novice printer looking to upgrade my experience
Hello community,
I would label myself as a novice printer. I have probably 60 prints behind me. I primarily print with PETG but I have used PLA and the enclosure to print in ABS just have not done so yet. I print mostly things for around the house or things for friends. I own the MK3s that I built from the kit and I have the upgrade kit for the MMU2S as well as the MK3S+ upgrade kit.
I am looking to speed up prints as well as gain some detail. I have been told that I should upgrade my nozzle as I'm still rocking the OEM 0.4mm one. People have said I should get a .025mm and a .08 or .06mm nozzle. I have heard that I should get a hardened nozzle to expand print capabilities. I was looking at the volcano hot end as well but I am at a loss as to what I should be looking for to get the most out of my printer.
Ideally, I would like to maintain quality prints with the flexibility to have either faster prints or more detail at times with the lowest chance of messing something up in my settings. I am ok at troubleshooting but nobody likes doing it. I appreciate any help you can give a novice in this category or direction you can give me to where I should start researching to get the best results in this upgrade.
RE: novice printer looking to upgrade my experience
@patchnotes
I wrote 2 paragraphs, for real. Then I deleted in favor of this.
Good Luck, print lots, print often, and you will ultimately get where you want to be, with the knowledge that it takes to get there.
Swiss_Cheese
The Filament Whisperer
RE:
People say a lot of things. You don't have to listen.
Use the basic machine until you are reasonably competent, perhaps a year or 500 prints...
Then you will know where your issues, if any, are and can decide for yourself what upgrades, if any, you need.
That was me saying that. You don't have to listen.
Cheerio,
RE: novice printer looking to upgrade my experience
I'n not novice to printing, but on my yearold Mini+ with stock 0.4 nozzle, when i found myself regurlary setting the extrutionwidth to between 0.6 and 0.7 i decided to install a 0.6 nozzle, and this allows me to finish prints faster and not loose much detail.
I rarely print small/thin prints but even with a 0.6 nozzle, i can reliably print down to about 1mm thin prints in ABS/PETG (i almost never use PLA).
Prusa Mini+ kit. BondTech extruder. FW 5.1.2
Prusa MK3S+ kit. Stock. FW 3.11.0
Prusa MK3S+, used. Stock. FW 3.13.3
Exactly. You have experience and in due course you identified your particular needs and addressed them.
It is likely that @patchnotes requirements will differ from yours and mine and by this time next year any necessary measures will be clear.
Cheerio,
RE: novice printer looking to upgrade my experience
I'm a novice printer... You could do what I did/am doing. I built my 3S+ from a kit in March, and liked it so much that I used it to build a second Bear Upgraded printer from parts and raw materials. Learned more about how the printer works, and learned how to calibrate my extrusion multiplier for best accuracy with functional parts. I modified the Z height, so I had to modify the firmware and compile from sources which was also very educational. Probably didn't save any money over buying a new Prusa but compared to buying something like a Caribou with the taller Z I definitely saved some money. I am still running the .4mm nozzles in both printers but if I want I could switch one of them out for a different size and have different options for speed and detail.
Current project is setting them each up with a Raspberry Pi running Octoprint and a camera for monitoring. I am kind of bogged down in the weeds at the moment printing parts for the Pi camera arms but hopefully will be able to get beyond that soon. I've had to search out a bunch of pieces that people have remixed to work with the camera arm I am using, and I may have to design a couple of parts to be able to run at least part of the camera cable in drag chains like I want to do. Plenty of learning opportunities.