0.25mm Nozzle
I've had the pro pack of nozzles from E3D for awhile but I hadn't tried using anything smaller than 0.4mm until this weekend. A customer who is interested in possibly purchasing a MK2S wanted to see what the printer is capable of and sent me an extremely detailed small model.
Other than adjusting the live-z and running a few test prints to confirm my extrusion multiplier and line thickness I didn't have to change many settings. Overall I think the print came out pretty well! 🙂
Re: 0.25mm Nozzle
That's really detailed, 28mm model?
I have been wondering if my MK2s can print things like that. Would you provide more detail on what you changed and the values you changed them too?
Every time I try and print that small my results are less than spectacular.
Thanks,
Mark
Re: 0.25mm Nozzle
The model is ~40mm tall and very detailed. I really wasn't sure how well it was going to print.
I tried a few different orientations for the model with varying levels of success. I ended up printing the model on its side so the figures face/sword/chest was facing up. This minimized the amount of support material that would be necessary over the small details.
I've spent a fair amount of time dialing in the printer using the live-z adjustment from Jeff in this forum and tuning the extruder according to the instructions on Matt's hub. Getting the extrusion multiplier correct after adjusting the steps seemed to have the biggest impact on increasing the quality of my prints.
When I swapped nozzles from the 0.4mm to the 0.25 I reset my live-z first then printed a hollow cube to check the extrusion multiplier. It is set at 0.95 for the standard nozzle and that setting looked pretty good for the smaller nozzle also. I had some warping/adhesion issues with the cube with only printing 1 line at a fixed width of 0.3mm. What I could measure was pretty close so I went with it and figured I could tune it later if I needed to.
For the model I printed it at 30mm/s with linear advance enabled with a K of 35. I printed perimeters at 50% speed and the first layer also at 50% with infill at 100%. I used Hatchbox white PLA with a bed temp of 55C and a print temp of 210C.
I attached a picture with some of the support material still on the model. I think the print orientation had a huge impact on how much detail I was able to achieve. My initial trials were with the model sitting on its base but that generated a lot of support material over the front of the model for the sword and hat with obscured a lot of the details when I removed it.
I really wasn't sure how successful I was going to be with this type of a print but with a little tuning and patience our printers can do it!
-Jim
Re: 0.25mm Nozzle
Jim,
Wow thank you, I really appreciate taking the time to provide it those details. I can most larger models extremely well but have been struggling with the smaller detailed ones. I will use what you posted and see where that takes me.
Thank you very much.
Mark
Re: 0.25mm Nozzle
No problem, I hope it helps!
Re: 0.25mm Nozzle
Anyone done a side by side comparison using a 0.4?
Re: 0.25mm Nozzle
I've already switched back to my standard nozzle. I'll print this model again and post a picture using the same orientation and support resolution. I tried printing it with the standard nozzle initially in a different orientation and I ended up with a bird's nest on my first 2 tries...
Re: 0.25mm Nozzle
This is with a .40 nozzle.
Will try and do a side by comparison
next week or so.
Re: 0.25mm Nozzle
Working on a .25mm nozzle version of that viking warrior right now. Unfortunately it cannot be in the same filament as the initial one was in Proto Pasta's stainless and it jams on .25mm nozzle. Will post update tomorrow.
Re: 0.25mm Nozzle
For sake of doing it, the .25mm nozzle produces a more detailed model but for me the differences were not monumental.
The white model (right side) is the one printed with the .25mm nozzle. It is more detailed and I need to work on my retraction settings.