Simplify3D User Forum

Greetings,

Ive printed a lot using 1.75mm PLA (200-220C) using a 0.4mm nozzle. All very fine, very happy with my printer settings.

Now, I have some very tiny parts to print, thus, switched to a 0.1mm resp. 0.2mm nozzle.

Adjusted settings properly, made sure layer height / extrusion width ratio is good, even crunk up the temp a bit.

When jogging the controls (extrude manually), I do see the very fine, continuous string of filament.

The skirt (1cm apart from model base and 10 shells) looks extremely good, much better than I had anticipated.

So, extruder doesnt have issues pushing the PLA through.

--> And yet, the model is one lump of crap.

I have printed small models (<2x2x2cm) before with my 0.4mm nozzle, that worked out ok-ish.

--> I wonder if someone has an idea or link to a beginners guide to printing with very small nozzle diameters ?

Wondering if frequent retractions have more of an impact when printing thinly...

Thanks !

While not a tutorial, here’s what I am doing:

0.25 nozzle, 0.25 line width, 0.04 layers height.

Not sure what type of printer you have, but I tuned with both the teachingtech guide and this one for an ender 2 pro:

https://ellis3dp.com/Print-Tuning-Guide ... tml#method

I calibrated flow using the second method, i used to do the teaching tech one, which I had great success with in the past.

Once the flow was good, I did the advanced volumetric test. For me, I got 4.5 so I punched that into the teaching tech calculator for a mac speed.

Since I’m using klipper, I used the speed test provided, but you can do the teaching tech one as well.

That’s how i am doing it.

I have not used .1mm nozzle in ages but maybe some of my experience from 10+ years ago could help... The slicers were very basic (skeinforge) and the extruders were selfmade out of aluminium with khantal wire wrapped around them and ... all very DIY but it worked anyhow .5mm nozzle that was what most ppl used was not working for something I was trying to achieve so I modified my lathe and made some 0.12mm and 0.20mm nozzles... mind, the input was 3mm filament so much worse case than pushing in 1.75mm filament.. I did all the tests with 0.2mm nozzle, the 0.12mm I never plugged in as 0.2 finished what I had to make

For days I could not manage to get a first layer of 10x10 cube to print until I added a filament cleaning device (you can see it here: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2004 ), after I added this contraption to clean the filament entering extruder first layer was there, and then after 2nd layer things were turning into mush... I assumed the issue was that hotend is too big and too hot and that thin extruded line was not solidifying quickly enough so took me another 2 days to manage to increase cooling enough to print a cube - I brought pipe from a airbrush compressor to the nozzle to blow into the tip of the nozzle + added 8cm fan from a server (10x more cfm than your regular fan but loooooooooooooud as hell) on a side of extruder to blow into the bed and this helped me print a cube, so 10x10x10 cube was printing without issues, looked perfect. Then I tried printing what was the 'cause of the whole experiment, some "business card" - basically plate with lot of letters on top and I would get a failed print after first letter... this took me hours to figure out and it was retraction, as soon as it retract the filament was not going back into the nozzle, disabling retraction made it work ... and then I seen that with .2mm you do not need retractions there's almost no ooze, when you stop extruding it just stops...

So take from this short story what you can, maybe none of these issues are related to you, maybe some are, maybe all are, these are technologies from 10+ years ago so lot of changed, filament is 1.75 so much easier to push, filament material advanced a lot, hotend geometry, extruders .. everything is 10+ years newer so ... anyhow, today, I still use filament cleaners on all my printers and if I had to print with .2 or .1 nozzle I'd make sure I cool the shit out of that print and I'd disable retractions - no matter how good hotends are today using retractions with nozzle that small...

See attached from results of yesterday.

Wow, very impressive, these prints.

I'll give the 0.1mm nozzle another shot tomorrow. Long weekend.. good opportunity ^^

Thanks for swift reply !

mecreator2fan wrote: ↑Sat Jun 17, 2023 3:30 pm Wow, very impressive, these prints.

I'll give the 0.1mm nozzle another shot tomorrow. Long weekend.. good opportunity ^^tiny fishing

Thanks for swift reply !

Any updates??