Slice Engineering Mosquito hotend

About the revised version

In January 2020 Slice Engineering released a brand new version of the Mosquito™! This new versions include a revised heat break and heat sink with cool new features. The new heat break has a reinforced throat and revised radiator to prevent damage during installation or repairs. It also features the same WS2 anti-stick coating found on our line of Vanadium™ Nozzles for even better performance with PLA. The new heat sink has a wider opening for the filament path to more readily accept spliced filament from multi-material setups, like the Prusa MMU or Mosaic Palette.

The old-style heat breaks and heat sinks will not be compatible with the new ones. However, customers that desire to upgrade can retrofit their Mosquito™ to take advantage of the new features by acquiring both the heat sink and heat break together.

The Mosquito Versatility

The Mosquito is adaptable to virtually any printer, so by swapping one component, you gain the high performance benefits of a printer worth thousands more. Since the Mosquito (designed for beauty) and Mosquito Magnum (designed for speed) are the same length, any combination of these hotends can be mounted to one carriage. So you can switch between high-flow and high-precision in the same print.

Oh yeah, and you can change the nozzle with one hand.

Are you ready to see your vision fully realized?

Built For Engineering-grade Plastics

Seasoned hobbyists, innovators, and creators take it in stride when they’re struck with a vision of what they could build. Especially when they know that with the Mosquito hotend, their 3D printer can deliver the highest resolution and take on engineering-grade plastics that other desktop printers can’t come close to. With minimal layer lines and extreme precision, your vision is about to become reality. A beautiful reality.

By engineering-grade plastics, we’re talking printing at temperatures up to 450°c. That means you can print car parts, medical devices, and whatever else you can dream up, and you don’t have to buy an over-sized (and overpriced) printer to do the job.

How did we accomplish this?

Re-imagined Hotend

By re-imagining how a hotend is designed and structured from the ground up. The materials in each part of the Mosquito have been hand selected to perform a specific task to optimize your printer’s performance with three goals in mind: lightning speed, beautiful resolution, and increased durability.

Additional Details

• The heat break conducts 85% less heat into the heat sink than a typical threaded heat break.
• Allows for hotend to be mounted with a printed, plastic adapter, without raising safety concerns.
• Composite construction of the heat break allows for the use of materials optimized for heat transfer in each section of the heat break.
• Reduced heat transmission removes the need for a large heat sink.
• Steep temperature gradient at the heat break reduces the likelihood of jamming.
• High tolerances along the filament path allow for better transmission of fine motor movements, resulting in beautiful, higher resolution prints.
• The heat break has been separated from the structural components of the hotend, allowing for a heat break that is not load bearing, and can be very thin walled. This allows for a reliable, rigid exterior structure.
• No components are prone to loosening at the mounting points.
• Nozzles can be changed with one hand (one tool), without grasping the hot block.
• In the case of a severe crash, an entirely new hotend is not necessary, parts can be easily swapped out.
• Specially-engineered high temperature copper alloy in the hot block will not soften at high temperatures in excess of 550C.
• Threads in the hot block will not deform at high temps, allowing removal of nozzles even after multiple high temp heat cycles.
• Nickel plating on the hot block reduces radiative heat loss and prevents galling of threads.
• Compact, flat, ambidextrous form factor.
• 5 different hole mounting patterns to allow for adaptation to virtually any printer.
• Printable adapters can be created to diversify mounting options.
• The Mosquito’s tiny form factor makes it ideal for multi extrusion systems. Since the Mosquito (designed for precision) and Mosquito Magnum (designed for flow) are the same length, any combination of these hotends can be mounted to one carriage. So a typical multi-extrusion system equipped with Mosquito(s) and Mosquito Magnum(s) can switch between high-flow and high-precision extrusion in the same print. In the blink of an eye. With one-handed nozzle changes.
• Small form factor and light mass allows for back-to-back mounting with small (14 mm) nozzle-nozzle distance.
• Small mass allows for rapid motion of the carriage.