Volcano with 0.4/0.6 Nozzle Speed and Slicing Help needed 🙂  

RE: Volcano with 0.4/0.6 Nozzle Speed and Slicing Help needed 🙂

I had a nice response written and the forum software dumped it on me. In short, the V6 and Volcano have different capacities, measured in cubic mm/s (mm^3/s). The V6 is rated for an optimistic rate of something like 15mm^3/s, the Volcano for 25mm^3/s. You set corresponding limits as Max volumetric speed (MVS) in PrusaSlicer in Print Settings and Filament settings. Notes on nozzles here, configuring PrusaSlicer here and MVS here.

RE: Volcano with 0.4/0.6 Nozzle Speed and Slicing Help needed 🙂

Posted by: bobstro

I had a nice response written and the forum software dumped it on me. In short, the V6 and Volcano have different capacities, measured in cubic mm/s (mm^3/s). The V6 is rated for an optimistic rate of something like 15mm^3/s, the Volcano for 25mm^3/s. You set corresponding limits as Max volumetric speed (MVS) in PrusaSlicer in Print Settings and Filament settings. Notes on nozzles here, configuring PrusaSlicer here and MVS here.

Hi bobstro,

Thanks for answering. I know about the MVS but im not so sure what it means like when you use a 0.2 layer height and a 0.4 nozzle. Can you really print that fast what you calculate ? Does it look good ? What about other layer heights and how do they look etc ?

Thats why i was interested in experiences and pictures of print with a volcano and a 0.6 nozzle. See my questions above. Could you just tell me a bit if you have a volcano. How much improvement in speed can you get in the real world with good print quality and so on ...

Thanks a lot!

Manuel

RE: Volcano with 0.4/0.6 Nozzle Speed and Slicing Help needed 🙂

You are overthinking it a bit, or I should say, over preparing.  Just go for it.  You can easily switch back.  I’d recommend skelestruder of course because you lose no print volume and the shorter stack helps manage chamber pressure a bit better.  

A volcano with a 0.4 is nearly identical to v6.  You can print down to 0.05.  The main issue is increased stringing.  After increasing speeds a volumetric limit you need to fiddle with retractions and linear advance to dial it in.  You can get rid of most of the stringing but not all.  Keep the external perimeter speed sane and you should get great prints.  

Then when you need a big structural part, throw on a 0.8 nozzle at 0.5 layer and get ready to be impressed.  I’ll try to post a video.  It devours filament at shocking speed.  You can push 50 mm^3/s easily with the 40W heater from the v6.  

Volcano was my main block for six months.  I printed plenty of skelestruder parts with it among other things.  Only reason I switched back was mmu2 didn’t seem to like it due to strings of a different sort.  But it doesn’t work with the v6 either so I’ll probably revisit that if I get mmu2s working.  

May need to download link if it won’t play here  

RE: Volcano with 0.4/0.6 Nozzle Speed and Slicing Help needed 🙂

Hello Manuel,

As Bobstro said the reason for the Volcano is increased volumetric speed. In my case I use it to print PETG at V6 PLA speeds. As a rule of thumb when dialling a new filament for the Volcano I start at a volumetric speed of 1.5 times that of the V6.

When working with PETG I often hit the linear speed limits of the filament which are actually lower than the Prusa defaults weather you are using the V6 or Volcano. For example Rigid ink PETG has a linear speed limit of 70mm/s for a good strong finish although with the Volcano the Volumetric limit is 14mm/s³. The main reason I don't use a higher linear limit with PETG is to do so I would have to raise the print temperature higher which would lead to a massive amount of stinging/oozing even with the retraction settings I use.

With PLA however which is what I use for draught prints the volcano really shines even with a 0.4mm nozzle at 24mm/s³. The MK3/MK3S extruder is quite capable of printing at 0.6mm x 0.3mm or even 0.8mm x 0.3mm with a 0.4mm nozzle. As such to reduce nozzle changes you can just leave the 0.4mm nozzle on the printer fitted with a volcano and get 0.6mm or 0.8mm prints at volcano speed or in my cas a 0.25mm nozzle with 0.4mm results a volcano speed.  If I wanted to go above 0.5mm I would however have to swap out the 0.25mm (Micro Swiss) nozzle I use for a for a 0.6mm or larger one.

In general when selecting a nozzle it's stated diameter gives you the minimum line size it can handle and it's geometry as indicated in the drawings (E3D has such available for theirs on their web site) gives a good indication of the largest. E3D nozzles maintain a 2mm internal diameter till they hit the nozzle cone and as such no-mater the nozzle size the heat flux on the filament is the same and the only considerations are nozzle size and friction applied.

