caused a failed print. The hardware of my ender 3 v2 could not keep up with the nozzle! At least on a benchy.
I received mine and they are ultra clean, the machining is really great and sincerely the impression with them is much better. There is no stain on the materials of the nozzle.
From my experiments, copper volcano nozzle (nickel plated) has similar performance as CHT volcano. But it makes me wonder if at some point extruder makes more difference than the nozzle.
@@Technikfreak72 exactly the same. Nickel plating is very thin and doesn't make any difference (at least not any positive difference because nickel has worse thermal conductivity than copper)
@@shadyb Their point was the entire nozzle made from copper, instead of brass, nothing to do with the nickel plating. But yea, from what I've read performance difference between copper/aluminum/brass doesn't seem to be much.
Patents have historically done nothing but make 3d printers less accessible, we only have the good consumer grade printers we have now because of patents running out in the first place. I hope they don't manage to patent it at all.
Bring on the high flow volcano knockoffs. Looked into buying the genuine from CHT, but I prefer avoiding giving my money to places that up-charge me to use a credit card or paypal.
Lol and you think you aren’t getting up charged for PayPal on AliExpress? Or that you aren’t paying for it in the form of a higher price? Get over yourself lmao, if you’re not getting a cash discount everybody is getting up charged for the transaction fee you fucking clown
Honestly, agreed. I will support the original until the moment the original is trying to rip you off at like 10 times the price. 20 dollars is unacceptable for a nozzle... 2 dollars each is frankly pretty pricy too, I get 10 of em for like 10 bucks on amazon, but 20 is insane for ONE nozzle.
Several years ago I did some hi flow nozzle inserts based on the 0.4mm V6 nozzle geometry and used a 4mm dia, x 5.5 mm long brass insert, this still allowed for a reasonable cross section in the neck of the thread. Ended up with 5 x 0.8 holes, and 15 degree tapered holes offset toward the centre to give sharp 'cutting edges' on both ends of the nozzle. This effectively doubles the internal heating area over the length of the insert. Copper paste was used on the insert/nozzle. Was getting around 98 % at 26mm3, although the printers I had were struggling to print at 240mm/s. Over all found the performance good but they are a bit fiddly to make. Only useful on unfilled materials like straight PLA, ABS and PETG. Forget CF etc.
I bought a CHT for our Prusa Mini, but took it out due to excess stringing and no time to dial that in. However, I'll be buying the abrasion resistant version as soon as they come out for both the mini and MK3s. Not only in principal do I avoid knockoff products because there is very real money put into development, but crap machining is just that, and I don't have time to deal with more crap.
yes, but, the thing is that even the "knock off" took time to develop and make it viable for production, it's not a 100% clone/knock off that has near to zero innovation in the design and most importantly, design like this are critical to make the tecnology go foward in a viable direction where you can actually use the product and truly test it's limit on a world wide scale
I love AliExpress stuff, it's quality is usually OK, but price is ACTUALLY reasonable. Also they often give their own spin to western ideas, and it comes out simpler, and sometimes even better in performance. Good job on their side, and let the people decide, if they want to buy on eBay or AliExpress.
The price is reasonable because labor conditions suck and the lack of environmental standards means the Chinese are steadily converting their country into a toxic wasteland and emit more CO2 than the rest of the world. That cannot stay that cheap forever without consequences.
@@repairman2be250 actually I do, and I check this stuff and it does really match the specs. And runs pretty well. It's a good way to save on price ups of local stores. You don't have to avoid Ali, you just have to have more than couple braincells to buy there.
@@repairman2be250 anything. From two bucks arduinos to i7-11800/RTX3070 laptops. They deliver exactly what's advertised, which you can confirm by buyers reviews before buying.
Do it, take a different spin on it. Something with retractions. Something with a printer where PTFE butts up against the nozzle and the insert can wander into the PTFE. Something about longer term use.
Those saying the Bondtech nozzle is harder to manufacture are 100% wrong. A 7-axis CNC lathe or screw machine can make the entire nozzle in one setup. The knockoff has 2 parts and would require multiple setups/operations. You don't need "fancy" machines to do it, but those fancy machines are pretty ubiquitous these days.
Well, shi... I had the same testing idea ;D Great video BTW. Honestly, I am surprised by well the knockoff performed. I have one too but mine seems to have a bigger "blockage" in the middle. And because there are only two trusted sellers on Ali (that I know), anything else is a gamble, like all these CHT clones. Looking at this situation from a business standpoint, you don't want that someone would rip off your great design but from an enthusiast standpoint, you want more innovation and those patents just slow them down. It is only from what point of view you are looking I guess.
That's sort of the debate with these rip-offs. The rip-offs discourage R&D investment if someone knows their design could be ripped off and sold for 1/10th the price. But the rip offs make it more affordable, bringing 3D printing within reach of hobbyists, and forcing companies to innovate to make products stand out and be affordable, and making there be a market for them to sell to in the first place. In this case I feel like the "rip off" contributed greatly to the design - they took an effective but expensive-to-manufacture design and found a way to produce it at far lower cost with comparable performance.
@@quillmaurer6563 I think its sort of balance issue: if the patent owner asks orbital prices for it, it doesnt get used and ppl just wait for it to expire like with many great ideas in the past. If you dont protect R&D properly, ppl get discouraged from doing the R&D in first place, because others can just take the results without paying for the effort and investment. But if prices for the patents are reasonable, it actually gets used as well as motivating ppl to do R&D. Atleast thats my feeling about it.
@@warel5730 The point you're saying is that patent-holders need to offer their design at a reasonable price in order for it to make money, serve the community, and not lose out to rip-offs? Makes sense. Though it is somewhat fair for them to need to make back their R&D costs, which rip-offs don't need to. But if they make it cheap enough and sell enough volume they should still be able to.
I don't want to get involved on the legal side of the argument, but what we're seeing are some interesting results based primarily, I assume, on manufacturing process differences. The fact the copper insert melts the filament faster is very interesting and does raise the question as to whether the bondtech cht were researched as thoroughly as they could have been for printing throughout efficiency. That they're releasing versions with inserts later tends to make me think the original v6 format cht were, like Microsoft Windows for a long time, beta products used to gather feedback on what works and what breaks. It would be very interesting to see what the internal testing before finalizing the design at bondtech looked like on their nozzle, because they clearly missed something if a $2 build can outpace it.
I think this design exists in other fields already so tell me how the hell did they get a paptent for it? I very much dislike companies that abuse patents and stifle an industry, so I will be buying the cheap knockoff.
I have a tricky question. When I'm pushing the flowrate to the limit of my hotend, klipper shows that the heater is on all the time (PWM 100%). Though, the temperature is slowly dropping until this triggers the thermal runaway. Will a cht nozzle improve my max flowrate ? Because I'm already transferring 100% of the available power to the filament, I don't think so. What do you think ?
hey i have 4 of these exact same clones lol even the packaging is the same, the QR code on the plastic bag is just some random numbers i presumed are some manufacturing tracking code or something. there are a new design i've seen that uses butt hole shape where the center isn't connected, so in theory this could bypass the patent altogether since it is considered just a single hole with irregular shape. i wonder if someone can run the designs through some heat transfer simulations to figure out which is the most ideal shape.
The insert thing is something I actually tried. I literally just took an old piece of copper pipe, cut a bit out and hammered it into flat copper sheet, then cut a little piece that slid down into the neck of the nozzle. I can't remember the exact speeds, but it was a 0.8mm nozzle, I think I was doing 0.3mm layer heights, and 60mm/s? So not crazy fast, but almost 50% faster than the 10mm^3/s Stefan mentioned in the video.
Hi Stefan. Danke für deine hervorragenden Videos! Ich schau deine Videos sehr gerne an und du machst das nicht nur professionell, sondern so sympathisch! Viele Grüße aus Süddeutschland!
I ordered those nozzles a month ago with 0.6mm holes to somehow improve speeds of printing for my cheapass bowden tube printer. Right now printing first benchy and hope it won't fail miserably. It's the fastest print I'm ever doing and first time doing 0.6mm nozzle.
I've been running a mellow cht volcano clone for a while now and it works excellent so far. Quality wise it also looks much better then what you had there.
