Stainless steel hotend???

I and crafting almost all my parts for my build, obviously electronics you buy them from ebay.
I have researched quite a lot and did not see much of the hot ends been made from stainless steels! ( that we insert the ceramic heater in plus the thermistor)
I know the heat transfer coefficient of the aluminum is much greater then the stainless steel, but I believe the stainless steels would "hold" better the heat and
"Last" longer"??

Any of you have experiences on different type of hot ends?
What are the differences in term of results?
Most likely the time of heating up is different, but do we have other?

Thanks for your feedbacks!

Brass will be a much better choice than SS, quality wise there is no difference if we are just talking about the heater block as long as temperature is reached and sustained.

Print quality have to do more with how smooth the filament runs through the hotend and how good you can keep separated the temperature zones.

I've been working at turtle pace with a hotend design (due to lack of funds) that uses quartz tube instead of PTFE liner and copper heater block, I can set the temperature at 300 degrees and the top of the quartz tube never gets hotter than 80 degrees without a fan and the filament slides very smooth in it without sticking.

E3D uses a thin stainless steel tube as a heat break between the heater block and cooling fin mount. Their choice of stainless steel was because it is does not conduct heat as well as the other common hotend materials. Just saying.....

I can see that many people has come to see this post but kind of not having input.
I guess it is because most of the Printers owners are using the standard Aluminum blocks!

My assumption is that, since the Stainless steel has less heat coefficient that cause it to
not heat up as fast as Brass or copper, it would retain better the heat and will be more homogenous
along the block, consequently uses less power while running the prints.

Well, I will know this when I get SLOWLY my printer built.

Cheers

@ggherbaz

quartz tube that's really nice. I'm getting annoyed with PTFE liner. I'm using E3D clone, I have been trying to produce that heatbreak without liner directly from ss but didn't had much luck. Drilling always leave drill marks that wont be good for smooth PLA extrusion. SO was thinking about using some tubing inside. I was thinking of copper but quartz tube seems to be nicer choice. how you got 2mm ID quartz tube??

Google best fried
Quartz tube
[www.ebay.com]

Ni cheat at all

@Bobyni

I mean did he got it from any components laying around or already existing.
2mm id tubes are bit hard to source if i guess, That one on eBay is of 21mm.

[www.ebay.com]

That one 2-3mm id
12$us

@Bobyni

Thank You

Welcome!

Sorry for late response, I get it from Aliexpress, I send them an email with my requirements and they make the tube for me with threads and all.

Now as an advise, use a J head style nozzle (barrel, heater block and nozzle unit) and just drill the barrel to insert the tube, then screw the assembly to an aluminum heatsink and lock in position on the top with a drilled bolt with nylon washer.

The other idea that I have but haven't get to it is to heat press a threaded cap at the end of the tube. That will simplify construction and would allow like I originally intended have a clear view of its inner workings.

Not sure if this will help you decide, but I made a heat block from mild steel so not the same really. I ran into issues with it though.

The problem I had was it cooled down too slow, so what would happen is it would drip after the print which isn't a huge deal but it clogged more often during the start of the next print. I would pull out the plastic and a little white pieces would come out. So I made sure to turn on the fan during cool down and it fixed the issues. The little aluminum blocks are on ebay so cheap now that I won't make anymore.

I get this set LINK it less than 10 for Block, Nozzle, Heater, & Thermistor in one nice package.

@AquaticsLive
Thanks fir your feedback!
It is valid point!
I will try and maybe to have an air can to help it to cool down faster! Lol

I might end up like you, just buy a cheap hot end and not to worry small things like this!