Snapmaker Collabs With Phaetus for up to 87% More Flow With New High-Flow U1 Hotend
The hotend uses Phaetus’ Liber split channel geometry to heat filament faster, and is capped with a DLC-coated hardened steel nozzle for tough performance.
Snapmaker and hotend maker Phaetus have jointly launched the Snapmaker x Phaetus Liber High-Flow Hotend for U1, a purpose-built extrusion module combining Phaetus’s split-flow melt channel with a DLC-coated hardened-steel nozzle and a precision heat break. Launching today, a single, standalone nozzle will set you back $34.99, while a bundle of four to completely retool your U1 retails at $119 – a ~$20 saving over individual purchases.
In a release, Snapmaker COO Mickey Ke calls the new hotend “an important step in building” the U1’s accessory ecosystem; Phaetus CTO Donald Wan framed it as a move “toward a more open technology ecosystem.”
In raw numbers, Snapmaker places the new Liber hotend at up to 87% higher volumetric flow over the standard stainless steel nozzle that ships on the U1. According to Snapmaker’s internal testing, PLA registered a 66% increase in flow, PETG-HF 43%, while ABS, the runniest of melted filaments, a whopping 87% increase in volumetric flow, .
Phaetus’ Liber nozzle geometry is the secret sauce of how the flow is achieved. While there’s a central channel for the filament to melt and flow through, there’s also separate split-flow channels, more than doubling the surface-to-volume ratio of filament exposed to heat.
In real world use, this means it becomes feasible for you to crank print speeds and the extrusion keep up some before under-extrusion rears its head. Arguably the better reason to reach for higher flow is to print thicker lines and layers without the need to drop speed. The Snapmaker x Phaetus Liber Hotend launches with 0.4 mm nozzles. At the time of writing it was unknown whether other nozzle diameters will follow. We’ll update with this information once we know.
There’s aren’t many name-brand nozzles for the U1 – the Luke’s Laboratory Pika is the only one that springs to mind – so seeing Phaetus’ top-tier flow tech make its way to the printer is a welcome sight.
There are some minor caveats to its use, though, which Snapmaker points out in the fine print: primarily that the speed benefits won’t be so pronounced on intricate models that don’t open the printer up to long, gradual movements – more a physical reality of printing, rather than anything to do with the nozzle itself – and that switching between particular material types, such as from a higher-temperature material like ASA to a lower temp material like PLA, then a cold pull is required first to clean out the nozzle’s internal channels.
The Snapmaker x Phaetus Liber High-Flow Hotend for U1 is available today, from the Snapmaker webstore.
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