Could get quite expensive if the per nozzle price is high.
Ideally, if they are easy to swap out I think I would like a full set + 2 spares of
0.2, 0.4 & 0.6, a few 0.8s, plus some extra 0.4s and 0.6s dedicated to specific materials.
So probably about 30 in total - if they are £50 each thats quite an investment on top of the H2C upgrade prices - nozzles could end up being quite a money spinner for BL.
I suspect the upgrade kit will come with probably only 3 - so think I will just start with full 0.2 and 0.4 sets, plus single 0.6 and 0.8 - thats still 11 extra nozzles. + the upgrade kit.
I am secretly relieved the first version of the H2C only allows 6 nozzles!
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That’s why I suspect nozzle prices need to be kept low, most owners won’t be happy with about £300 for a set of nozzles at £50 each; a ‘full set’ would be £1500 just on 02.-0.8 and HF without TPU/fibre specific nozzles.
Looking at the Vortek video it looks like a simple board, single small chip, 3D printed barcode and wireless tx/rx loops. The data is listed as nozzle temp (sensor rqd), heatsink temp (sensor rqd), filament type (data storage) and filament colour (data storage).
3D barcode looks complex so I’d put money on unique serial numbers being assigned to each nozzle being made. Question is the filament type and colour stored on the nozzle or in the cloud, it’s a tiny amount of data for both, 4 bytes of data as hex code (Over 32000 unique numbers, around 300 BL filaments on sale at the moment). 8 byte hex gets you to 16.7 million different combinations.
Lets assume the system uses NFC for its comms process, this would fit the criteria as the ‘reader’ provides the power (toolhead) to the receiver. It’s an established standard and therefore well understood. Quick Google for an NFC chip comes back with a 144 byte memory and 100k/bit tx rate, a whopping $0.16 per chip for 5000 units.
Thermocouple data for the 2 x temperature sources are also very low bandwidth and complexity, 3 x thermistors, clips and thermal grease are £12.99 retail for X1C, or £8 including clips and grease for a Vortek hotend.
Potential cost reduction in scaling too, 5 nozzles for a P series, 10 nozzles for the ‘full set’ in a H2D versus 30 in a Vortek - order of magnitude more nozzles.
Guess the answer will be revealed in a few months given we hit Q4 in less than a month and review units will be out there for a good few weeks before launch.
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