So... E3D has really outdone themselves with this hotend! At a price point of $34.99, compared to $79.99 for the original V6, you would expect to see some sort of drop-off in quality in printed parts. Well, I've been using this hotend for almost a month, and I can tell you that is not the case. The Lite6 is just as capable of producing high-resolution, ooze-free prints:
On the left, Octave Green ABS. On the right, Octave Red PLA.
The beauty of the Lite6 is that it is not a significant redesign, and re-uses some parts from the V6. This not only makes the Lite6 cheaper to produce (because it shares assembly lines with the hot selling V6), but it will ultimately make the V6 cheaper as well, when the Lite6 sees more sales. The fundamental difference between the V6 and Lite6 is the heatbreak. On the original V6, the heatsink, heatbreak and heatblock are all three separate pieces. The Lite6 takes after other all-metal hotends and integrates the heatbreak directly into the heatsink. Unlike the V6, however, the interface at the nozzle is different. Instead of the stainless steel heatbreak meshing against the nozzle, PTFE tubing runs from the top of the heatsink all the way to the nozzle. This means you must ensure that the PTFE tubing is cut flat at the nozzle side to ensure good interfacing:
Performance
As I mentioned, this hotend PERFORMS! I am honestly incapable of distinguishing between prints done on my original V6 and the Lite6. Even with the simplified hot zone, details are clear, fill is clean and printed parts fit together exactly like they should. The only performance issue with the Lite6 is by design: it is not capable of printing materials beyond 245C. For most 3D printing users, this is perfectly adequate, because this allows printing of ABS, PLA, HIPS, T Glase, PVA, and other low temp materials.
ABS
I had absolutely no issues with ABS. I decided to see how little retraction I could get away with on the Lite6. On my V6, I was using retraction of 0.4mm@70mm/s and experienced no issues with oozing. On the Lite6, I bumped this up to 0.5mm at the same speed, 70mm/s, and haven't had any stringing issues even on closely-spaced parts. For all ABS pictured here, I used a temperature of 240C.
ABS parts fit well together, straight off the printer. This is in line with the performance I expect from E3D's hotends:
(Nautilus Gears from Thingiverse)
I have been printing battery sleds for electronic cigarette box mods, for several clients. When asked if they could distinguish between my prints with the original V6 and the Lite6, they were surprised to find out I had swapped hotends at all, and even more surprised when the one I was using cost $45 less!
(Battery sled for a Hammond 1590G box)
Overall, I was very pleased with ABS performance and I can't find a single fault.
PLA
When I was putting the Lite6 through its paces, I put a strong emphasis on PLA. Many people have reported difficulty with PLA in the original v6 in the past, and typically it's due to excessive retraction. To make sure I didn't make the same mistake, I first found the lowest temperature I could extrude my PLA at, which happened to be 180c. I was able to use 0.7mm@70mm/s retraction and get string-free prints.
The Lite6 makes beautiful, water-tight prints with ease:
Even with a 0.6 nozzle, models which require more detail were not a problem:
(Puppy from Thingiverse)
(The infamous owl from Thingiverse)
Bottom Line
If you have been considering an upgrade to the E3D V6 hotend, but couldn't justify the cost, this is the hotend for you! It is my honest opinion that the lite6 has all of the capabilities of the original V6, if higher temp filaments such as nylon are not interesting to you. If you are reading this and still considering a clone, just save yourself the headache and go genuine! The clone market will have to step its game up to remain successful, because they can no longer brag on price!
The beauty of the Lite6 is that with a Lite6 and an E3D hobb goblin drive gear (optional of course), you can build a high-performance extruder for $34.99+$14.99 = $49.98! That's a little over half the price of an original V6!
Thanks for sending me this Tim! I love being on the cutting edge of 3dp 
Happy printing everyone 