Another use of the Volcano is rather than printing faster is to print cooler. As the volcano has a better heat transfer to the filament than a V6 it means that the heat distribution within the filament by the time it hits the nozzle cone is a lot more even. This has an impact on surface finish an resolution in final production prints. This is usually only  5K-10K lower than that for the V6 (other settings in this case being closer to V6 than general than volcano). As regards temperature I use the plated copper block so I can usually get 2-3K reduction on temperature even a full Volcano speeds.

When using nozzle sizes of 0.4mm or above unless you intend to use abrasive filaments I would recommend going for the plated copper nozzle to squeeze the most you can out of the volcano heater block. If you are going to use abrasives then go for the Nozzle X (E3D) or any similar resistant nozzle.

Regards,

Martin

Regards,

Martin

RE: Volcano with 0.4/0.6 Nozzle Speed and Slicing Help needed 🙂

Volcano is always a good upgrade, should be standart by the time.

I would say 0.6mm nozzle gives you the best quality/speed ratio, but when you say "- I want to keep the quality of the 0.4 v6 heater block nozzle if possible for smaller art prints." Then is ok to run 0.4mm on volcano.

Please note nozzle size will only afect horizontal resolution, vertical aka layers you can keep print with 0.1mm even with 1mm nozzle. Think like, if you go 0.6mm nozzle you CAN'T print horizontal resolutions lower than 0.6mm, other thing to think off is the supports, the wider the harder to remove, 0.4mm nozzle wins here over larger sizes.

So you want balance and speed like everyone, myself i run 0.6mm nozzle and there are rare cases i require 0.4mm but i fix by repair model. Only thin designs made thinking on 0.4mm only will require that nozzle size, you are losing only 0.2mm of H resolution compared to 0.6mm but again if you print minis or text or wan't the extra detail stick with 0.4mm. Here is where we require toolchange or independent tools...

Now you talk about speed, don't worry about that now. Volcano with 0.4mm will always give you benefit because you can boost your wall thick a lot!!! For example you can run same wall thick resolution as the 0.6mm nozzle profile, for the 0.4mm nozzle you have a range from 0.4mm to 0.9mm or 0.8mm to be safe! 0.8mm thick wall is the same as run 0.8mm nozzle but using 0.4mm nozzle, magic!

Wan't print fast object with no detail required? eg enclosures?

Then set 0.3mm layer height * 0.8mm wall thick, about speed set it to 100mm/s, that will give you 24mm^3/s volume, near volcano limit. That is how you boost print speed by dispose more material and not by insane increase speeds. So i would say set infills and solids to 100mm/s and perimeters to something like 45mm/s external and 50mm/s internal.

This can be confusing at first, but if you want profiles and understand by see, please download my MK3 profiles here: https://github.com/sn4k3/Ender3/tree/master/PrusaSlicer
Install my printer and my print profiles and explore them, see multiple extrusions i have set, thats for 0.6mm nozzle but same will apply to 0.4mm, you can set profiles for 0.4mm, 0.6mm, 0.8mm wall thicks up to 0.3mm layers

RE: Volcano with 0.4/0.6 Nozzle Speed and Slicing Help needed 🙂

Posted by: jltx

...  You can push 50 mm^3/s easily ....  

How can you achieve that if volcano can only go up to 28 or 30mm^3/s volumetric without skip? Can you tell your layer height + extrusion width + speed you use for that rate? 
No matter what i do i can never go upper than +/-30mm^3/s, and in one printer i have 50W heater, volume are the same compared with 40W

RE: Volcano with 0.4/0.6 Nozzle Speed and Slicing Help needed 🙂

Posted by: manuel.s

Thanks for answering. I know about the MVS but im not so sure what it means like when you use a 0.2 layer height and a 0.4 nozzle. Can you really print that fast what you calculate ? Does it look good ? What about other layer heights and how do they look etc ?

MVS is calculated as Layer Height X Extrusion Width X Speed = MVS in mm^3/s.

Being lazy, I worked up a spreadsheet to identify suitable print parameters for PLA and PETG. Red values indicate layer height > 80% of nozzle size (not recommended). Blue values indicate layer height is below 25% of nozzle size (not necessarily a problem, just a guideline). Green values are the goldilocks zone of "just right" for the given parameters. Right-click on the images and select Open image in new tab to see a readable version.

