What makes a good hotend?

[mrrobertpaul01]

What's the best all metal hotend design out there why? What is ideal? For example do you want a long or short transition zone? Do you want the material (let's use pla in this example) melted closer to the nozzle or further away from it?

[botfeeder]

ideal hotend.
high resolution (smaller nozzle)
evenly heated

[mrrobertpaul01]

ideal hotend.
high resolution (smaller nozzle)
evenly heated

I was thinking more along technical lines. Wouldn't the ideal hotend have a very small transition zone? Like a really tiny hotend?

[jimc]

a short transition zone give you more control, less ooze. it can give you issues with certain plastics that like to melt slowly. these would need to be printed slower. i have had hot ends with longer zones and shorter. i much prefer the short zone. i run an e3dv6. a very short zone on that. fantastic hot end.