J-Head length

Just a quick note, got it, install was easy (everything included, and then some). Maybe a couple of hours to build (including soldering and hand-crimping Y-splitter wires for the 12V supply plus some stupid things I did with crimping JST connectors -- without the latter, it would have been under an hour).  I used some silver thermal compound for thermistor (tiny bit, to avoid shorts) and heater.

First impressions (ABS so far): excellent!  Heats up to 225C in about a minute, holds temperature great (just a tiny ~2C overshoot when it first reaches setpoint, then perfect flat line!), doesn't flinch when cooling fan comes on (unlike a 10-15C drop I was observing with the stock hotend), doesn't need much retraction, and whenever I change filament I'm still amazed how smooth it is (retracted filament comes out in one nice-looking piece, and it takes maybe 50mm [sic] to flush out the old color, unlike 200-500mm with the old hotend!).  And all this with stock electronics and PSU (although I have a beefier PSU on order).

Now if I could say the same about the rest of the printer (took this as excuse to rip out extruder and carriages as well... too many things changed at once, I never learn... so excuse me while I go rip out some hair too... ).  As for the shroud, I just redid it in OpenSCAD (fairly simple structure) but now distracted with other things, lawsy's under-carriage fan is just fine (since I changed carriages).