Recently, I’ve deviated from full 3D printer reviews and I’ve been given the opportunity to test individual components for some companies. Full disclosure, these parts were provided to test and review, however this is my honest opinion of them throughout the testing I have done. Let’s have a look at these 3D printer accessory reviews.
Triangle Labs Spiral Hot End
First up is the Spiral Hot End from Triangle Labs. What sets this hot end apart from some of the others on the market is that it uses a minimized copper heatsink however maintains the standard e3d V6 format, including groove mount so it can replace a v6 in any instance.
I’ve test the spiral on two different Voron’s I have built. It was placed inside a toolhead and I swapped between machines. At no time during my testing did the hot end clog due to heat creep, or clog at all. I do not possess the tools to help identify what sort of temperatures the heatsink maintained, however, my day to day use of the hot end has proved to me that this is a reliable hot end as it resides in one of my production machines used daily. In concept i do like the idea of a copper heatsink to help dissipate the heat from the heater block and heatbreak. I would have preferred a screw mount option like the Dragon but the groove did no cause me any issues.
The pricing is very reasonable at $70 CAD and can be purchased in Canada from Sparta3D or from Triangle labs on Aliexpress.
DIYMARIA OMG V2 Dual Drive Gear Extruder
Next up on the list of 3D printer accessory reviews is this fascinating extruder that deviated from the norm of today’s popular extruder. It is all metal and uses 2 drives to push the filament. A single gear installed on the stepper motor ends up meshing with an input and output gear system that pushes the filament through in two places simultaneously.
The OMG V2 installed quickly onto my coreXY printer. I replaced a clone Bondtech. At the same time I installed a 0.6mm nozzle in the e3d v6 hotend to test the output of the extruder further.The DIYMARIA OMG V2 has a metal button on the side to push in and release tension against the filament when installing or removing filament.
To my delight the extruder worked well. It worked without issues, reliably, and didn’t have any issues keeping up with the prints using a 0.6mm nozzle which was pushing out more filament.
My only concern with this extruder in the long term is that all the gears are metal on metal. The Bondtech and clones I use typically have a plastic gear that meshes with the gear on the stepper. The OMG v2 being metal on metal throughout may need to be monitored over time for maintenance but otherwise performed quite well for me. I had no issues with under extrusions during my testing and feeding filament in was a snap,
Sovol Resin Flexible Plates and Vats
Last but not least for this review was the Sovol flexible build plate for my Anycubic Photon S. I’ve been wanting to install a flexible plate on my Photon, truly for quality of life convenience with the resin work flow. I expected I would be able to print flat prints and more easily remove them as required without chipping or cracking them with a scraper.
When the flexible plates arrived I was pleasantly surprised that Sovol included a new vat to test as well. The vat was nicer than my stock Anycubic Photon S vat. It has stepped measurements clearly marked on the side of the vat, and it came with two silicone covers that snugly fit on both the Sovol and the Anycubic vat to prevent UV light from seeing the uncured resin in the vat during storage. It can be purchased here.
Getting back to the flexible plate now, the installation process was simple. I removed and thoroughly cleaned the Anycubic build plate. After it was cleaned, I installed the magnet, carefully, so that all the edges were aligned perfectly. I didn’t want to take any chances with the magnet adhesive and let it cure for 24 hours before use. I even warmed up my Voron Switchwire chamber so that the magnet could cure in a slightly warmer temperature for the first 4 hours.
Before installing the plate, I downloaded the STL for the endstop adapter and printed it. The build plate takes up a few mm of your z volume so they provide an STL so move the endstop detector the equivalent distance.
Once that was installed I put the plate on and relevelled my build plate using the flint method I’ve often used from Youtube, works every time for me. I sliced the Godzilla print from Chaos CoreTech on Thangs and made sure the base was set flat on the build plate without supports so I could test the adhesion and be able to pop the print off.
My Godzilla print was a success and when it was done I was able to flex the plate and as expected the print popped off.
I wiped down the magnet and flex plate before putting it back on after the print was removed and I was ready to go for another print. I think the addition of a flexible plate to my resin printer is going to make it more convenient and therefore I’ll probably use my resin printer more often as a result. Have a look here for a plate that may fit your printer.
Thank you for checking out this installment where we had multiple 3D printer accessory reviews. We hope to have another like this in the future.
Biqu H2 Extruder Review