Why even bother making holes circular? The open groove would also work. Regarding the loose fit: at 200C it might be much different as the expansion coefficients are different. Try heating the nozzle and removing the copper inlay part.
I like my CHT nozzles. Especially since I have a 500x500x500 printer. I am very happy to see they are working on an abrasive resistant variant of it and I will for sure buy some. The difference in speed when I have to print abrasive material with a non-CHT nozzle is really anoying. To buy an aliexpress part the part has to convince me first to be of significantly superior performance for my usecase. And even then I am reluctant to trust it compared to something where I know who makes it where and how.
In many ways the Chinese parts are keeping in spirit of the open source frameworks that these products even exist in the first place. Companies like E3d and bondtech should be focused on trying to compete on higher quality and making them at a competitive price, not by taking the open source works, making a tiny modification, then patenting it so they can charge 10 times the cost.
These Western companies will usually have the first-mover advantage, plus consistency and the sorts of assurances that institutional customers need, as well as better understanding of the institutional market. This adds up to quite a bit of leverage.
Thanks for the video. I'd still love to see you test out the different wattage heater cartridges in a regular block and a volcano block to see how much they might make a difference in melting capabilities.
I wonder whether boron nitride thermal paste between the copper insert and the brass housing would improve this nozzle...should be an interesting experiment.
are you kidding me or something? the paste would have mixed and possibly react with your molten filament. thats doesn't require half a brain to figure out...
@@MegaMaking If you use a small amount it can get stuck only between the threads, and any excess that might seep out into the nozzle/heatbreak can be cleaned by purging some filament. Nevertheless, you don't have to be a douchebag when responding to comments.
I got a set of these nozzles two weeks or so, ago. Using a 0.5mm version of this Clone CHT with a Mellow Volcano Spacer, I can get up ~50mm^3/s (T-215°C, 220mm/s, Layer Height 0.20, Extrusion Width 1.1 with PLA(+). As for (OVERTURE CLEAR) PETG, I'm having difficulty breaking 15mm/s^3. I've been running calibration models for the last 8 hours or so, lol
@@twanheijkoop6753 I'm using a clone BMG mounted as direct drive using the Hero Me Gen 6 hotend assembly T-215°C for PLA+ I'm in the middle of a PETG vase flow speed test (like Stefan's), and I'm at T-245°C 36mm^3/s right now (150mm/s, Layer Height 0.20mm, Extrusion Width 1.20mm, needing to bump-up my Extrusion Flow to 142% to get 1.2mm dimensional accuracy) I'm trying to see if I can get my PETG flow (currently 36mm^3/s) to match my 50mm^3/s PLA flow
there are different versions of cht copy nozzles in China. and a nearly full copy one is there, and even more a nickel plated one. but after watching this video I'm quite happy with the one you showed in the video.
Kudos to Stefan for taking such a neutral and evidence based approach. Compare and contrast with 'Design Prototype Test' with his vitriolic rants on the same kind of issues.
i wonder if there would be any improvement if you solder the insert in place. in both the heat transfer and stringing? im wondering if the stringing is due to the insert moving at higher retract settings?
To solder without blocking the final nozzle path would be challenging to achieve, as the solder largely goes where the heat is, and that lump on the inside will heat slower than the outer and the thinner tip likely heats up quickest of all, so I'd not try it myself. Also doubt its required - the heat is applied to the outside part and the coldest bit will be the insert itself so thermal expansion difference between them if the fit is reasonably close may lock the core in place while it is in use anyway. Though this does seem like the perfect part to machine to a good tight pushfit upfront to me. Personally I expect the increase in stringing with greater retracts is that the filament in one or other of those channels is snapped off from the feed so its own weight makes it leak out badly as its lost that upwards pull from the rest of the filament.
I did send you the nozzle and it came loose during shipping. It was one part when I put in the mail but I didn't use mine jet. Just tried to move it a bit with some steel wire and it seems to be fixed in the nozzle.
I wouldn't mind supporting Bondtech CHT, but $20 vs $2 is a huge difference. If they were able to simplify their manufacturing processes and reduce the price, like just using the simpler inserts with larger inner diameter nozzles, I mean...
If it is a technical/technology patent, it is hard to obtain but also much harder to overturn. If it is a design patent, it is easy to obtain but a minor change will allow another manufacturer to easily work around the patent. So to be clear, if a technical patent is granted, the Ali Express sold version would be almost certainly be infringing on the patent. However, if a design patent is granted, the Ali Express sold version does not infringe the patent in any way. Either way, China does not care. To give you some idea of the difference between a "design" and a "technology" patent, the "MagSafe" power connector patent is NOT a technology patent, it is a design patent. That means Apple does not have a patent covering the use of "a magnet to hold in a power connector" or even on the "number of conductors"; something it tried to claim, poor saps! It has a patent on the exact design of the solution. So if another manufacturer made something similar to a MagSafe connector but made the outside rectangular, Apple would have no legal recourse to prevent that manufacturer from using it. This makes sense because in Japan they have used magnetic cables on water kettles since the 1950s. Kettles are frequently set on the floor in Japan for operation, so a magnetic power cable is the safe way to disconnect the power if someone (drunkenly, usually) trips on the cable. Of course, that does not stop Apple making threats, but as someone who beat the living shit out of Apple lawyers in court after they came after me, I can tell you it is possible to chop them down by explaining things in layman's terms to a judge, providing obvious prior art, and sometimes pointing out Apple is infringing on you (if you happen to have filed an accepted patent, which I had!) and so their patent needs vacating and they owe you money. Except for my children being born and my wife saying "I Do", watching the Apple lawyers collapse in their seats was the best day of my life.
You forgot that if the patent is granted in US only. Then China can legally make and sold the device in all country except USA. It's not legally the responsibility of China (or any other country in the world) to care about a US patent either. Then, sure, Canada would probably help USA more than China in the same situation, but only USA is legally responsible. Lastly, if you have a granted patent in China... I guess you just waste money! lol
Could you do a more indepth test on linewidth vs nozzle shape? In this video, at 12:40 we can see that the Bondtech has a much wider flat portion at the tip of the nozzle, while the Aliexpress is narrower and almost looks rounded over. How would this affect printing when you increase lineWidth to a factor 1.5-2.5 times that of the nozzle diameter? I have successfully printed line widths of up to 1.5mm with my 0.6 nozzle, so I'm wondering how this would compare between the Bondtech and knockoff in a similar test. If the 0.4 Bondtech could print 1mm linewidths and the Aliexpress could not, that would be another reason to get the genuine one. Considering that CHT nozzles entire selling point is high flow, this particular test would definitively be interesting.
Patent attorney here. The EP3445568B1patent is granted in Europe. Its equivalent is still being examined in the USA, so the protection is not completely defined in America. There is no patent in China, so the Aliexpress guys can make and sell their knockoff in China with impunity, at least for the domestic and Asian markets They may run into problems exporting the nozzles in Europe and in the USA but, the claims of the European patent require "_ /.../ a piece of heat conductive material being *attached* in at least one place to the inner side wall of the hole/.../ _". It would have been very easy to force-fit the insert ofthe Chinese nozzle, and the heat transfer would have been improved, if anything. The fact that they went for a freely sliding insert may be an attempt to design around the patent. I am not sure that it is a safe defence, but it is not stupid at all, especially since the performance is somewhat unexpected.
Power to the knockoffs or would you rather support the innovators?
Friendly competition lowers prices and encourages more innovation!
Edit: I get that if the 'knockoff" is just straight up copying the design, with no benefits, and/or can make them significantly cheaper or quicker to make than anyone else can, it can lead to the knockoff becoming a monopoly and stifling creativity once again.
The knockoff in question had changed around some ideas and ended up with a debatable improved end result.
Nothing is black and white, there is always complexity with subjects around choice
Thanks @@Hex for some of these ideas.
Both
You've got a pro-knockoff sponsor today.
As long as it doesn't infringe on the patents yes. A lot of money, time and research goes into innovation. That should be protected.
The knockoffs are also innovators in this case.
