Hey Beginners...10 Reasons to go low rez.

[RussD]

Hi All
I have had my Rostock V2 Black running for a few weeks now. According to the counter on my machine I have done 55 hrs of printing and used 277M of filament. So I am still a bit of a noob but I think I have some suggestions to others who are just starting out.

When I purchased my Rostock I included a coarse nozzle and a fine nozzle in my order. That was a great idea. My only mistake was not to order multiples of the standard (0.5) nozzle. During tower calibration I crushed the tip of the 0.5mm nozzle and was forced to use my 0.7 nozzle. Looking back my incompetence turned out to be a stroke of luck.

I started out printing low resolution prints with .3 and .4 layers at 20-30 mm/s from the start and I learned a bunch of things that might be helpful to other beginners.

1) I got great prints right away!
2) Prints took a much shorter time to complete even at slow speeds so I could experiment and see the results much faster.
3) It was easy to find the temperature range for filament. I just adjusted the temp and watched the noodle extruding from the tip. You can see when it gets too cool and stops sticking. You can also see when things are too hot and the layer is too blobby and runny.
4) Because prints took less time, I could sit there and identify problems as they happened. No mysteries why a single print failed.
5) I could see what was happening during the print. No magnifying glass needed.
6) On overhangs and corners I could see exactly how prints were curling. Some of my prints curled a lot, which has helped me learn how to optimize my fan, hot end, and bed temperature.
7) My nozzle never clogged once.
8) I got a good feeling for sources of gaps in prints. I could see gaps form where layers started or ended and see the effect of bubbles in the filament.
9) When things are coarse it is easy to see the difference between slicing configurations and make adjustments quickly.
10) Compared to a 0.7 nozzle, a 0.5 nozzle seems like magic. Switching to a 0.5 nozzle makes you giddy all over again.

Hope this is helpful.

Regards,

Russ

[Eaglezsoar]

Thanks for your post. There are some good points in there and is useful for other methods of printing.

[teoman]

On 3, as the nozzle changes speed through the nozzle changes so you would need to tweek the temps a little bi.

[Captain Starfish]

*like*

All good reasons which sound a lot better than mine: "I'm impatient and have a decidedly short attention span. Please give me my instant gratification right meow, if not sooner."