0.25 mm nozzle, material limitations?
I tried ASA with the Prusa 0.25 mm nozzle and ended up with a clogged nozzle after an hour of printing. Now this may be an unlucky coincidence with "user-error" factors including PLA residue in the nozzle that may have burned up. But this leads me to the question:
Is the 0.25 mm nozzle in practice limited to certain materials (worst case: just "high-quality PLA"?) With solids involved e.g. glow-in-the-dark, "real-wood" filament, carbon fiber I wouldn't be surprised.
But pure plastics should just turn into a liquid, so it's a question of time and pressure only. Right?
Any input appreciated, also links to old topics - this would hardly seem a new problem.
Also, when changing material, how would I usually approach this? Get multiple nozzles for e.g. PLA and ABS? Purge a certain amount of material e.g. 10 cm of filament? Do a cold pull just to be on the safe side (does this even work with ABS/ASA)? Questions over questions...
PS: As I write this, the printer successfully completed a 30-min print on a different ASA color - quality, as expected, a real step up from 0.4 mm - and is now running on a 3h job. If no issues, I'll go back to the original ASA spool just to confirm the material works)
RE:
Update: The ASA seems to be getting stuck high up in the nozzle (=above heat break). I removed the material with a regular 2 mm drill and it started flowing again, for the 2nd time with an identical failure mode on a different spool of ASA.
So does this mean the nozzle isn't cooled adequately at the top end?
There is discussion about "heat break thermal grease" in another thread, probably to improve cooling of the nozzle's cold end?
A blank spot on my (arguably fairly small 🙂 ) 3D printing map - any input is appreciated.
RE: 0.25 mm nozzle, material limitations?
Quick update: What I'm trying is:
- Thermal paste on the upper end of the nozzle
- reduce retraction length and -speed to reduce heat transfer with retracted filament (the jam happens when printing multiple objects, while a single object without travel works fine).
RE: 0.25 mm nozzle, material limitations?
10 printing hours later, the thermal compound plus "retraction" settings may have fixed the 0.25 mm ASA clogging. Fingers crossed...