Do .6mm nozzle profiles work?
Hi folks,
Luckily I've had nothing but a good experience with my Mini+ the last few months...everything has been going great. I tried a .6mm nozzle today for the first time, and (1) discovered that the first layer calibration won't take your nozzle into account since I guess .4mm is baked into it and (2) used a layer calibration STL and exported the Gcode using the Prusament PLA filament profile (yes I'm using Prusament) and Mini+ .6mm Printer Profile.
However, regardless of what I do with the Z-adjust (and, it *is* at a good level and I've played with it quite a bit) - it seems to under-extrude. It looks like the amount of filament coming out is what .4mm would look like because it can't squish the lines of filament wide enough to actually make each line touch each other. It comes out looking like fine screen vs. a solid layer. I'm sure my attached pictures won't do them justice but you can almost see right through .6mm layer test. The one that looks good is actually the .4mm test with the .4mm installed again - I wanted to rule out a bad installation of the nozzle or gear/feed problems.
Like I said, the thing has been bullet proof so far and I have no reason the under-extrusion has to do with feed problems. It under-extrudes so perfectly that I'd say it's strictly a math problem.
So...my question is...has anyone used the .6mm profile out of the box without issue? My next step would be to slowly increase the Flow while printing the layer test until it looks right. See my below screenshot of what my config looks like...it's basic. Am I doing something dumb? I also thought it was weird, that if you go into Filament Settings while in the .6mm or .8mm profile, it shows filaments with the @6 or @8 notation in there. If you switch to the .8mm profile, it seems to default to the @.8mm filament preset. But if you look at my screenshot of the .6mm available filaments, it only shows @.6mm for PETG. It feels like either they are all missing for .6mm, or...I just don't really understand the relationship of what's going on in this screen.
FYI my Z height is 1.578 for .4mm and 1.450 for .6mm which seems about right (though I tested up and down a lot with the .6mm.)
So after all of that reading...any thoughts? Any similar experiences? I'm going to adjust the Flow tomorrow morning and test. I chatted with Support tonight but they were under the impression simply selecting the .6mm printer profile and Prusament PLA (like my basic screenshot shows) - all should work fine.
Thanks,
Kevin
RE:
What you're seeing in the menu is normal. But there's clearly something wrong. I print with 0.6 a lot and haven't seen anything like this. Just to rule out the obvious: you sure, it's a 0.6mm nozzle not a 0.8? You can also export the project file as a 3mf, zip it and attach it to a post, so we can take a look and do a test print to compare.
Formerly known on this forum as @fuchsr -- until all hell broke loose with the forum software...
RE: Do .6mm nozzle profiles work?
For what it's worth I did upgrade to the latest Slicer software and firmware...but I hadn't used .6mm before that so I don't have any before/after conclusions.
RE: Do .6mm nozzle profiles work?
fuchsr yup I had the same thought - I thought maybe whoever shipped/packaged me the bag got the sizes messed up but I looked at the indicator/dots on the nozzle - it's definitely .6mm (E3d). To be clear I ordered E3d V6 nozzles - that's all well and good for a Mini+ right?
RE: Do .6mm nozzle profiles work?
Aha...so for starters, here is my .3mf - nothing special.
However, check out the photo below. Going from right to left, it starts out with the default Flow Factor of 95. I increased it by 1 every segment going left (via Tune menu during printing) and it starts to look normal at 101 and 102. So...I like what I'm seeing as I increased the flow but it goes back to the question of why is that necessary with all of the Prusa settings out of the box?
RE: Do .6mm nozzle profiles work?
Nothing wrong with the 3mf file as far as I can tell. I wouldn't expect to see the extrusion flow adjustment be necessary with the standard profile. So what if you lower the live z more? When I see the strands of filament not connect, I take the live z more negative. What are you seeing in that case?
Formerly known on this forum as @fuchsr -- until all hell broke loose with the forum software...
RE: Do .6mm nozzle profiles work?
Well my standard .4mm Z is 1.578...When I tested new Z for the .6mm I tested from from 1.510 - 1.578. 1.510 looked awfully darn close to the bed...and when I saw absolutely zero improvement in the layer as I went down and down, and the actual lines of filament didn't look very dense (you would expect some tall and girthy lines if too high, and also big mounds of filament on perimeter/edges) it seemed to me like there wasn't enough filament coming out.
I did a test of a whole strip at 101 and 102 flow rate, and the layer looked great. I did a real print and it also came out good so I think I'm satisfied with the resolution of increasing flow rate even if I don't understand why it should be necessary when otherwise the .4mm's come out great without tweaking.
I found an interesting thread on flow rate percentage here: https://forum.prusa3d.com/forum/general-discussion-announcements-and-releases/whats-with-the-95-flow-rate/