For PLA, I used a maximum MVS of 11.5mm^3/s (realistic V6 throughput) and absolute hardware maximum speed of 200mm/s (excessive speeds are italicized):

For PETG, I used a maximum MVS of 8mm^3/s (realistic V6 throughput) and absolute hardware maximum speed of 200mm/s (excessive speeds are italicized):

Thats why i was interested in experiences and pictures of print with a volcano and a 0.6 nozzle. See my questions above. Could you just tell me a bit if you have a volcano. How much improvement in speed can you get in the real world with good print quality and so on ...

I don't have a Volcano but have spent a lot of time experimenting with different filaments and nozzle sizes. I've dumped a lot of detail in the links I provided in my earlier response. Browse through those pages for more info. If you want to do some testing on your Volcano to identify your MVS with different filaments, the spreadsheet is easy to update to produce tables for your printer.

RE: Volcano with 0.4/0.6 Nozzle Speed and Slicing Help needed 🙂

Posted by: tiago.c

Volcano is always a good upgrade, should be standart by the time.

I would say 0.6mm nozzle gives you the best quality/speed ratio, but when you say "- I want to keep the quality of the 0.4 v6 heater block nozzle if possible for smaller art prints." Then is ok to run 0.4mm on volcano. [...]

I agree if you're printing large functional parts. I don't think I'd try printing miniatures using a Volcano with a 0.40mm or smaller nozzle mounted, although I am seeing them sold on AliExpress. The problem, I think, is the amount of time filament will spend cooking in the hotend if you're only printing at slower speeds.

Even with a lowly E3D V6, the speed of the extruder is impressive with a 0.80mm nozzle:

RE: Volcano with 0.4/0.6 Nozzle Speed and Slicing Help needed 🙂

Posted by: bobstro

I don't think I'd try printing miniatures using a Volcano with a 0.40mm or smaller nozzle mounted, although I am seeing them sold on AliExpress. The problem, I think, is the amount of time filament will spend cooking in the hotend if you're only printing at slower speeds.

Yes, cooking time can be a problem for slow throughput but can be solved with lower temperature, for example instead of 210/215 PLA, print at 190ºc, the extra time on nozzle will compensate for lower temperatures. But stills there's no AIO solution, best is toolchanger or multiple independent tools, or quick swap in a minute hope prusa mk4 bring that in the future.
I print most of the time with 0.6mm nozzle, 0.45mm layers, 1mm extrusion width, impressive print speed at low speed moves for quality, seeing printer at 150/200mm/s hurts, make me think it will not survive long xD

RE: Volcano with 0.4/0.6 Nozzle Speed and Slicing Help needed 🙂

Posted by: tiago.c

Posted by: jltx

...  You can push 50 mm^3/s easily ....  

How can you achieve that if volcano can only go up to 28 or 30mm^3/s volumetric without skip? Can you tell your layer height + extrusion width + speed you use for that rate? 
No matter what i do i can never go upper than +/-30mm^3/s, and in one printer i have 50W heater, volume are the same compared with 40W

Are you quoting e3d specs?  It can go higher.  Many people have shown this. 40 for sure.  50 better for infill due to quality.  There was a long thread on it. Don’t forget to push up the temps to compensate. It will depend on your filament and even the model.  I’ve only topped out that high with PLA.  I wish I could get my profiles back.  Lost my whole HD so need to reconstruct everything!  🙁

RE: Volcano with 0.4/0.6 Nozzle Speed and Slicing Help needed 🙂

@manuel-s

stop asking questions and install one.  😉

Seriously, good info above and you won’t know how well it works for your needs until you try it.  That’s the fun of 3D printing, no?   I agree it should almost be the stock solution because it’s more versatile.  

RE: Volcano with 0.4/0.6 Nozzle Speed and Slicing Help needed 🙂

Posted by: jltx
[...]  I wish I could get my profiles back.  Lost my whole HD so need to reconstruct everything!  🙁

Don't forget you can pull configs out of gcode files if you've kept them!

RE: Volcano with 0.4/0.6 Nozzle Speed and Slicing Help needed 🙂

Are you quoting e3d specs?  It can go higher.  Many people have shown this. 40 for sure.  50 better for infill due to quality.  There was a long thread on it. Don’t forget to push up the temps to compensate. It will depend on your filament and even the model.  I’ve only topped out that high with PLA.  I wish I could get my profiles back.  Lost my whole HD so need to reconstruct everything!  🙁

e3d specs are more optimistic, they say 40mm/s last time i check, not sure if they changed and update for a realistic value now.

Problem with increased temperatures are the small details and perimeters where we go slow. For example my PLA if print at higher than 220ºc will start look like overmelted even with fan at max, at max volumetic speeds it will look ok but then when external perimeters come at 50/60mm/s filament will cook more and part will have different aspect and some visual problems (overmelt) so i like to keep the temperature safe for every case (perimeters, solids, infill).

