Hotend advice for first ever 3D printer

[jonhi]

So I decided to build a Voron Trident as my first 3D printer (yeah, I know) and I'm having trouble choosing a hotend.
I'm not sure what I'll print other than "general" stuff (boardgame inserts, toys, bins, etc). I'll focus more on reducing noise than printing as fast as possible, and I'll probably avoid the fancy materials.
I guess I'm choosing between:

• Voron Revo (24V or 12V?)
• Rapido (HF or UHF?, plus or no plus?)
• Dragon

While trying to research them I've found people hissing and dissing them all, so the more I read the more undecided I become.
At first I was leaning towards the Revo (it has "Voron" in the name after all), but the lack of steel nozzles and high flow nozzles has been brought up as a drawback. And the nozzles seem very expensive compared to the nozzles for the other hotends?
Otherwise the Rapido seem to be well liked and if I had to choose right now I'd probably pick this one. But HF or UHF? Plus version or not?
I dunno why but the Dragon is 3rd on my list. Some people love it.
Either way I should probably get a 0.4 and a 0.6 nozzle? And prefer copper over brass? Or should I go with steel?

 

[Hotboi Engineering]

If this is your first printer i'd prioritize just getting it printing with whatever comes in the kit and worrying about upgrades and mods later. I'd recommend an LDO kit as they are the most complete and easiest to assemble. The ancillary documentation is also fantastic and it comes with several popular mods you can "grow into" and use as you learn about the printer.

Given the items you list that you'd like to print vary a lot in size, I think the Revo is your best bet. If you want fine detail for board game miniatures, swap in a 0.4 or smaller nozzle. When you want bins and larger items, use a 0.6 or 0.8 Revo HF. There are both hardened steel and high flow variants of Revo. The LDO kit comes with a Revo Voron hotend with a 0.4mm brass nozzle.

You don't mention wanting to use exotic composite filaments, so a brass nozzle would be perfectly fine for you. If you do want to try composite filaments or glow in the dark filaments, you can get a Revo Obxidian later on.

You mention you're not interested in printing as fast as possible, so no need for the high flow and temp capabilities of a Rapido.

 

[claudermilk]

You really can't go wrong with any of those options. I am biased since I went with Revo when sourcing my Trident. I've been happy with it and don't really feel the need to change. While the nozzles are more expensive than a typical V6 style nozzle, if you look at a V6 nozzle plus heatbreak you come out about the same as a Revo nozzle--and that's essentially what it is: the nozzle & heatbreak in one unit. So fewer joints and possible leaks there. It also truly is stupid easy to swap nozzles with the system--I find myself swapping all the time with it. As for special nozzles, those are coming out. The Obxidian range for abrasive filaments has been available for a couple of months. High flow just got released (0.4 to 1.4) and plug right in; apparently for 0.4 & 0.6 the standard 40W heater is fine. E3D hinted at working on Obxidian HF. I have the whole brass range from 0.15 to 0.8 and used all of them except 0.8. I also do not care about printing super fast so Revo has been fine for me on that front.

 

[nickpeck47]

I'm sure you already chose by now, but I have the Rapido HF on both of my Vorons and they are great hotends, no issues at all. They also come with 4mm and 6mm nozzles in the box. Just pay attention to sensor your version has as I recently had an "issue" with my Trident build. I didn't realize I had to change the sensor type to a PT1000 (the version I bought, thought it was just a series # at first lol), vs. the standard sensor the printer.cfg has in it.

 

[WhiteWulfe]

I went with a dragon high flow on my Trident, but I'll be swapping things over to the Revo since I don't really care about speed. Accuracy and quality of print are my two biggest concerns, and in a number of cases a faster hotend saves me half an hour at most, and that's on 12-16 hour plates.