.35mm Nozzle vs .50 Nozzle

[heathenx]

Hello everyone.

I haven't quite yet owned my new Rostock Max v2 (RM) for even a full week yet. During that time I have been trying to learn new slicing software and in general how to use my new printer. I own a FlashForge Dual (FF) as well and I have to say that my prints come out just great. With my FlashForge I have been using Simplify3D (S3D) with great results. On the other hand, I'm getting terrible results with S3D on the Rostock. It doesn't matter much to me what slicer I use just as long as I get satisfactory prints.

So I showed up for my first MakerHive meeting and John from SeeMeCNC was able to help me get my printer calibrated using Repetier Host (RH). I had not used RH before that but have come to like it. It has all of the bells and whistles that S3D has (plus the honeycomb infill that's missing in S3D). Anyway, I felt like I had gotten a handle on things after John was through with me. Unfortunately, the very next day I tried printing my first real object. The model has some features that are important to its function. When I tried printing this it just looked like crap. Well, maybe not crap but unsatisfactory. Not at all what I'm used to with my FF.

This morning I ran down to my basement and fired up my FF and tried printing the same model that I had trouble printing on the Rostock. It's much better. The print is more precise with clean and sharp edges. My Rostock print looked like I was trying to push too much plastic out of the nozzle. The extrusion layers seems much thicker than my FF layers. So it got me thinking about nozzle diameter again. The RM nozzle is .5mm. My FF nozzle is .4mm. I understand that SeeMeCMC produces a .35mm nozzle. Is this something that I should try if finer details on my prints are to be achieved? I don't care much about speed. I normally print slow at 40mm/s.

I'm still a novice RM and RH user. It could be very possible that I just don't quite know how to get great looking prints with the RM yet. I'm just curious if any of you are using a smaller nozzle and your reasons for doing so. Printed part quality is very important to me and I'm trying to learn everything I can to get it. I know the Rostock is capable of achieving what a cheap Chinese Replicator clone can achieve. Most of the parts that I intend to print will have small features on them. I'm just wondering is a .5mm nozzle is too fat for me.

[Nylocke]

Pictures! Pictures! Its hard to help without visuals

[heathenx]

Okie-doke! I have my FF parts in hand but not my Rostock parts. They're at work. I'll retrieve them later today and post some comparison pictures.

[heathenx]

Alright. Here is what I have. The FlashForge parts where sliced with Simplify3D at .15mm layer height. The Rostock parts were sliced with Repetier/slic3r at .15mm layer height. I tried keeping all of the settings the same. I used the same roll of material (PLA from SeeMeCNC) on both. I'm wondering too if this is a case between different slicers, not just nozzle size. Notice the windows in the sides of the FlashForge parts. Simplify3D could not fill that really thin wall whereas the Rostock with a bigger nozzle was able to fill it.

[jmpreuss]

I have tried to print PLA on my Orion with a .35 nozzle and I had nothing but trouble compared to a .5 nozzle.

[geneb]

Just remember, the smaller the nozzle, the slower the print speed.

g.

[Elysio]

Hello

I am very interested for your results. At the moment I do not own the Max, but I will buy one. When I see the results I really think a smaller nozzle will help. You have to experiment with the settings, I am sure this will work.
Different settings like print speed , filament speed.

Is your Max fixed tight to the ground ? I am asking because it seam to me that some layers are not layered exactely to each other. Maybe the Max is swinging a little bit, a resonance in the frame. Why ?
The Max should be pricise enough not to make such things.

Chris

[heathenx]

Just remember, the smaller the nozzle, the slower the print speed.

g.

I truly understand this. I normally print slowly. It's always 40mm/s - 50mm/s for me. My parts are usually small with detailed features. The Rostock Max print envelope is probably overkill for 90% of my prints...but it's nice knowing that I can print larger things.

Regarding the nozzle size, I pushed Repetier aside all yesterday afternoon and this morning. I told myself that I was going to get Simplify3D working with the Rostock. As of this morning I have good news. I'm printing 20mm calibration cubes and they look very satisfactory to me. At this point they darn equal the quality of my FlashForge. They are dimensionally accurate and I was able to close off the top layer very smoothly...FINALLY! My S3D settings might seem a little odd and pretty much go against what John from SeeMeCNC recommended but it works well.

As far as that part that I was printing, perhaps it doesn't lend itself to a good FDM 3D print. That happens from time to time. I did order a .35mm nozzle to try.

