Hi! I am one of the technicians at 3D Printing Canada. I often get customers’ printers with leaking heat breaks, which means that the heat breaker got loose at some point. I recommend checking the hotend every 200 hours or so, mainly the Micro Swiss ones. How often do you guys check your heater block for leaks?
Never!
I use the “Luke Hatfield” trick in the hotend (replaced once a year,) and I never have trouble with leakage or jams. He came up with a simple but brilliant fix for any boden tube printer.
From my experience, Micro Swiss heater blocks are crap.
I’ve spent more money than I would have expected on replacement blocks as they really don’t stand up to any kind of long term use.
I’ve contacted Micro Swiss support numerous times on the issue and I have followed their instructions to the letter (leave the nozzle loose until heating to 225C) but after a few hours of use they start leaking as the nozzle and heat break loosen on their own.
When I look at the heater block threads under a microscope, I can see that chips are coming off them even though I only tightened the nozzle once and only loosened it when it started leaking.
To be fair, I print different materials, I go from PLA to ABS to PETg to Nylon and I think this exacerbates the problem. If you were to keep with PLA and keep it reasonably cool (200C to 210C) I think you would see better results and get longer life before they start leaking. In answer to the question @Tiago has posed, I’ve never had a Micro Swiss heater block more than 50 hours of printing.
It’s unfortunate because their hot end replacement for my Zortrax M200 is amazing - worked much better and lasted much longer than the manufacturer’s product.
I’ve gone to Revo nozzles and while they’re really expensive, I haven’t had any issues with them at all (they’re on two of my printers). I also use Chinese junk on two other printers and I’ve never seen a leakage problem at all - nothing like Micro Swiss.
Of course, YMMV.
I am surely going to check the trick.
Here is the approach I have taken with Micro Swiss heater blocks:
- I start by disassembling the heater block, heat break, and nozzle.
- I clean all parts using a brass brush and a heat gun until they shine.
- I heat the block to 220C.
- Then I screw back the heat break and tight as much as I can with a plier, caution not to break the neck.
- Now, I can screw the nozzle using a torque wrench (3N.m).
To check, I extruded 200mm of 1.75 PLA at 240C and >25 mm3/s.
The latest Micro Swiss heater blocks have a slightly improved design. I know some people are sanding down the heater block to improve contact between the heat break and the nozzle.
I don’t use Micro swiss myself, never I have never needed to tighten a heat break or nozzle once installed. I went through Brass ones fast so I was forever swapping them now I am using XNozzles I have had it in the printer for ages, years now.
I have found this discussion interesting, and sort of validating. 
I am still running obsolete MK8 creality hotends, and they are serving me well. I have occasionally looked at Micro Swiss(and other likely better quality) hotends in the past, but really didn’t feel like spending that amount of money on replacing components that cost a fraction of that and are functioning fine. Now I hear that my obsolete hotends likely work better for me than a Micro Swiss would anyway. I find that strangely comforting.
If you want to upgrade the hotend, I recommend integrated nozzles like the Revo’s or Microswiss Flowtech.
1 Like
I must admit the Prusa xl nozzle is so easy to change. I have an Obsidian 0.6 and a brass. it is 2 seconds to change one screw and a plug.
There is nothing wrong with the stock hot ends from Creality for general printing of PLA.
I agree. As long as high volumetric rates are not the goal. Most exotic things I print is a little TPU and PETG.