So to start off, I’ll my bias out right now because fairness is incredibly important to me. I’m a HUGE fan of MicroSwiss-particularly their FlowTech line. I installed their K1C kit into my machine and never looked back. The range of nozzles is great, their build quality is fantastic, and their price point is hard to beat.
As far as I’m concerned, you’d be very hard pressed to find a better quality nozzle, with better performance, at such a reasonable price than their CM2 CHT line up.
With that said, you can imagine I was rather excited when I found out they were launching an X1C kit. I have a few printers, and that would be the final model necessary for me to standardize my nozzles across all my machines.
I was also just let down pretty heavily by the BQ/E3D Panda Revo hotend which was nearly double the cost of MS’, the nozzles WERE double the cost of MS’. So I was thrilled at the idea of standardizing my nozzles and having another quick/cold swap nozzle option.
I’m disabled, so it became immediately obvious that getting down on my knees or hunching over to try fiddling with those delicate wires and plugs to change the stock Bambu hotends was not practical for me. That aside, I like the convenience of not having to do all that heating, cooling, grasping with pliers and all that.
Once I got it installed, things seemed great. I did some smaller prints, nothing over a few hours. The results were fantastic. I needed to do some tuning for my high flow 0.6 but just running the manual calibrations in BambuStudio took care of that.
I started seeing issues once prints hit 5 or 6 hours. Thermal issues that seemed to pop in and out. It would stop a print saying there was a thermal issue, sometimes it let me resume, but even then it’d just stop again a minute or two after getting to temp.
On my first 10 hour print, that’s when the real issue popped up. Without fail, within 5-6 hours into the print, it would say there was a thermal issue and stop the print. I’d go look, and the silicone sock would be gone. Not on top of the print, not on the bed, not under the bed on the printer floor…GONE.
I tried keeping them paused while I frantically searched for it, but by the time I’d find it in some bizarre and seemingly random location, the print was beyond salvage. I’ve found the sock across the room, in my desk chair a few feet from the printer, in a cubby under my desk (meaning it had to have taken a sharp right mid air), and never in a spot that would make sense. Like the bed, or under the bed, or the corners of the printer, the floor directly under the printer. It was so bizarre that I kept trying to make it work. I’d tell myself it was one in a thousand, and that it wouldn’t happen again. THEN IT WOULD!
After a couple weeks of this, I’d wound up with more ruined prints than complete ones—not because of the nozzle or the heat break, but because of this darn silicone sock! I’ve never had such issues with a sock falling off, and…bounce/flinging to random spots.
I emailed MicroSwiss, and they were just awesome. They responded extremely fast, and issued a full refund. Their customer service is absolutely stellar.
In short, I couldn’t get the silicone sock to stay on. I get what they’re going for with its design. Wanting it to be quick and easy to remove so you can swap nozzles easier. I’m all for that. I feel there needs to be SOME type of flange or arms added to its sock design to help ensure it doesn’t come off while printing. If such a change gets made, I’ll get another in a heartbeat. Everything except that sock is great, and I’m convinced that sock was slipping and causing the random thermal issues I had before I started losing it.