I just read the patent, it is probably not a coincidence that the copper block from Aliexpress did not have holes in it, it was instead 3 channels that were open on one side each. Probably because the patent specifically mentions holes. This could be another way to circumvent the patent.
remind me of a video vsauce trying to debate/explain how many holes a human has. the definition of hole is actually undefinable if they really want to get technical about it.
@@MegaMaking if you want lawyers to talk until they are blue in the face ask them to define "may"or "shall".
And then Bondtech copies the sleeve in their HF design. "It's unpatented" the chorus cries. LOL :P
Its not like china/Aliexpress cares about patents…
@@Eluderatnight 🤣🤣🤣👍
This aliexpress type is probably like 100 times easier to manufacture than drilling 3 holes at an angle and at the smae times gets more heat into the inside.
This design is simply superior on a value level.
And the wear resistant CHT is probably insert based for the same reason. Especially since tool steel is a lot harder to machine, with means when you cross holes you are far more likely to break the drill than when drilling C36000 leaded brass.
If I had to guess the copper in the clone is free machining too, like C14500 as pure copper is ridiculously difficult to drill due to its gummy nature.
cheaper and better which is actually a smarter design. the CHT hardened core nozzle came after these clones... so... in a way... bontech also benefits from stealing designs from the chinese
@@MegaMaking Maybe they tried drilling a solid nozzle and regretted it badly when the drill crossed into the first hole.
@@soundspark I would certainly hope they'd be well aware as to exactly what was going to happen the second the drill crossed into the previous channel, to be honest
The insert approach is so much better from a production standpoint.
maybe you can have other inserts, like with 4 holes. or even 5 but smaller)
Only because the standard nozzle and high nozzle are the same except for the insert. So the same item can be used for two products. Otherwise, making the holes in the insert is about about the same difficulty and time consuming as the Bondtech. The insert approach has a higher number of operations to produce.
@@Shocker99 Making the holes in the bondtech is harder because they are at an angle. But yes, more ops, which doesn't directly mean harder.
@@DimaLegoFUN Since it gets the job done, and are $2.25 ea. delivered, one could say, sure, but would have to ask why, when it was shown to work just fine at higher flow rates than anyone currently could use (outside of a Bambu...)
@@brianmi40 i found them at 1.6$ with shipping)
As usual, putting out the videos that aren't just flashy but deep testing lore. Solid.
I appreciate that!
@@CNCKitchen You're the only creator i turn off my ad blocker for! Thanks for the videos hope to see more when you have the time.
Personally I think its kind of crazy that what is essentially just some drilled holes can even be patented in the first place.
Pattents are stupid they only hold back innovation. Bondtech makes things overpriced by there marketing department with overpriced products and buzzwords that do not deliver anything that someone can call real innovation. Let them waste money with there legal case and still lose market. I hope this company will go bankrupt next year cause they are toxic for the opensource community.
Well, in the case of CHT there IS some innovation (but then the chinese variant, or the Bondtech insert, isnt' itself a further innovation, so worthy of patent itself? =) ).
What I find ludicrous is Slice Engineering's patent (pending): they basically patented a couple rods (that keep still the heatblock).
I'm not usually against patents, when they make sense (and in the mosquito's case I find none).
Most patents are bs and shouldn’t even be
You can submit patents for anything (hence patent trolls - look up George B. Seldon), what matters is if you can defend it when it's contested.
It is about the idea not the holes.
The issues happening with retraction length remind me of when I ran a color-mixing hotend. Since due to the complex internal structure you aren't directly pulling the filament in and out, you're just changing the pressure in the chamber by pulling on the filament. Retracting too much will break the suction and allow the nozzle to drip again. I found smaller, slower retractions to work best with that hotend (Geeetech A10M stock hotend)
I wonder whether the lose core moved and somehow let more molten material to drip through.
That completely makes sense
Being a novice /hobbyist at 3D printing, I was confused when he said he LOWERED the extraction length to DECREASE stringing. I thought he had it backwards, but it was I that was wrong. Your explanation clearly explains the reasoning. Thanks.
Thanks, I shall keep that in mind when I reactivate my old Diamond Hotend 3-way....
Retraction always just changes the pressure inside and never actually pulls the filament out. The filament is molten at the tip, so you can't pull it out like you think.
The insert is really clever, but the execution could be a little more refined. It wouldn't hurt to have chamfers on both ends to make install completely foolproof and to help with retracts, probably. I thought the insert would be too loose for transfer enough heat, but it looks like it works very well. Maybe copper expands more than brass so when the nozzle heats up the two parts fuse together nicely.
Heat expansion coefficients: Brass 18,5. Copper 17,0. So no, the insert will not expand into the brass. The absolute expansion if the insert (assuming it is 4mm wide) would be around 0,017 mm. Which would be a very good value for a press fit. However, looking at the pictures of the insert it is pretty clear that this kind of precision is not used in the manufacturing process. Also the body would need to be out of Invar to not expand away from the insert but Invar is a bad heat conducter. A good pressfit would be considered "attached" so the patent claims would match.
@@exi Would the expansion of the brass pick up the slack here? Sure the OD of the copper wont expand so much but the ID of the brass will also get smaller.
@dixieduffy7 That's actually a fairly common misconception. When a ring shaped object thermally expands, it's somewhat reasonable to think that the ID would shrink as the material expands inwards. However, the ID and OD both expand.
I'm guessing that the fit gets tighter when it heats up even though as explained the Thermal Expansion is slightly higher for brass. Here is the logic and I believe how it works. When a hoop expands, the length is the "circumference" that is getting the largest change so the diameter is changing at C = Pi x D (or D = C / Pi). This means the diameter is increasing at about 1/3 the rate of the circumference. For the insert, it is expanding outwards and therefore is growing faster than the nozzle.
This assumes it’s 100% brass and 100% copper, with no alloying
Thanks for testing this! The knockoff actually looks like a much better design. It *might* be supplied in 2 separate parts to circumvent the patent application thought I have not reviewed it personally. I'd be tempted to press the copper insert into the brass external nozzle to expand it radially and make even better contact with the inner walls. Also, nickel plating the copper may help avoid copper oxidation. Whether the patent is ultimately issued and depending on any actual claims allowed, the knockoff may be able to make a lot of money before/if the patent is issued. Interesting...
I bought a pack of 10 of these off of amazon for about $20 and they work great! I am able to run my ender 3 pro at nearly 90mm/s as opposed to the 30mm/s that I was running before to get a good print. I am having some problems with stringing, but it could also be that I upgraded to a .6mm nozzle too and am still working on getting everything dialed in, but there is a definite difference in extrusion speed! I even had to upgrade the extruder to a dual gear one so that it could keep up. great video!
A tiny speck of 'hi-temp' or silver-bearing solder to secure the insert into the body would work wonders!
Solder has good heat-transfer, so it might work even better!
Cold pulls with this aren't even worth considering: I'd get a whole bunch of these nozzles, keep one for each type/color of filament.
It seems like a good 'production' tool.
On the one hand, I freely applaud Solex for bringing this improvement over to mainstream 3d printing from the other industries that have already had it for decades, and would love to tell people to purchase the original CHT from them for that reason alone. Unfortunately, like with Slice Engineering and Apple, I cannot in good conscience support a company that manages to brazenly get away with unlawfully patenting concepts and designs that already exists in other fields or in the public domain (see: Prior Art), or even companies that try but fail to do that very same thing. As a result of this particular immoral business practice and even bearing in mind that Solex have to date proven, if not necessarily helpful in all ways, non-obstructive to lone individuals and famous figures such as Stefan manufacturing and testing similar designs for comparison purposes and private use, I find that the only recommendation my conscience allows is to tell people to purchase only the knockoffs unless and until Solex ceases to misuse the patenting system and limits such intellectual property grabs to actual original designs as both implicitly intended and explicitly laid out in international and most national patent laws.
Maybe it was different back when the patent law was first introduced, but today it seems clear that patents overall hinder innovation more than it encourages it
@@neelsg a patent is supposed to include all the information so that someone in the same field could use the patent to recreate the invention ("ordinarily skilled in the art")
unfortunately, too many patents do not do so, and try to make such broad claims that it's not clear what they cover, let alone how to build it.
because someone else is supposed to be able to follow the directions and build the invention, it's obvious that it should NOT prevent people from making their own version of it for testing, only preventing someone from selling (or I suppose a large company could mass manufacture something for internal use)
patent and copyright maximalists have been pushing for a long time to make people think that they prevent anyone from doing anything similar, which is NOT what is supposed to be happening.