Anyway, attached some pictures of my cubes that turned out well and my Simplify3D profile in case anyone would like to use it or critique the settings. The white filament was PLA from Filament Central. Very good stuff. The grey PLA was from SeeMeCNC. I have not printed ABS yet.

Simplify3D Rostock Max v2 PLA Machine Profile: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/172 ... v2_PLA.fff

[Ozy]

Thank you for a starting point using Simplify3D. I use it extensively on my FlashForge and Printrbot. I'm glad you have worked on a profile for me to start from.

Cheers!

[Generic Default]

I haven't used a 0.35mm nozzle for a long time now, but when I tried it I did get better looking prints. I used nylon instead of ABS or PLA, and nylon is much more oozy and shiny which makes imperfections more noticeable.

I switched to an E3D hotend last year and I've had much better results. Many of the parts I print require flawless surface finishes, so I bought a 0.25mm nozzle for the E3D and I haven't gone back to larger nozzles since. You probably noticed a small increase in quality when you switched from the 0.5mm nozzle to the 0.35mm nozzle. Blobbing from retracts is reduced with smaller nozzles, but they take much longer to print.

I decided that for the stuff I'm doing, an aesthetically perfect part that takes twice as long to print is much more valuable than a blobby part that took half the time. My 0.25mm E3D makes parts that look injection molded when I print below 0.1mm layer heights.
Smaller nozzles have the added benefit of being able to print smaller features and sharper corners. If you want to print really small stuff you'll notice that any nozzle over 0.3mm won't cool fast enough and your print will be a melty glob of plastic being dragged around by the nozzle.

Too bad I can't back up all my claims right now since I don't have a camera. I'll try to get pictures on here if I can, but I do plan on machining nozzles in the near future and I'll be experimenting with ultra-small nozzles (0.05mm diameter orifices, ect).

[heathenx]

I got the .35mm nozzle installed this morning. My results are much better than my .5mm nozzle. I was thinking about drilling it out to .4mm but I'm glad I didn't. I'm still tweaking things in Simplify3D. I think what I have is pretty good right now. I've been playing with the layer overprint setting in the infill tab. Normally it is set to 15% and I have it cranked all the way up to 75%. This seems to help the top final layer layer close up to the sides. I can post my .fff profile if others would like to see what I have.

Also, I started playing with MatterControl today. I get pretty good results with both the slic3r engine and the cura engine. If I had to pick a winner I'd pick cura. There isn't diddly squat for settings like slic3r (or S3D) but it makes for some good prints anyway. It kind of reminds me of Makerware in that regard. Minimal setting to screw with and great prints afterward. I'm actually kind of sitting on the fence now between S3D and MatterControl/Cura. Perhaps tomorrow I can abandon calibration cubes and print something a little larger with much more detail for a comparison. Only so much time in a day.

[Eaglezsoar]

I got the .35mm nozzle installed this morning. My results are much better than my .5mm nozzle. I was thinking about drilling it out to .4mm but I'm glad I didn't. I'm still tweaking things in Simplify3D. I think what I have is pretty good right now. I've been playing with the layer overprint setting in the infill tab. Normally it is set to 15% and I have it cranked all the way up to 75%. This seems to help the top final layer layer close up to the sides. I can post my .fff profile if others would like to see what I have.

Also, I started playing with MatterControl today. I get pretty good results with both the slic3r engine and the cura engine. If I had to pick a winner I'd pick cura. There isn't diddly squat for settings like slic3r (or S3D) but it makes for some good prints anyway. It kind of reminds me of Makerware in that regard. Minimal setting to screw with and great prints afterward. I'm actually kind of sitting on the fence now between S3D and MatterControl/Cura. Perhaps tomorrow I can abandon calibration cubes and print something a little larger with much more detail for a comparison. Only so much time in a day.

I would love to see a comparison between S3D and MatterControl. I have been on a fence about purchasing S3D because I hate that he won't give any sort of trial. Before I spend my hard earned money on something I would at least
like to see if it fits my needs.

[heathenx]

I'll try to run you a comparison as soon as I can. I understand your feelings regarding S3D. I took a chance when I bought. Fortunately it works darn near flawlessly with my FlashForge. I'm just trying trying to get that same experience out of my Rostock Max. I know the RM is capable, I just need more experience with it. I'm starting to understand the differences between cateseans and polars.

[Nylocke]

The MAX isn't a polar machine though it's a Delta

[heathenx]

Sorry. Delta vs gantry, I guess.