RE: Volcano with 0.4/0.6 Nozzle Speed and Slicing Help needed 🙂

FWIW: When testing the V6 hotend with PLA, I found MVS ranged from 11-12mm^3/s to 18mm^3/s depending on temps (190 vs 210C, filament (and probably nozzle, though I haven't tested this variable yet).

I'm usually looking at "safe" MVS values when making recommendations to others, so err on the low side (11.5mm^3/s for PLA, 8mm^3/s for PETG).

If you're out for performance on your personal machine, you definitely want to test your specific filament with your specific hotend and nozzle to see what the limits are. Fortunately, it's pretty easy to do. I imagine the Volcano and SuperVolcano have an even wider variability.

RE: Volcano with 0.4/0.6 Nozzle Speed and Slicing Help needed 🙂

Thank you all for your great great and really good replys so far.

Really great. You helped my take the plunge. I ordered a volcano with nozzle x in 0.4 and 0.6 nozzle size.
I will stick with the 0.4 for now and see how much faster this will get me to the finishing line with the same quality 🙂

However I struggle to understand the concept of Volumentric speed and some other things.
@martin-w15 and @tiago-c

Volumnetric speed

As i understand it so far:

Voumentric Speed xx-mm³ -> Slicer Setting > How fast/much does Extruder push filemnt down in 1 second. Measured in qubic mm.

[Speed increase] or [layer heigt] or [layer widht] increase needed to work with the bigger amount of plastic exruded because of the bigger Volumentric speed number.

Find a mixture of these factors to get good prints.

Is the Volumentric speed set in stone or is it a range ? As the Volcano just melts more plastic i asume there is a fixed number for every material at a given temp?

So lets say i print with my Prusa PETG -> Volumetric for the Prusament PETG = 8 *1.5 for the volcano means 12mm/s³ ok so far.

Now i assume i get a lot of filament pressed out of the nozzle. (I asume that the exruder motors speed is affected by that Volumetric speed number..?)

How would i judge now that the flow is ok or sufficenct or too much ? -> EG is my 1.5 multiply correct or sould it be 1.4 etc. How do i find a good setting for this ? are there pics for this ?

Ok so now i know how much filament will flow out of the nozzle.

Onto my next question:

Now i have this big chunk of filament on the nozzle. What to do with it.
As i want to keep my quality of the prints, i will most likely go with this:

[layer widht]

I have many choices here, as long as the outer finish looks great im totaly fine with bigger numbers for the inner layers like infill, default extrusion width. etc My guess would be 0.6 for everything exept top layer and external permiter.

[layer height]

I want to stick to 0.25 for the moment

[Speed]

So this is the big question: How fast can i go with good print quality with the petg from above?

So lets take the formula for infill:

Layer Height X Extrusion Width X Speed = Volumentric speed

0.25 * 0.6 * x = 12

0.15*x =12 >> That gives me 80mm/seconds for infill

So i can set the speed for infill at 80mm/second if i go fo 0.6 extrution width. As it turns out this is the standard setting anyway for the v6 (bit with 0.4 width). So no gain here for now. But if i keep 0.4mm width then i can go to 120 mm/sec speed 🙂

Does the extrusion width impact visual part quality?

Is this math/formular correct?

I this manner i clould calculate all the speeds for Perimeters, Infill, External Permiters etc correct ?

@bobstro

Your charts suggest a general guideline here i assume. Im not really sure what your "Effective max speed" value is. I assume its mm/s for the entire range of speeds? So the speed for the 0,15 mm layer and 0.4 mm nozzle would be 160 mm/second at the maximum. Correct ? Of course i would reduce the number for the external perimeters but for infill this could be good. So i know the max speeds capable 🙂

My own findings area bit different tho. I could not get higher than 120mm/sec with infill with the v6. But i guess with a bit bigger line width this could be possible

Also i assume the speed gets eventually slower as there is not that much plastic that fast to extrude correct?

Thanks to you all and have a great weekend!

Manuel

RE: Volcano with 0.4/0.6 Nozzle Speed and Slicing Help needed 🙂

Posted by: manuel.s

[...] Is the Volumentric speed set in stone or is it a range ? As the Volcano just melts more plastic i asume there is a fixed number for every material at a given temp?

Whether you know it or not, PrusaSlicer enforces MVS. It is set in 2 locations. During slicing, PS will use the more restrictive of settings. It is set:

1. Under Print Settings->Speed->Autospeed. Defaults to 0 so not used.
2. Under Filament Settings->Advanced->Print speed override. Set per filament (15mm^3/s for PLA, 8mm^3/s).