@@davidelang I understand how patents are supposed to work and what they are meant to achieve, but that is not the reality. Given how they are abused and how effectively corporations can use them to be anti-competitive, I just think we would be better off and have more innovation if those laws were scrapped altogether
The even worse thing that happens a lot is when companies patent something, or buy a patent, to prevent a (likely superior) alternative competing with their existing products. Patents really need to have a "use-or-lose" aspect, say they last the existing 20 years if you're actually producing (or licensing) the design, but if you aren't actively producing, developing, or licensing the design, simply blocking it from being used, it becomes public domain in say 3 years.
Another part of the Intellectual Property realm that needs overhaul is that software being covered by copyright doesn't make any sense anymore. When software began to be created, it was just dropped into copyright law which is meant to cover creative works, which I don't think software fits neatly into. That was probably what made the most sense at the time out of existing options, especially with early software that was mostly manually written. But software typically involves both functional aspects (how it works, "under the hood" aspects) that should be covered by a patent (in the same way a tool such as a hammer might be) and creative aspects (aesthetics, user interface, storyline of a game, etc) that would make sense as a copyright. Some software, such as CAD, or say a 3D printer slicer, is mostly the "functional" side, while a game might be more the "creative" side, but all software would have at least some of both, thus not fitting neatly into either a patent or copyright. So what really needs to happen is a new category specifically for software that isn't either, but covers both creative/aesthetic elements and functional elements. Though the reality is that I feel like IP-law isn't really used in software anyway, instead they incorporate other methods built into the product to prevent software being copied or used without a license.
The altenatives work fine, just don't drop the copper insert on a dark carpet. They perform a lot better in terms of flow rate than the standard Creality 0.4 nozzles. For whatever reason, the ones I have tested are prone to pick up PETG around the nozzle tip but that may just be a retraction setting. Great review that was very useful. 👀👍
In my experience, PETG does not print well at all with brass nozzles. I buff a stainless steel nozzle with 3M Polishing Paper before installing. Then I clean it vigorously with a melamine foam pad after each print. For some reason, none of the gurus have ever picked up on this problem with PETG (?). I'm wondering whether I can drop the inset into my E3D SS nozzle. (The cheap SS clones tend to have wrong dimensions - making the adhesion problem worse.)
I really like seeing these comparisons between the knockoffs and the genuines. Personally, I think patents are sometimes used to gatekeep innovations because they can be so vague that it stops others from attempting to make an improved version, but I really don't know if this particular knockoff is worth using. I certainly wouldn't consider it due to the questionable machining, but if it was of a higher quality I would consider it, because I'm just a hobbyist and $20+shipping is too much for a nozzle. Although I don't think these nozzles are designed for hobbyists anyways
Of course, even a low power magnifying glass will reveal the exact quality of machining you have in your hands, and at $2.25 ea., one of the most reasonable chances one could ever take to improve their flow rates.
@@brianmi40 The chatter marks in each of the three channels most likely won't be an issue but you could try making your own with a polished surface if you wanted to test out the difference. Also trying other materials for the insert even though we know copper is the ideal choice testing other materials wouldn't hurt. These are most likely made in two ways... By hand using a steel jig with the three entry points with a second op for the chamfering or (most likely) a small cnc lathe with a live tailstock / toolpost drill that performs the operations via indexing of the spindle and it goes drill > chamfer > next index. They wouldn't use a regular drill, instead a micro endmill would be the choice here to avoid the tool from wandering off specially since you have both a "grabby" material and also an interrupted cut.
Depending on a patent. They CAN be used for gatekeeping BUT for smaller manufacturers/inventors/businesses they are essential. Every one knows that a product can be copied and manufactured in China much faster and cheaper than anywhere else. Patent is there to help the ORIGINAL inventor to recoup the money and time they spent on R&D. You wouldn't want to put time and effort into something and then have a bigger business copy it and take all your business? Why would you ever invent something and put money into something that you are then basically donating?
seems odd that the patent for CHT gets blocked yet slice can patent friggin spacers on a hotend
US patent office granted a US company a patent of figgin spacers. US patent office rejected a European company patent on nozzles. Why is this not very surprising to me? ;-)
Patent systems a lot of times it's just stupid because it's arbitrary and subjective. Also, a lot of brands just patent better product that they are producing just to slow down innovation and competition (thus, maintaining their exact same product at high price with no changes)
For me. If a patent is not really used by it's creator, it should revoke. And if another brand can create a better product using you patent as a base, it should not infringe
Also, the people at the patent system don't know everything and they not are masters of EVERY matter in innovation. That's way you can't patent the wheel, or the internal combustion engine in it's whole. But they could patent a motion system, hotend configuration or filament management.......
Removable extruder/nozzle are patented... it's insane
patenting a hole vs patenting a donut
@@hebijirik Comes down to having patent lawyers in whichever country knowing what they are doing. I wouldn't be surprised that slice has a good legal team to draft patents whereas the EU mfgs are just filing electronically.
@@adriansue8955 in this case, the hole gets fucked
I got cht clone from "high quality" manufacturer and it looks the same as this one. Insert was well... inserted. Yes it gives more flow, especially on 0.6 nozzle size. However flow control was worse for me. Linear advance test prints are inconclusive and looks like it should be a negative value, single wall prints with retractions usually have holes in perimeters... Stefan can you take a look at retractions and linear advance in more details? I asked a few people with the same nozzle and they agreed that flow increases but linear advance becomes harder as well as retracts.
I would also like to see this. I tried a clone as well for a little while, and it worked but I also felt like flow control was bad. I didn't feel like doing real testing with it at the time so I swapped back to a regular nozzle but seeing that other people had a similar experience, I think I'll give it another shot soon and see what happens.
Any chance the nozzle was from mellow?
@@twanheijkoop6753 tsssss I haven't told you that :D
I can imagine that the stringing with high retraction values occurs because you actually lift up the copper insert inside the nozzle but gravity drops it down instantly and pushes out a bit of material.
Sounds plausible. The next step in this evolution (from one-piece that is difficult to manufacture, to two-piece that has the loose part but is easy to manufacture) would be the two-piece design but as an interference fit, and the insert pressed in rather than loose.
It is not a knock off, it is an improvement. It is a better design , if not a better product, than the cht.
After thinking for a while, its highly unlikely that the patent would stand in court. Very similar hole-structures are used in almost every plastic extruder and it's called the "breaker plate".
The only marginally new thing here is that it is built into a nozzle and not a separate part... but the aliexpress one is a separate part so even more similar to the old and proven breaker plate.
plus there's all the kids play-dough pasta maker machines
can't patent prior art
I even got a heatgluegun with such a breakerplate.
Slice engineering has a patent over spacers in a hotend to support the heater block.
Makes me wonder if the Aliexpress version could be improved if the insert was threaded into the outer part (which would also be threaded). It'd give a higher surface area for heat transfer into the insert, and it might fix the stringing issue you mentioned with retraction.
That in an hardend steel nozzle and il be happy for a couple of bucks
best cooment, yours
This could backfire due to filament sticking in the threads and also filament change would be interresting
Might be executed with full core, not "open" to the sides but still there must be atleast a little thread left exposed at the end of the channel.
I wonder if the knockoff is more difficult to purge? Like switching from black to white filament, wonder if you’d get bits of black coming out of the cracks inside the nozzle halfway thru the next print
It seems that you could sharpen the copper blade with a fine file if you want. As an alternative, you could hammer the copper part into the brass injector to make the heat transfer even more effective thanks to tighter connection.
Or just solder them together...
You can clean out the chips with a micro drill bit. Also, between the straight holes and copper being much softer than the brass, it would wear out faster. But the difference in wear is low enough to be WELL worth the price difference. It will wear out between two and four times as fast, depending on the material used, but it costs just 1/10 as much. How ever you break it down, you're money ahead, and in cases like mine, you can recycle the nozzle into something else. Just more brass for the crucible, AFAIC.
