Filament thickness  

From the Knowledge Base

" You can use a caliper to check the diameter (+/- 0,05 mm is acceptable, but not perfect). "

https://help.prusa3d.com/en/article/under-extrusion_2007

Posted by: @crolsky

Hi - Thanks in advance for any help. Is there a very specific thickness range for filament to be used with the i3 MK3S+? I extrude my own filament and always aim for the 1.75 mm but I wasn't sure if there was a thickness low/high range that the printer cannot print outside of. Any help would be great!

 

Out of curiosity, what are you using to extrude your own filament?

A few recently-purchased spools of commercial filament that I've used are specified as +-0.02 and +-0.03mm.

Some thoughts about filament diameter tolerances...

When we make extruder calibration on printer, we try to get the result within 1%. That is, at extrusion of 100mm filament, result should be between 99 and 101mm.

As sylviatrilling said, "acceptable" diameter tolerance is 0,05mm -which is 3% of diameter. However, that's 6% of filament cross section (amount of filament material). Worse: because it can be +/- 0,05mm, amount of extruded filament will have 12% variation -which in my opinion, is quite a lot.
Ok, wouldn't be a problem, if filament diameter would be constantly +0,05mm (or -0,05mm), because we could compensate that with extruder calibration. But because filament diameter varies, print finish might not look that good.
In short: buy from reputable filament maker (that can keep tolerances tight).

Thickness

Thank you! I currently have and use one. ~1.8 mm used to work with my Ender but made issues with the Prusa, it seems. 

Posted by: @sylviatrilling

" You can use a caliper to check the diameter (+/- 0,05 mm is acceptable, but not perfect). "

https://help.prusa3d.com/en/article/under-extrusion_2007

Extruder

I use a Filabot EX2 currently but am upgrading soon. 

Posted by: @jsw

Posted by: @crolsky

Hi - Thanks in advance for any help. Is there a very specific thickness range for filament to be used with the i3 MK3S+? I extrude my own filament and always aim for the 1.75 mm but I wasn't sure if there was a thickness low/high range that the printer cannot print outside of. Any help would be great!

 

Out of curiosity, what are you using to extrude your own filament?

A few recently-purchased spools of commercial filament that I've used are specified as +-0.02 and +-0.03mm.

Filament

Thanks very much for your reply. This makes a lot of sense. Currently, I am producing my own, recycled filament as a sustainability strategy. I will work on fine-tuning it so that my dimater range is well within what Prusa can print efficiently. 

Posted by: @bogdanh

Some thoughts about filament diameter tolerances...

When we make extruder calibration on printer, we try to get the result within 1%. That is, at extrusion of 100mm filament, result should be between 99 and 101mm.

As sylviatrilling said, "acceptable" diameter tolerance is 0,05mm -which is 3% of diameter. However, that's 6% of filament cross section (amount of filament material). Worse: because it can be +/- 0,05mm, amount of extruded filament will have 12% variation -which in my opinion, is quite a lot.
Ok, wouldn't be a problem, if filament diameter would be constantly +0,05mm (or -0,05mm), because we could compensate that with extruder calibration. But because filament diameter varies, print finish might not look that good.
In short: buy from reputable filament maker (that can keep tolerances tight).

@ crolsky

Do you have a link or some more information about your own filament production?

Best regards, Clemens

@clemens-m

We are having a website developed as we speak thriugh my university (Arizona State). I'm happy to connect via phone or email if you would like to chat in more detail. Do you have any questions I can answer?

I have a question

What commercially available products are you using From a hardware perspective.