Compare 3D printer hotends by melt zone length, sustainable volumetric flow rate, residence time, heater power and cost per mm³/s, across 36 filament materials from PLA to PEEK.
MeltCalc sizes a hotend against the plastic going through it. Melting a cubic millimetre costs a fixed amount of energy, a melt zone can only couple so much power into filament per millimetre of heated length, and those two facts set a ceiling on volumetric flow. Compare 95 hotends from 25 manufacturers, and 36 filament materials across 8 polymer families.
Views: maximum flow rate, residence time, power per mm of melt zone, heater cartridge sizing, cost per mm³/s, melt energy by material, and maximum flow by material for one hotend.