Nextruder Main Plate
Im to a point where Im need to do some maintenance on the MMU3. Currently the next step for me is to replace the Nextruder main plate. I have one ordered and its on its way. But in the mean time I've been doing some thinking about this part. According to Prusa this part gets worn by filament traveling through it. I do understand that this part is printed in PETG with multi jet fusion. but why not make it stronger? Tell me if I'm wrong here but couldn't this be make from metal and have it polished so there's minimal wear. And to throw this out there as an option but glass or even porcelain?? Maybe somehow have the part even coated with Teflon or another friction eliminating coating. I really think the engineers at Prusa should look at this instead of us having to replace this part frequently. Just my 2 cents.
RE: Nextruder Main Plate
There's always the desire for engineers to make something as strong and tough as possible. But there is always a trade-off. Usually it's cost. Car frames aren't made out of titanium because that would be stupidly expensive. I bet Prusa decided not to make the main plate out of something harder (metal or glass) due to cost and added mass. The Nextruder needs to be as light as possible to have low print times. So, is more than 80,000 filament changes on a single part more important than low print time and cost?
Also, where did you read that the main plate is PETG? The blog post just says it is "printed with Multi Jet Fusion."