[heathenx]

Here's what I found today. I printed a pair of pliers from Thingiverse (http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:11816). I printed these on my FlashForge last night and brought them into work this morning for a comparison. Anyway, I printed 3 pairs of pliers on the Rostock using S3D, MatterControl/cura and MatterControl/slic3r. Overall, I got a better result with slic3r but really crappy top surfaces. Always something, right. On the other hand, cura is really really close. Cura handles those top layers wonderfully but extrudes much thicker lines. I don't see where I can control that. Even though I wanted S3D to win, I think it came out in last place on all of my comparisons. My FlashForge print blew the doors off of all three of my Rostock prints. I definitely have my work cut out for me. For now I think I'll use MatterControl/slic3r until I learn some new tricks. Anyway, pictures are attached for you to review. Perhaps y'all have some tips for me.

[Elysio]

Hello.

Thank you very much for this impressive examples !
But I am a little bit confused, which one is now with the rostock and which one with the other printer.
I can see which program makes it better, but not which printer.
Do I understand right that the Rostock has no chance against your F.Forge printer ?

[heathenx]

I'm sorry for the confusion. In a nutshell, I get better prints off of my FlashForge than my Rostock at this point in time. I want to change that. I feel as if I should be getting equal results, at least that is what I expected. I've seen prints from others. I know what the machine is capable of. The Rostock is an impressive piece of equipment and I get a little frustrated with myself when I can't figure things out. I'm still wondering about which slicer to use. I no more than settle on one and then I change my mind. It seems like everything that I have tried so far has at least one hiccup. I don't want to have to print 3 of every model using 3 different slicers just so I can see which will give me the best results.

These pliers take about an hour and a half to print at 40mm/s. I wish one of the Jedi Masters on this forum would print one and share the results (using there slicer of choice). Perhaps they could share their settings with me. Perhaps the gurus at the MakerHive could help too.

[Fiddler2070]

I'm sorry for the confusion. In a nutshell, I get better prints off of my FlashForge than my Rostock at this point in time. I want to change that. I feel as if I should be getting equal results, at least that is what I expected. I've seen prints from others. I know what the machine is capable of. The Rostock is an impressive piece of equipment and I get a little frustrated with myself when I can't figure things out. I'm still wondering about which slicer to use. I no more than settle on one and then I change my mind. It seems like everything that I have tried so far has at least one hiccup. I don't want to have to print 3 of every model using 3 different slicers just so I can see which will give me the best results.

These pliers take about an hour and a half to print at 40mm/s. I wish one of the Jedi Masters on this forum would print one and share the results (using there slicer of choice). Perhaps they could share their settings with me. Perhaps the gurus at the MakerHive could help too.

I'm curious how closely your tolerances were when you calibrated the level on the bed? (ie. the 3 position near the towers and the middle of the bed)

I'm assuming that the FF came calibrated and the rostock you had to do yourself?

I just got my Rostock Max V2 and spent several hours figuring out how to calibrate the bed. I got it down to .01mm using a .038 feeler gauge (about 2.5 times less thickness than paper). Without calibrating the extruder I printed a 10mm cube and got 10.46 a side. Which is about 8% over. I am now calibrating the extruder and expect to get really good prints. This is with a .5mm nozzle and .4mm layer height on slicer. After the extruder calibration, I will look into slicing software options.

[heathenx]

My tolerances weren't very close. Since I posted this I learned how to calibrate my towers with a dial indicator. My prints are much better now. Still not equal to my FlashForge but pretty damn good. I still use S3D as my main slicer. The prints on my Rostock are quite dimensionally accurate too. At this stage, I'm not complaining much about my Rostock. I still have to calibrate it often but I'm much faster at it than I used to be.

[geneb]

Try it at .3 or .25 instead.

g.

[heathenx]

Try it at .3 or .25 instead.

g.

I kind of do that with S3D. On a .35mm nozzle I set it to .33mm and my extrusion width to .40mm. Kind of odd but I'm pleased with my results.

[geneb]

With a .35 nozzle, I'd run layer heights no more than .20. I use .15 or .1 for parts I run on the .35 - I want the finish, so I'm not terribly concerned about the speed.

g.

[heathenx]

I feel the same way. I run low and slow most of the time.

[Dreyfusduke]

I noticed you used the Mattercontrol / Slic3r and Mattercontrol / Cura combination but I am curious as to why you haven't tried the Mattercontrol/Matterslice configuration. Tried that option yet?