It honestly might be worth nickel plating it yourself if you've got the setup to do that.
I doubt the insert wearing would be the limiting factor on nozzle life anyway, the nozzle orifice would be. For one thing, I would imagine wear happens fastest at the orifice, the smallest part that material is shoved through at high speed against the wall. Plastic more slowly oozing past the heat exchanger insert won't wear it so quickly. For another, the nozzle orifice has critical dimensions for print quality. 0.1mm worn off the surface (making the nozzle 0.2mm larger) and not having the desired dimensions will cause print quality problems. 0.1mm worn off the heat exchanger insert probably wouldn't make any notable difference whatsoever. These reasons are why ruby-tip nozzles have the ruby just at the nozzle orifice, the rest of the nozzle is the usual brass. So even with the insert a softer material, the nozzle will probably be "dead" due to the orifice wearing out before wear on the copper insert is a problem at all. Perhaps this was something the designer of this insert considered.
@@louisvaught2495 Meh. Maybe. If I had the setup for that, I probably wouldn't. For me, anyway, it would be better to just get new of the superior knockoffs and recycle the worn-out nozzles. As Quill mentions, the hole in tip would wear out faster than the insert.
@@taitano12 It may be less complex and difficult than you're thinking. If you have the fluid on hand, electroplating takes a 9-volt battery, a nickel plate, and some patience.
Also, you can electroplate the whole thing at once. A thin layer wouldn't mess with the dimensional accuracy of the nozzle much, but could decrease wear by about an order of magnitude.
From the heat map in "1:21", it seems obvious that there will be a huge improvement on layer adhesion with CHT nozzle. Will you test that as well?
I bought the bondtech nozzle immediately after you showcased it and I've been very happy with it. As for which one I'd choose, having seen that metal flake ready to fall off and block the nozzle I'd definitely avoid it. I don't mind the design, but I'd rather go with a brand name part for something in the melt path just for piece of mind. The melt path is critical, so it pays to spend a little extra, unlike the extruder where a knock off is often good enough. The price of the bond tech nozzle is not exactly expensive and unlike my early 3d printing days where I'd buy a large pack of cheap chinese mk8 nozzles for my CR10 and just throw them away if they ever blocked; these days I tend to only use my 3D printer for more important functional parts, so I take much greater care of my printer and its setup, use the right nozzle for the job and do everything I can to avoid blockages (filament cleaners really should come as standard on printers).
It's 7 TIMES as expensive or depending on pricing on Aliexpress at the moment, and surely you would agree that the chances of seeing a burr like that from manufacturing more than rarely will quickly show up in reviews. Since I, and many, print with .6mm nozzles, I've never once had any get blocked.
Regardless, the pressure on Bondtech now would seem likely to cause them to reduce their price somewhat since any machinist could tell you that their price for those materials and machining make them highly profitable.
@@brianmi40 I think that if bondtech decided to make a newer nozzle that used a similar design to the aliexpress model and improved on it like making a coated version or making the bores more heat efficent it would have a leg up on the aliexpress models and people would trust it.
@@gkolesnitsky I don't think the issue is trust. It was shown to work fine, and at rates that exceed the ability of most printers to utilize, unless you are using large nozzles like a 1mm.
I just see most people don't need anywhere near these flow rates with a stock .4mm or or upgraded to a .6mm nozzle.
However, at $2 now instead of $17, it's a strong invitation to play around with one.
I run a .8mm on one of my Anycubic Mega X's for making small to medium storage boxes, but I'm fine with the stock flow rates so don't really have a burning need, but at $2 may give it a play to see if I can push it a bit.
I’m personally waiting on the wear resistant CHTs, I hate limiting what I can print.
They came out last week if you're still waiting :P
@@KorsaKing Where?
In your video a year ago where you try to make a hi flow nozzle, I suggest exactly this in the comments, a loose slug, but I think I suggested a press fit. Nice that it works, more cheap parts to the community!
Great idea, I wonder if we can drill out already existing nozzles, I have some unusual length ones where the insert would be good for!
One thing not mentioned here is the CHT nozzle is coated, the cheap one is not.
As another said, there are nickel coated knockoffs available also... Pretty much anything that works becomes a magnet for a knockoff, which, is as it should be...
FYI UPDATE - It appears that all the "CHT" knockoff have been removed from Ali. You are very hard pressed to see pics of the nozzle entrance and "CHT" has been purged from the descriptions. However, The same vendors are selling "High Speed" nozzles that appear to have a *single* hole copper colored insert. These are the new knockoffs. Just got some today. They still have the 3 way split, but it happens lower in the nozzle. Really weird everything went away almost overnight, you don't see that happen often overseas.
Yeah, I know. I just got a CHT clone like 3 weeks ago and I searched last week, all the listing are gone, except few ones are selling for $15 for each. I wonder what happened, because it’s still really easy to find cht clone on taobao.
If the Bondtech wear resistant nozzles get good reviews, I will be putting them on all my machines. I have bought Chinese knock off CHT nozzles and they are functioning well as the insert is firmly attached to the nozzle. That served as a cheap experiment and now that I know this is a proven design, I'm happy to pay for the real thing.
Same as I did with the BL-Touch. Got the clone from Trianglelabs 1st, saw how it performs on my setup, can't go back to manual now and after it eventually broke (...no idea how a diode on it's board simply blew up. There's a hole in it...), I got the original Antclabs one.
One can make the argument on games/movies/music as well making new fans through _unofficial_ means. Few are wiling to try out with big buck.
Any real experience with engineering composites, like CF Nylon? Filament manufacturers tends to recommend at least 0.6 nozzles for them, so I wonder if they are more prone to nozzle clogging or not.
@@WeedleTomato That's an excellent point. I am standardizing on 0.6 for all my printers with the Bondtech CHT nozzles but I haven't printed any CF Nylon yet. That's a good question for Bondtech.
@@WeedleTomato i recently clogged a .4mm cht with marble filament (light grey pla with black flakes) so it could be more suseptible to chunks...i just swapped nozzle and the filament, and havent prodded the cht nozzle yet
I don't understand the logic behind your point. Let's consider the reverse with the exact same logical steps. If the Chinese knock-off had proven otherwise, i.e. to be junk while the original was excellent (but you didn't know that, cause never tested) you would have stopped considering them equally bad?
I think the copper insert is a better idea. I think having it be removable would make it easier to clean the nozzle if you had a bad clog. I cant imagine you could do cold pulls on the original, you could in theory have an insert with a single hole that would allow you to still do cold pulls potentially like if you had some junk at the very tip.
Insert with a single hole is the original nozzle isnt it? Like it wouldnt have the thermal properties anymore.
I can get up to 39 mm3/s (at 1% underextrusion) with a clone V6 CHT + volcano adaptor in my clone volcano with an Orbiter 2.0 extruder. This really is some excellent performance.
It also means that there's still a lot of life left in older hotend designs such as the volcano. No need to switch to a Dragon or other fancy new thing as long as your extruder is able to support it.
One big advantage the knock-offs have over the CHT is the ability to use them in hardened steel, ruby, or tungsten carbide nozzles.
You can't do that though.. without machining hardened material which is a lot of work.
@@jaro6985 Which is why the insert approach used by the "knock-offs" make sense for those hardened nozzles. The insert does not have to be made from a really hard material since most of the wear should occur at the tip.
You can make a multi piece nozzle, with each piece made from a different material. A copper alloy body with high thermal conductivity, a tungsten carbide tip, and an insert made from a somewhat harder copper alloy or steel. A one-piece wear resistant CHT nozzle would be a nightmare to make. Even the official Bondtech wear resistant CHT nozzle uses inserts.
The simple solution for patent infringement is selling nozzle and insert separately.
Feels like a bigger innovation than to simply increase heat transfer area, even I had the same idea.
But making the production efficient that requires some thought.
If someone sends you a second one you should drill out a volcano nozzle and put 2 of those brass inserts into, you may need to braze or solder them together so they don't miss align though
I'd say braze because common solders melt at common 3D printing temperatures.
