Mosquito hotends?

Didnt see any posts about it but was wondering if anyone has tried either of the mosquito hotends on a robo r2? Not looking to upgrade soon but wanted to know if it was a plug and play replacement or a more destructive replacement. The Mosquito and Copperhead both look to be shorter than a hexagon ( not entirely sure because im getting different measurements on the total length of the hexagon from each seller compared to my own hexagon.) Just wondering if anyone had any opinion on their use.

 

When you say cold end mount spacing do you mean the dimensions of the collar?

 

Here are some dimensions that they sent me in case anyone reading wonders. dont have access to any good calipers at the moment so i cant say how close they are to the original hot end. The top picture with a top collar dimension of 2.2 is the copperhead with the second picture being the adapter they sell for use with the mosquito hot end.

 

The Slice Engineering Mosquito hotend has a very unusual shape and requires a very different method of mounting compared to the more popular E3D V6 design, which in turn is bigger than the Hexagon hotend used in stock Robo3D printers. Here's the Mosquito hotend:


By contrast, here's the Hexagon:

The Hexagon fits into the Robo3D's carriage via a small hole with a bracket that grips the groove near the top of the hotend. Thus, anything that lacks that groove mount, or that has a groove mount that's a different size (the E3D V6's is bigger, for instance), will require either an adapter or a replacement carriage. There's at least one carriage design on Thingiverse intended for the E3D V6, so that replacement is do-able without designing a carriage yourself, although you'll have to tear down and rebuild that part of your printer. A quick search of Thingiverse turned up no equivalent hardware for a Mosquito; however, I may have missed something, especially if it's something intended for another printer that would happen to work with a Mosquito.

Instead of a Mosquito, there are a couple of alternatives that might interest you:

• The Slice Engineering Copperhead hotend -- This hotend is made by the same company that makes the Mosquito, and it has some of the same technologies. It's much closer to an E3D V6 in overall size, shape, and mounting, though. In fact, it's modular and you can swap in and out E3D V6 components. I have a Copperhead on a Kossel XL Delta printer that uses a Delta Smart Effector, and I'm using the special E3D V6 Smart Effector heat sink with my Copperhead, as well as a V6 heater core and thermistor. (This is, I'm using the Copperhead heat break, heater block, and nozzle.) Thus, you could use at least part of a Copperhead in conjunction with a carriage designed for an E3D V6. I don't know if the Copperhead heat sink would fit with this, but you could always use a V6 heat sink. Note that the Hexagon and V6 heat breaks are not compatible, so you could not use the Copperhead with the existing Hexagon heat sink and Robo3D R1+ carriage.
  
• The Phaetus Dragon or Trianglelab Dragon hotend -- As I understand it, Phaetus designed this hotend, and Trianglelab licenced the design. The design incorporates key features of the Mosquito into a package that's exactly the same dimensions as an E3D V6. Thus, you should be able to put either of these hotends in a carriage meant for an E3D V6. Note, however, that some of the features of the Mosquito that the Dragon copies are patent-pending, which puts these hotends into a bit of a legal and ethical gray zone.

Either of these alternatives is likely to be easier to install than a Mosquito, since you can use a V6 carriage design. Depending on why you're interested in the Mosquito, either or both of them might provide those benefits. Unfortunately, I don't know of any drop-in replacement for the Hexagon that won't require printing a new carriage and doing some significant tear-down and re-building of the assembly. Thus, these aren't what I'd call easy upgrades. Fortunately, Hexagon hotends are still available, so if your hotend dies completely, you can replace it without too much difficulty.

 

These other guys are mistaken or leading you towards their own preferences. The mosquito hotbed works beautifully on an R2. I did this years ago when the hot end first appeared on the market as it will allow printing in any industrial plastic on the market up to 400*Celsius. It was not exactly plug and play however I figured it out on my own with no help from anybody. Just wish there was a better extruded option at that time (have not checked recently hopefully something now available). I always meant to come to the forum and make a post on it but as life goes we get increasingly busy but it would of been cool to post my accomplishment way back then.
Anyways, the collar pictured above fits fine on the mosquito and small bolts hold them together fine. There are definately height issues but anyone modifying a printer on this level of technicality should be able to download firmware and change the height options to allow it to work. I do not remember exactly which lines or what numbers I used as it has been so long now since I modified my firmware to keep the thing from crashing into the bed but I only had a digital caliper and I was able to figure out the measurements to achieve success fairly easily. I also put a thermistor for reading the temperature which required some changes in firmware lines as I wanted to be able to raise the overall temperature limits on the printer to take advantage of the new temperature range offered by the mosquito (up to 400 degrees Celsius). As far as other parts around the cage I used mostly stock parts except for the actual cage. Again not sure which one I had printed and was using for this but it was not the stock one and I simply put a spacer and a small nut on the two screws that hold the cage to the metal plate. Note that they were placed between the metal plate and the cage so that the cage would go down further towards the bed as it sat too high to be effective. The collar bolted to the top was placed through the hole so that it still would pinch the collar tightly and up as high as it could go possibly. Then firmware was modified according to new measurements when the cage was installed. One last thing that became important was the use of a small piece of the white tubing that was placed inside the assembly where the filament goes through the rollers that hold it all to the bars it slides on. This piece turned out to be important to avoid clogs. Once measured the distance needed for the length of the white tube make sure to carefully chamfer the top entrance side with a small razor blade at an angle which slightly widens the very top of the opening and then heat the small tube with a torch until it turns clear the let it cool bringing the white color back. This also expands the size of the inside of the tube making certain it is just a tad bigger allowing filament t to move smoothly through the whole cage assembly. If still interested in doing this your self to anyone attempting to do this and has further questions pm me and I will post more here on the job. Pictures and specs are possible but just not available at the moment. I will check back here periodically to see. All in all I was extremely satisfied with my project making the worlds first R2 to be able to print in any industrial type of plastic available on the market. It printed better than anything I had ever made on the printer with much greater detail and precision. Plus the mosquito is lighter and allows faster speeds for printing. I would defiantly recommend using this hot end with the R2 as long as you have the skills to do it. The standard test print of the little tug boat turned out best it ever has. Will add pics later