Phaetus TaiChi Dual Filament Hot End

All-Metal, 500°C Max, One-Hand Nozzle Change (Blue & Black)

Two filaments. One hotend. Zero leveling headaches. The Phaetus TaiChi is a 2-in-1 all-metal hotend built for dual-material and multi-color printing — without the alignment nightmares of a traditional dual extruder setup. Both filaments feed in through separate ports and print through a single nozzle, so you never have to worry about two toolheads being perfectly level with each other. There's only one.

Available in Blue or Black — choose your color above.

What Makes This Hotend Different — Plain and Simple

Imagine a water park slide with two lanes that merge into one at the bottom. Each lane is a different filament. They go in separately at the top, meet inside the hotend, and come out through one nozzle. That's the TaiChi in a nutshell.

Traditional dual-extruder setups use two completely separate toolheads — and getting both of them to print at exactly the same height is a constant calibration battle. The TaiChi solves this by design: one hotend, two inputs, one output. Leveling is no different than a single hotend.

⚠️ Important: The TaiChi is a switching dual hotend, not a mixing hotend. Both filaments feed in and print separately through one nozzle — it does not blend colors together. It switches between filament A and filament B.

Key Features

• Dual integrated feed ports — two Bowden collets at the top, one nozzle at the bottom. Feed two filaments, no dual toolhead calibration required.
• All-metal construction — nickel-plated copper heater block, aluminum heatsink. No PTFE in the melt zone, which means you can print high-temperature filaments without degradation or toxic fumes.
• Conical bi-metal heatbreak (0.25mm wall) — fits tightly against the heatsink for maximum heat dissipation. The thinner the wall, the sharper the transition from hot to cold — which means less clogging and cleaner retractions.
• Titanium alloy support screws — titanium conducts heat 5× less than stainless steel. This keeps the cold zone cold and enables one-handed nozzle swaps without the block spinning.
• One-handed nozzle changing — the titanium screws lock the heater block rigid so you can swap nozzles without holding anything down.
• 500°C max printing temperature — confirmed in Phaetus official FAQ. Handles PEEK, PEI Ultem, and other high-performance engineering filaments.
• Open source — full files and documentation available on GitHub.

Compatible Printers

Compatible Filaments

Because the TaiChi is fully all-metal with no PTFE in the heat zone and reaches 500°C, it handles virtually every filament available:

Technical Specs

What's in the Box

• 1× TaiChi Hotend assembly (your choice of Blue or Black)
• 1× Silicone sock
• 2× M3 mounting screws
• 2× Collet clips
• 1× Drivepipe (adapter tube for glass bead thermistor)
• 1× Thermal paste
• 1× H1.5 hex wrench
• 1× 8mm open-end wrench

Installation Note — Hot Tightening Required

⚠️ Like most all-metal hotends, the TaiChi requires a hot tighten step during install to prevent leaks. Here's how:

1. Assemble the hotend and heat it to 285°C.
2. Wait 1 minute for all components to equalize temperature.
3. Hold the heater block steady with a wrench and gently tighten the nozzle with a 7mm wrench to ~2.5 Nm — about the force of one finger pressing down on a small wrench.

This seals the nozzle against the heatbreak and prevents molten filament from leaking between the threads. Skip this step and you'll get ooze. Do it right and you'll have a clean, leak-free hotend every time.

Full files and documentation available on the official Phaetus TaiChi GitHub repository.

Who Is This For?

• Creality Ender or CR series users who want to add dual-material or two-color capability to their printer without buying a second extruder system.
• Makers tired of dual toolhead calibration — one leveling pass, done. No IDEX offset tuning, no second Z offset.
• High-temperature filament users — PEEK, PEI, PC — who need an all-metal hotend that won't melt or off-gas at the temps required.
• Multi-material printers who want to pair a structural filament (e.g. CF-Nylon) with a soluble support material (PVA) through one hotend — cleanly and without leveling complexity.
• Builders who care about print quality — the 0.25mm wall heatbreak and titanium screws give you a sharp, clean melt zone that reduces stringing and improves retraction consistency.