@@wyattutz I know he mentioned them in one of his videos
Hallo Stefan, thank you for the test. I wish you had tested 'what happens when you change filaments': can you successfully change to a different color filament without having remains of the other color suddenly appear in the new print? Meaning, when you put a new filament, are we sure that all three channels will be purged from the old filament fully? Danke und schöne Festtage
I wonder that too. Cold pulling would probably not work. I do want to buy one, so I'll try it out myself
You change filament, then purge until the color changes fully to the new color. Its no different from a normal nozzle.
@@wiktorpp If you watched the video, you would know Stefan said cold pulling did not work with the knockoff nozzle.
@@no-page Oh. I missed that. Thank you
Patent laws in their current state are broken. Remember Apple vs Samsung and rounded corners?
I have a clone.
What's interesting is that I was able to print abs at pla temperatures. At proper abs Temps, I can print my 1mm bore stuff very fast compared to a standard nozzle
Depends which ABS. For me abs works from 220-235C, using volcano hotend.
That's quite interesting. So what sort of nozzle were you using exactly?
the thermal expansion of Copper and Brass are (slightly) different. The loose insert can get press fit in the Brass Nozle at working temperatures. I would call this a smart design decision
It'd be interesting to see if it's possible to improve performance by soldering the insert in.
Good idea!
Additional improvement idea: Outside threads on the copper part and inside threads on the brass part. Larger area for heat-transfer, and better contact due to thread-preload. 11:42
If you look at threads cross section, you'll notice that threads have very limited contact points. Best approach is to press fit insert very tightly, like bondtech does with volcano CHT. It's hard to do at home though. Not impossible but requires some tools
@@shadyb Makes sense - nonetheless, it shall be significantly more than a cylindrical fit. Note also that the two materials being dissimilar, any pre-tension shall help to maintain contact in spite of temperature-change. A conical (instead of cylindrical) fit may also be worth considering, provided preload can be appropriately applied. I wonder if solder (in its molten state) may be functional as a conformal gap-filler at printing temperatures (~220*C)
Personally I think patenting 3 holes drilled in a threaded rod is at least at the brink of patent trolling. Why stop here, why not go for a single hole? Or the mere idea of increasing heat transfer by enlarging the contact area. Oh, of course they already did it :) Selling a nozzle for 20 bucks is just ridiculous, as long as it doesn't include some special manufacturing method or basically anything that would justify the extreme price point.
Well before the clones came out it did exactly that, it is harder to manufacture and it gives a flow rate increase. I'd say without knowing that the clones exist the cht nozzle is still quite impressive
11,44€ for a pack of 9 nozzles in three siizes (0.4, 0.6, 0.8mm). Including shipping. This is below 1.30€ each! Power to evolution items...
Wow, that's what I need right now! I'm not able to order genuine CHT for some reason, so I'm waiting that replica from aliexpress. Will see if it will work for me.
check and straighten the head by sanding, heat will not transfer if it is not flush with the spacer, heat will transfer through the flat surface in addition to the thread.
I'm not totally anti patent but - If they priced the product fairly - nobody would feel the need to copy it and sell it much cheaper. $20.00 for a nozzle just because it has 3 little holes drilled in it at an angle is highway robbery and taking advantage of the consumer. It didn't cost crap to develop that. They probably stole the idea from someone else anyway. More power to the knockoffs in this case.
I have been using full metal hotends + nozzles + other stuff more than 3 years now. From AliExpress and local shops.
Yes premiums are nice but if you have understanding on electronic + mechanics you can have killer machine 1/10 of prices.
@@WhiteG60 I agree with you. Even the 3d print services don't have this "hurry"
3d printing world poisoning with biased reviews and total unnecessary products for unrealistic need in real world.
wow i was just looking at buying a high flow nozzle, and went to your channel to look at your previous videos. Great timing!
Any plans to try this nozzles on hotends like Dragon HF and Rapido UHF?
I bought two; a 0.6 and a 0.4. after tests, on my sovol sv06 using cura and my own test, I was onlly able to achieve 18.5mm3/s with both nozzle. I suspect that maybe the printer has something to do with it, but I am very disapointed.
Hi Stefan. Thanks for as always a very good video. I have also tested the CHT clone and found when it works and when it does not work well. I tested it on an Ender 3 V2 bowden tube fed MK8 hotend with an all-metal heatbreak and a Voron with Afterburner, DirectDrive and Dragon HF. On the MK8 hotend, I saw performance drop of flow for the CHT clone of 10-15% while on the Dragon HF I saw performance increase of flow for the CHT clone in the order of 25-35%. I have posted links to data graphs, but apparently it got deleted. Anyway the conclusion is that the bowden fed MK8 hotend cannot as easily push filament through the nozzle compared to a standard nozzle because, the filament upon arrival at the nozzle split is cold and to difficult to split and bowden system not powerful enough to press through hence resulting in lower performance. On the Dragon HF with direct Drive, the HF part of the hotend esily soften the filament before it arrives at the split and the Direct Drive easily pushes the filament through. That is the explanation why the CHT clone works very well for some and not at all for others. Data on graphs available in the video here ua-cam.com/video/HypllFpZkXM/v-deo.html
@@piisfun Yeps, they were deleted again. Posted again and deleted again. Or it could be Stefan deleting comments although I find that unlikely. ANd I can't post pictures here in the comments. So no data.
@@piisfun So the only thing to do is to make a UA-cam video with the data graphs. ua-cam.com/video/HypllFpZkXM/v-deo.html
Everybody is talking about faster printing speeds, but I see this new type of nozzle as a way of allowing the use of smaller/lighter stepper motors for direct drive setups.
Like with most things, I think if you have money, you should buy the original, but if cash is tight going with the 'knock-off' is ok. Especially in this case, as it is pretty different.
If I like the performance of the AliExpress one that's where my money goes
The insert design could likely be improved by having a slight taper, matched with a slight taper on the cavity. That would ensure a tight fit, and improve heat transfer.
i was thinking that he could just put silver solder to thermally join better the parts
I actually just started testing the aliexpress nozzle and so far im very impressed, i havent been able to fail a print yet, going over 250mm/s on speed.
Keep going; If you try hard enough, you will eventually fail.
Love from Montréal
And let us know how well it holds up - that copper insert aught to be much softer than the bondtech design so it may well abrade quite quickly in comparison - though the filament you print will define if that matters much to you.
@@foldionepapyrus3441 The loss of material might not matter much? i mean what is hurt by that upper edge rounding over?
@@SianaGearz Depends on what rate it is lost and where - too fast and it might shed lumps that will block the nozzle, it is in the end going to interfere with it delivering heat to the filament too.
And as it doesn't really have any great cutting edge when new it may just stop feeding altogether especially against the higher temp or tougher filament - plastic not soft enough so it starts skipping before the filament really get into the multi channel melt zone proper.
@@alexandrevaliquette1941 Update: so i uh... failed at failing. I started experiencing hardware limits on multiple parts of the printer before under extrusion caused a failed print. The hardware of my ender 3 v2 could not keep up with the nozzle! At least on a benchy.
I received mine and they are ultra clean, the machining is really great and sincerely the impression with them is much better.
There is no stain on the materials of the nozzle.
From my experiments, copper volcano nozzle (nickel plated) has similar performance as CHT volcano.
But it makes me wonder if at some point extruder makes more difference than the nozzle.
I would like to see how a plated copper CHT nozzle would perform 😊
@@Technikfreak72 exactly the same. Nickel plating is very thin and doesn't make any difference (at least not any positive difference because nickel has worse thermal conductivity than copper)
@@shadyb Their point was the entire nozzle made from copper, instead of brass, nothing to do with the nickel plating. But yea, from what I've read performance difference between copper/aluminum/brass doesn't seem to be much.
@@jaro6985 in my case insert made of copper so this is where it comes from
Patents have historically done nothing but make 3d printers less accessible, we only have the good consumer grade printers we have now because of patents running out in the first place. I hope they don't manage to patent it at all.
Great comparison, balancing the technical with a practical
I got the "harden steel" cht .6 off aliexpress and was blown away. I have 5 more coming in various sizes. These are great for the cost
Bring on the high flow volcano knockoffs. Looked into buying the genuine from CHT, but I prefer avoiding giving my money to places that up-charge me to use a credit card or paypal.
