【New Upgrade】 CR Official Spider All Metal Hotend, Up to 300℃ High Temperature High Speed 3D Printer Hotend Kit Fit for Ender 3, Ender 3v2, Ender 3 pro, Ender 3 Max, CR-10,CR-10S,Ender 5 Series

This hotend is not an absolute drop in. It is a bit longer than the stock hotend. So make sure to get a fan system and bl touch system printed to be ready to install it. Or you can use the stock fan with a bracket to lower the fan. The bl touch and fan needs to be lowered to be at the proper height from the bed. Other than that it was a very easy install. It heats up very quickly and had no problem printing several ABS torture tests that I tried on it. Since it is an all metal hotend you don’t need as much retraction as the stock hotend. It also has very good hotend cooling due to the heat sink incorporated into the hotend. I had no issues with heat creep at all. It feels very solid and weighs just a bit more than the stock hotend but it allows you to remain with incredibly fast printing speeds. It comes with a 0.4 and 0.6mm nozzle as well as a new thermistor. Also comes with all the screws and tools needed to replace the stock hotend and install this one. It even came with zip ties to keep the cable management nice. Overall, it is a very well made product for the $50 price point. I will update review as I install a direct drive on it and try it.

TLDR; Good upgrade for the everyday user, and very reasonable for PLA,PETG, and ABS. PC,PA, PP, good, just not with any fillers evaluated.I used this hotend on my Ender 3 V2. I will try to tell the events in order as best I can.I received the hotend within a few days, and began with the install on my E3V2. I noticed that the Stock fan and hotend assembly did not fit around the new hotend. Specifically, the Spider is longer than the stock version, and that means the stock fan is too high up away from the nozzle to cool the material. So I Printed a new shroud I found on thingiverse, and away we went. Now, it does come with its own thermistor, and so you will be breaking into the electronics for this install. I also had to make the heater cartridge wires about 6 inches longer to make them work the way I wanted them too. oh, and if you want to use any thermal paste, you will have to provide your own. Overall install was about an hour for me, plus print time of the new shroud.I have printed PLA, PP, PC, PA, through this printer without any issues. I didn't try any rough fillers (GITD Glass, Carbon), as at the time, nozzles were not available - except for the 0.4mm nozzle and 0.6mm nozzle the hotend came with. It handled the temperatures well, and the speed was pretty nice too. This is a solid step up from the stock hotend, and for the investment, a pretty decent purchase.The only thing that I am not too fond of, is that this hotend requires a different type of nozzle. and the current availability is low. I do not see any hardened options, or brass. and my MK8 an E3D style nozzles do not work, as the thread length is different. is that bad for the average user? Not at all! But for someone like me that replaces a nozzle about every month or so due to my machines running production.... that can make it a little difficult!The other thing that I noticed is that there is not yet a huge amount of community support for this hotend yet, meaning you have about 3 options for fan shrouds, and direct drive might get a little complicated based on the setup that you have.Overall, good hotend!

Overall this is a fantastic hotend, with only a few minor issues. I'll go through my thoughts from unboxing, to installation, and finally printing.Unboxing:The package itself arrived undamaged in an amazon bubble wrap envelope. The black hot end box is certainly nicer than many other packages I've seen for 3D printer parts. all of the interior parts and accessories were well packaged. The replacement Bowden Tube connector and 0.6 Nozzle had individual foam compartments which held them nicely, but required me to find needle nose pliers to get the pieces out. The slots were too small for me to get in there with my fingers. I was impressed that it came with the replacement thermometer as it is a different one than the stock version. It also came with the longer screws and zip ties needed to run the cable back down to the board.Installation:This is where I ran into the only problems I have with the hot end. It BARELY and I mean BARELY fits in the stock fan shroud for the hot end. They went with the special rounded hot end exclusive to the v2 and honestly, if you plan to upgrade to this hot end, you should upgrade the shroud as well. I got it on finally, but it took a bit of coaxing and getting all the wires and holes lined up just so. Other than that issues, the installation was completed without any other issues. The Thermistor from the MK8 hotend fits perfectly in this one, and the thermometer of course is the new one, so you just need to pull the old one through the cable bundle and run the new one in. The wire itself is just long enough to work on an Ender 3v2, but not anything larger. If I was to install this on my Ender 5+ for example, I would need to splice together an extension cable to make it.Calibration:Several other comments talked about running a PID test, which is always a good idea when installing a new hotend. Thankfully, my PID test didn't result in any wild temp swings as you can sometimes deal with. I believe this is because this hotend was replacing another all metal hotend, so the thermistor was already PID calibrated for that which translated nicely to this one. The hotend and nozzle are longer than the stock MK8 so you will need to adjust the Z-Limit switch to prevent the nozzle from damaging the bed. Again, something that experienced 3D printers are likely to know needs to be done with this kind of change anyway.Printing:After running several test prints, it didn't take long to make minor adjustments to smooth out the prints. Again, I credit the easy of this to having this hotend replace another all-metal hot end that was previously installed. After running multiple calibration prints, XYZ Cube, All in one, 1st layer, bridging, and temp tower. the prints were coming out smooth I already have longer prints planned for this printer with this new nozzle.Conclusion:I don't notice any major differences in print quality between this and the Gulfcoast Robotics All Metal Hotend available for about $20 less. The biggest difference is the Gulfcoast hot end is plug and play with the mk8 thermistor and thermometer, which anyone who has owned an MK8 hotend will know, those old thermometers will break extremally easily. This hotend has a much more robust thermometer that I'm not afraid of it breaking every 5 prints, or having the wires pull out as often. That improvement alone, plus the extra tolls accessories, and spare nozzle that this hotend comes with make it worth the extra cost for me. The only issue holding me back from giving this hotend a perfect 5 stars down the line, is how long it took me to finesse the hot end fan shroud on over this larger hotend.