If you do upgrade to a Volcano, you will need to adjust your filament profiles at minimum.

So lets say i print with my Prusa PETG -> Volumetric for the Prusament PETG = 8 *1.5 for the volcano means 12mm/s³ ok so far.

Now i assume i get a lot of filament pressed out of the nozzle. (I asume that the exruder motors speed is affected by that Volumetric speed number..?)

How would i judge now that the flow is ok or sufficenct or too much ? -> EG is my 1.5 multiply correct or sould it be 1.4 etc. How do i find a good setting for this ? are there pics for this ?

At this point, I'd test with your hotend with your nozzle on your printer. If you look at the link I provided in my previous post, E3D's data is a bit scattered, depending on details (nozzle, filament). I recommend conservative values for new users getting started, but if you want performance, just test and find out what works. I think of it as the speed limit signs on highways. I'm putting up a sign before the curve that says 40, but you can do 80 if you're sure you can do it.

Ok so now i know how much filament will flow out of the nozzle.

At this point, you will know how much filament your hotend can process. That's your theoretical best case.

[...] So this is the big question: How fast can i go with good print quality with the petg from above?

Here's where reality jumps up and bites your glorious plans. Just because your hotend can process filament at a given rate doesn't mean that filament will look good at that rate. For fit & finish, I'm often printing external perimeters at 25mm/s. That is independent of my hotend's MVS. You want to set your speeds for fit & finish. What looks good and is strong enough for your needs. MVS just makes sure you don't overwhelm the hotend resulting in extruder clicks & jams.

[...] So i can set the speed for infill at 80mm/second if i go fo 0.6 extrution width. As it turns out this is the standard setting anyway for the v6 (bit with 0.4 width). So no gain here for now. But if i keep 0.4mm width then i can go to 120 mm/sec speed 🙂

You don't want to exceed MVS. How you get there depends largely on your nozzle size. With a 0.40mm nozzle, your quality speeds will determine speeds. With a larger nozzle, MVS will determine speeds. With a 0.80mm nozzle, I'm often printing at ~20mm/s, but laying down a LOT of plastic while I do so.

[...] I this manner i clould calculate all the speeds for Perimeters, Infill, External Permiters etc correct ?

Theoretical speeds, yes. Fit & finish will likely limit those as well.

[...] Your charts suggest a general guideline here i assume. Im not really sure what your "Effective max speed" value is.

Just saying that's the maximum speed you'd want to use. If you're using PrusaSlicer, you don't worry about this. I put that figure in there for those unfortunate souls using slicers that don't do MVS calculation so have to put in hard-coded speeds that take MVS into account.

[...] I assume its mm/s for the entire range of speeds?

Yes, your maximum theoretical speed to maintain MVS < hotend capacity. Fit & finish will likely mandate slower speeds.

[...] So the speed for the 0,15 mm layer and 0.4 mm nozzle would be 160 mm/second at the maximum. Correct ? Of course i would reduce the number for the external perimeters but for infill this could be good. So i know the max speeds capable 🙂

You will have to do some testing, but yes. For infill you may get away with speeds nearer the theoretical maximum for MVS.

My own findings area bit different tho. I could not get higher than 120mm/sec with infill with the v6. But i guess with a bit bigger line width this could be possible

Depends on a lot of details like filament, extrusion width and layer height. You need to think in 3D, not 2D linear speeds. Speed is an illusion. You need to free your mind. See the quote in my signature. 

RE: Volcano with 0.4/0.6 Nozzle Speed and Slicing Help needed 🙂

Ok guys, my volcano will arive mid week and i will install it on the next weekend and report back with pics and problems/questions 🙂

Looking forward to what i can get out of it 🙂

RE: Volcano with 0.4/0.6 Nozzle Speed and Slicing Help needed 🙂

Hello together,

So i hat free time on my hands and installed the volcano and martins mod.

I did wire everything back up. However. when i try to do the xyz calibration if fails at finding the first point. I did calibrate the pina with the ziptie and i don't believe it is the height of the pina.

The problem is rather that it does an autohome or something (it goes to the right a bit) before trying to find the point and then the pinda is like 1cm to far to the right and the point is not found.... it does go fully to the left and then before doing the point search it goes a little to the right after that is is off center.

Could this be a lose belt issue ? Or something firmeware related ?

Firmware 3.7.1

Any ideas ?
Thanks !

RE: Volcano with 0.4/0.6 Nozzle Speed and Slicing Help needed 🙂

Ok i solved it. Self Test must run to the end and then it works.

First print is running and quality looks good so far. Will post more later.