Lol and you think you aren’t getting up charged for PayPal on AliExpress? Or that you aren’t paying for it in the form of a higher price? Get over yourself lmao, if you’re not getting a cash discount everybody is getting up charged for the transaction fee you fucking clown
Honestly, agreed. I will support the original until the moment the original is trying to rip you off at like 10 times the price. 20 dollars is unacceptable for a nozzle... 2 dollars each is frankly pretty pricy too, I get 10 of em for like 10 bucks on amazon, but 20 is insane for ONE nozzle.
Several years ago I did some hi flow nozzle inserts based on the 0.4mm V6 nozzle geometry and used a 4mm dia, x 5.5 mm long brass insert, this still allowed for a reasonable cross section in the neck of the thread. Ended up with 5 x 0.8 holes, and 15 degree tapered holes offset toward the centre to give sharp 'cutting edges' on both ends of the nozzle. This effectively doubles the internal heating area over the length of the insert. Copper paste was used on the insert/nozzle. Was getting around 98 % at 26mm3, although the printers I had were struggling to print at 240mm/s. Over all found the performance good but they are a bit fiddly to make. Only useful on unfilled materials like straight PLA, ABS and PETG. Forget CF etc.
I bought a CHT for our Prusa Mini, but took it out due to excess stringing and no time to dial that in. However, I'll be buying the abrasion resistant version as soon as they come out for both the mini and MK3s.
Not only in principal do I avoid knockoff products because there is very real money put into development, but crap machining is just that, and I don't have time to deal with more crap.
yes, but, the thing is that even the "knock off" took time to develop and make it viable for production, it's not a 100% clone/knock off that has near to zero innovation in the design and most importantly, design like this are critical to make the tecnology go foward in a viable direction where you can actually use the product and truly test it's limit on a world wide scale
For best result you must solder copper thing inside nozzle
I love AliExpress stuff, it's quality is usually OK, but price is ACTUALLY reasonable. Also they often give their own spin to western ideas, and it comes out simpler, and sometimes even better in performance. Good job on their side, and let the people decide, if they want to buy on eBay or AliExpress.
The price is reasonable because labor conditions suck and the lack of environmental standards means the Chinese are steadily converting their country into a toxic wasteland and emit more CO2 than the rest of the world. That cannot stay that cheap forever without consequences.
I hope you don't buy any flash drives, SSD, IC's, transistor's and the like from Ali. Pretty much all is fake and does not work properly.
@@repairman2be250 actually I do, and I check this stuff and it does really match the specs. And runs pretty well. It's a good way to save on price ups of local stores.
You don't have to avoid Ali, you just have to have more than couple braincells to buy there.
@@РикСанчес-я6з Some example of things you claim runs pretty well?
@@repairman2be250 anything. From two bucks arduinos to i7-11800/RTX3070 laptops. They deliver exactly what's advertised, which you can confirm by buyers reviews before buying.
I finally found out what the detachable core is for. When you clog your nozzle you can unclog it easily
Lol DUUUDE I was going to do this EXACT video! But I'm glad you did it, because you are much better at the scientific method :)
Go ahead! I'd love to know what the results from others are.
I'll gladly watch a second video on the topic 😀
Do it, take a different spin on it. Something with retractions. Something with a printer where PTFE butts up against the nozzle and the insert can wander into the PTFE. Something about longer term use.
Those saying the Bondtech nozzle is harder to manufacture are 100% wrong. A 7-axis CNC lathe or screw machine can make the entire nozzle in one setup. The knockoff has 2 parts and would require multiple setups/operations. You don't need "fancy" machines to do it, but those fancy machines are pretty ubiquitous these days.
Well, shi... I had the same testing idea ;D Great video BTW. Honestly, I am surprised by well the knockoff performed. I have one too but mine seems to have a bigger "blockage" in the middle. And because there are only two trusted sellers on Ali (that I know), anything else is a gamble, like all these CHT clones.
Looking at this situation from a business standpoint, you don't want that someone would rip off your great design but from an enthusiast standpoint, you want more innovation and those patents just slow them down. It is only from what point of view you are looking I guess.
That's sort of the debate with these rip-offs. The rip-offs discourage R&D investment if someone knows their design could be ripped off and sold for 1/10th the price. But the rip offs make it more affordable, bringing 3D printing within reach of hobbyists, and forcing companies to innovate to make products stand out and be affordable, and making there be a market for them to sell to in the first place. In this case I feel like the "rip off" contributed greatly to the design - they took an effective but expensive-to-manufacture design and found a way to produce it at far lower cost with comparable performance.
@@quillmaurer6563 I think its sort of balance issue:
if the patent owner asks orbital prices for it, it doesnt get used and ppl just wait for it to expire like with many great ideas in the past.
If you dont protect R&D properly, ppl get discouraged from doing the R&D in first place, because others can just take the results without paying for the effort and investment.
But if prices for the patents are reasonable, it actually gets used as well as motivating ppl to do R&D. Atleast thats my feeling about it.
@@warel5730 The point you're saying is that patent-holders need to offer their design at a reasonable price in order for it to make money, serve the community, and not lose out to rip-offs? Makes sense. Though it is somewhat fair for them to need to make back their R&D costs, which rip-offs don't need to. But if they make it cheap enough and sell enough volume they should still be able to.
Maybe if you heat up the nozzle to printing temperature, the copper part would expand more than the nozzle and gets (more) contact to the nozzle ?
If want to achieve full heating performance of your setup, use hi-temp thermal paste around heater and nozzle - block threads.
I don't want to get involved on the legal side of the argument, but what we're seeing are some interesting results based primarily, I assume, on manufacturing process differences.
The fact the copper insert melts the filament faster is very interesting and does raise the question as to whether the bondtech cht were researched as thoroughly as they could have been for printing throughout efficiency. That they're releasing versions with inserts later tends to make me think the original v6 format cht were, like Microsoft Windows for a long time, beta products used to gather feedback on what works and what breaks.
It would be very interesting to see what the internal testing before finalizing the design at bondtech looked like on their nozzle, because they clearly missed something if a $2 build can outpace it.
Just saw my local reseller added then to inventory for sale... $48 a piece for the bimetallic v6 format 🤯 even Revo obxidian aren't that pricey here!
I think this design exists in other fields already so tell me how the hell did they get a paptent for it? I very much dislike companies that abuse patents and stifle an industry, so I will be buying the cheap knockoff.
Try to heat the nozzle assembly and check if it pulls, I think it may be tight at 200C with the copper expanding a little.
this is pretty interesting! great video! 👏
i sometimes think you're a bot bro. also print something other than a figure
I have a tricky question.
When I'm pushing the flowrate to the limit of my hotend, klipper shows that the heater is on all the time (PWM 100%). Though, the temperature is slowly dropping until this triggers the thermal runaway.
Will a cht nozzle improve my max flowrate ?
Because I'm already transferring 100% of the available power to the filament, I don't think so.
What do you think ?
hey i have 4 of these exact same clones lol even the packaging is the same, the QR code on the plastic bag is just some random numbers i presumed are some manufacturing tracking code or something. there are a new design i've seen that uses butt hole shape where the center isn't connected, so in theory this could bypass the patent altogether since it is considered just a single hole with irregular shape. i wonder if someone can run the designs through some heat transfer simulations to figure out which is the most ideal shape.
The insert thing is something I actually tried. I literally just took an old piece of copper pipe, cut a bit out and hammered it into flat copper sheet, then cut a little piece that slid down into the neck of the nozzle. I can't remember the exact speeds, but it was a 0.8mm nozzle, I think I was doing 0.3mm layer heights, and 60mm/s? So not crazy fast, but almost 50% faster than the 10mm^3/s Stefan mentioned in the video.
Hi Stefan. Danke für deine hervorragenden Videos! Ich schau deine Videos sehr gerne an und du machst das nicht nur professionell, sondern so sympathisch! Viele Grüße aus Süddeutschland!
I ordered those nozzles a month ago with 0.6mm holes to somehow improve speeds of printing for my cheapass bowden tube printer. Right now printing first benchy and hope it won't fail miserably. It's the fastest print I'm ever doing and first time doing 0.6mm nozzle.
I've been running a mellow cht volcano clone for a while now and it works excellent so far. Quality wise it also looks much better then what you had there.
