Genuine E3D V6 Socks Pro (Pack of 3) (V6-SOCK-PRO-3PACK)

I use these on my Prusa MK3 and really love them. 1) they keep temps more stable on your hot end 2) they prevent material from sticking to your hot end, which is especially good for stringy stuff like PETG 3) if you fiddle with your machine like me, they also prevent you from burning your stupid fingers as you stick your fat booger hook in and around the 200 degree extruder like an idiot. For the price get them. They do and will wear out, so expect that. They also are not infallible; I've had them slip a bit and had the nozzle get stuck in it and start extruding inside of it - but that's usually because of some other print failure, not because the sock itself causes the problem. Overall I can't recommend them enough.

There are a lot of reasons to get this but the most important reason is so you keep your tip clean. Printing Petg was a nightmare because the fine strings would eventually find their way to the nozzle and end up gooping it up. 10 hours into a print and the burnt strings end up as a huge booger dropped on your print and when you wake up, you have a nice birds nest. This fits perfectly on the prusa e3d hot end and covers everything up except for the tiniest bit of the nozzle tip. My hot end stays immaculate, nothing sticks to the nozzle and prints come out nice and clean! Just remember, using this will change the heating parameters a little so after installation, do a PID tuning to keep your temps consistent and accurate! I use this on an Original Prusa i3 Mk3 and Mk3S.

Doesn't fit my mk3s+ with .04 tungsten nozzle. Too flush with the tip and would've dragged. I upgraded the heater block recently so might be due to that. Seems to work well for others though.

I decided to add the pro socks to my heater block when I replaced it. The old block and nozzle looked like a miner's lungs. The new business end of my Prusa is still pristine after 200 hours of printing. Well worth the price! Oh, and no worries about a slightly loose fit on install. Just get those clasper extrusions up over the block and keep the power and thermistor wires out of the say, any the sock will stay put as E3D intended.

As anyone who prints with PETG probably knows, PETG loves to end up stuck all over the hot end. Even if you don't have any mishaps, PETG still finds a way. Based on some research on the web, I found these and decided to give them a shot. The first caution is that they don't always stay up real well, even on an authentic E3D hot end. I just don't think there's quite enough lip around the top of the silicone, and it's super flexible, and you're applying it to a hot end working at temperatures up near 250C. The first sock I used, it kept tilting down, and was in danger of contacting the print. I pulled it off and replaced it prematurely after maybe 20 hours of printing. The second one I wrapped a tiny piece of bare electrical wire (other people will use a twist-tie and burn the plastic off it) and twisted the end. It held the sock up without any issue at all. It's kind of a pain to twist the wire, and you have to be careful of proximity to the thermister and heater wires. The third one I applied using a dab (just a tiny bit!) of high-temperature RTV on either end. This seems to be holding it in place perfectly, and was less work than twisting the wire tie. Both the wire tie and the RTV were tips I picked up reading a few forums from others who were concerned about the sock not staying on. Another issue I've had is that even when held in place, it still seems possible for the silicone sock, after it's degraded over a few tens of hours of printing, to start collecting some PETG right along the lower edge of the nozzle. I'm not sure if it's wiping a tiny bit off that's accumulating over time, but eventually it builds up enough to cause a problem. Replacing the sock solves the problem, at least for a while. These things are consumables, and like any consumables you should expect to replace them when their service life is exceeded. Deducted a few stars because the sock drooping could be a catastrophic problem, especially if it sagged sufficiently that it allowed extruded filament to build up between the sock and the nozzle. E3D does also sell a "non-pro" version that doesn't cover the whole nozzle like this one does. That might actually be a safer/better alternative, and I might give it a try after my current pack of socks wears out.

The stock hotend of the Monoprice Select Mini V2 was a weird V5 clone that didn't really have any pre-made socks for it, so like many others I had to create a mold and cast my own silicone socks for it. After I finally updated it to a V6 clone, I was looking forward to being able to buy the socks directly instead of going through that casting process: however, what I realized was that the genuine V6 has slightly different dimensions than the V6 clone as well, in this case being slightly longer and resulting in the sock hanging loosely on a V6 clone. As the width and height of the V6 clone hotend were already similar to the sock's own dimensions, all I needed was to modify the sock's depth with high-temperature resistant silicone in order to create a tight fit. After that point these socks have been working very well.

These should be included when you buy a prusa mk3s. Completely eliminated my problems with petg building up on the nozzle and dropping wads on my prints halfway through which promptly ruins them if I'm not right there watching to pause the print and remove the clump of petg. I fit perfect and at least on mine part of it kind of tucks up fairly tight behind the wires going to the hot end which at least so far has kept it from moving at all without me having to do anything else to hold it in place. Now if I could just figure out how to get prints with small surface area to reliably stay attached to my print surface I would have almost 100% success with my prints.

Very easy to install and stays on. Just had a massive print fail ending up with a huge birds nest around the print head. I pulled off the nest which took the sock with it. After the plastic cooled a bit, the sock came out mostly clean. Picked off a couple stray bits of plastic and it was ready to re-install. The print head itself was perfectly clean. Without the sock, it would have taken at least 10 minutes to get all the junk off the print head. Well worth the money.