Way expensive too . Mellow was at 25 USD if I remember well
@@JorgeMarioManuelOrtega I paid 12$ for two (so 6$ for one)
Why even bother making holes circular? The open groove would also work.
Regarding the loose fit: at 200C it might be much different as the expansion coefficients are different. Try heating the nozzle and removing the copper inlay part.
I like my CHT nozzles. Especially since I have a 500x500x500 printer. I am very happy to see they are working on an abrasive resistant variant of it and I will for sure buy some. The difference in speed when I have to print abrasive material with a non-CHT nozzle is really anoying. To buy an aliexpress part the part has to convince me first to be of significantly superior performance for my usecase. And even then I am reluctant to trust it compared to something where I know who makes it where and how.
I wonder if permanently soldering it to the hot end with high temp solder would make it perform even better.
In many ways the Chinese parts are keeping in spirit of the open source frameworks that these products even exist in the first place. Companies like E3d and bondtech should be focused on trying to compete on higher quality and making them at a competitive price, not by taking the open source works, making a tiny modification, then patenting it so they can charge 10 times the cost.
These Western companies will usually have the first-mover advantage, plus consistency and the sorts of assurances that institutional customers need, as well as better understanding of the institutional market. This adds up to quite a bit of leverage.
Thanks for the video. I'd still love to see you test out the different wattage heater cartridges in a regular block and a volcano block to see how much they might make a difference in melting capabilities.
I wonder whether boron nitride thermal paste between the copper insert and the brass housing would improve this nozzle...should be an interesting experiment.
are you kidding me or something? the paste would have mixed and possibly react with your molten filament. thats doesn't require half a brain to figure out...
@@MegaMaking If you use a small amount it can get stuck only between the threads, and any excess that might seep out into the nozzle/heatbreak can be cleaned by purging some filament. Nevertheless, you don't have to be a douchebag when responding to comments.
I got a set of these nozzles two weeks or so, ago.
Using a 0.5mm version of this Clone CHT with a Mellow Volcano Spacer, I can get up ~50mm^3/s (T-215°C, 220mm/s, Layer Height 0.20, Extrusion Width 1.1 with PLA(+).
As for (OVERTURE CLEAR) PETG, I'm having difficulty breaking 15mm/s^3. I've been running calibration models for the last 8 hours or so, lol
I tested the same setup you mentioned with a sprite extruder. I was able to get 34mm3/s.
Using esun pla+ at 200°C
@@twanheijkoop6753 I'm using a clone BMG mounted as direct drive using the Hero Me Gen 6 hotend assembly
T-215°C for PLA+
I'm in the middle of a PETG vase flow speed test (like Stefan's), and I'm at T-245°C 36mm^3/s right now (150mm/s, Layer Height 0.20mm, Extrusion Width 1.20mm, needing to bump-up my Extrusion Flow to 142% to get 1.2mm dimensional accuracy)
I'm trying to see if I can get my PETG flow (currently 36mm^3/s) to match my 50mm^3/s PLA flow
42mm^3/s now (T-245°C, 175mm/s, Layer Height 0.20mm, Extrusion Width 1.20mm)
nice vid as always
there are different versions of cht copy nozzles in China. and a nearly full copy one is there, and even more a nickel plated one. but after watching this video I'm quite happy with the one you showed in the video.
For me this Ali nozzle worked more than expected on a Voron 2.4 high speed printing with a Dragon hotend. Thx. Excellent.
Kudos to Stefan for taking such a neutral and evidence based approach. Compare and contrast with 'Design Prototype Test' with his vitriolic rants on the same kind of issues.
I do t even think it's a knock off. How can a knock off be superior? And the design is completely different. It does not infringe on a patent.
i wonder if there would be any improvement if you solder the insert in place. in both the heat transfer and stringing? im wondering if the stringing is due to the insert moving at higher retract settings?
To solder without blocking the final nozzle path would be challenging to achieve, as the solder largely goes where the heat is, and that lump on the inside will heat slower than the outer and the thinner tip likely heats up quickest of all, so I'd not try it myself. Also doubt its required - the heat is applied to the outside part and the coldest bit will be the insert itself so thermal expansion difference between them if the fit is reasonably close may lock the core in place while it is in use anyway. Though this does seem like the perfect part to machine to a good tight pushfit upfront to me.
Personally I expect the increase in stringing with greater retracts is that the filament in one or other of those channels is snapped off from the feed so its own weight makes it leak out badly as its lost that upwards pull from the rest of the filament.
I did send you the nozzle and it came loose during shipping. It was one part when I put in the mail but I didn't use mine jet. Just tried to move it a bit with some steel wire and it seems to be fixed in the nozzle.
I wouldn't mind supporting Bondtech CHT, but $20 vs $2 is a huge difference. If they were able to simplify their manufacturing processes and reduce the price, like just using the simpler inserts with larger inner diameter nozzles, I mean...
ACTUALLY, the removable insert is better when you need to clean clog from CHT.
If it is a technical/technology patent, it is hard to obtain but also much harder to overturn.
If it is a design patent, it is easy to obtain but a minor change will allow another manufacturer to easily work around the patent.
So to be clear, if a technical patent is granted, the Ali Express sold version would be almost certainly be infringing on the patent. However, if a design patent is granted, the Ali Express sold version does not infringe the patent in any way.
Either way, China does not care.
To give you some idea of the difference between a "design" and a "technology" patent, the "MagSafe" power connector patent is NOT a technology patent, it is a design patent. That means Apple does not have a patent covering the use of "a magnet to hold in a power connector" or even on the "number of conductors"; something it tried to claim, poor saps! It has a patent on the exact design of the solution. So if another manufacturer made something similar to a MagSafe connector but made the outside rectangular, Apple would have no legal recourse to prevent that manufacturer from using it. This makes sense because in Japan they have used magnetic cables on water kettles since the 1950s. Kettles are frequently set on the floor in Japan for operation, so a magnetic power cable is the safe way to disconnect the power if someone (drunkenly, usually) trips on the cable.
Of course, that does not stop Apple making threats, but as someone who beat the living shit out of Apple lawyers in court after they came after me, I can tell you it is possible to chop them down by explaining things in layman's terms to a judge, providing obvious prior art, and sometimes pointing out Apple is infringing on you (if you happen to have filed an accepted patent, which I had!) and so their patent needs vacating and they owe you money. Except for my children being born and my wife saying "I Do", watching the Apple lawyers collapse in their seats was the best day of my life.
You forgot that if the patent is granted in US only. Then China can legally make and sold the device in all country except USA.
It's not legally the responsibility of China (or any other country in the world) to care about a US patent either.
Then, sure, Canada would probably help USA more than China in the same situation, but only USA is legally responsible.
Lastly, if you have a granted patent in China... I guess you just waste money! lol
Could you do a more indepth test on linewidth vs nozzle shape? In this video, at 12:40 we can see that the Bondtech has a much wider flat portion at the tip of the nozzle, while the Aliexpress is narrower and almost looks rounded over. How would this affect printing when you increase lineWidth to a factor 1.5-2.5 times that of the nozzle diameter? I have successfully printed line widths of up to 1.5mm with my 0.6 nozzle, so I'm wondering how this would compare between the Bondtech and knockoff in a similar test. If the 0.4 Bondtech could print 1mm linewidths and the Aliexpress could not, that would be another reason to get the genuine one. Considering that CHT nozzles entire selling point is high flow, this particular test would definitively be interesting.
Patent attorney here.
The EP3445568B1patent is granted in Europe. Its equivalent is still being examined in the USA, so the protection is not completely defined in America. There is no patent in China, so the Aliexpress guys can make and sell their knockoff in China with impunity, at least for the domestic and Asian markets
They may run into problems exporting the nozzles in Europe and in the USA but, the claims of the European patent require "_ /.../ a piece of heat conductive material being *attached* in at least one place to the inner side wall of the hole/.../ _". It would have been very easy to force-fit the insert ofthe Chinese nozzle, and the heat transfer would have been improved, if anything. The fact that they went for a freely sliding insert may be an attempt to design around the patent. I am not sure that it is a safe defence, but it is not stupid at all, especially since the performance is somewhat unexpected.