Trouble with 0.15 mm nozzle

[Nick__Mad 0]

Hello, everyone.

I am very new to 3D printing and I only recently got a UM2 Extended +.

I had it for about half a year and I'm gradually learning how to operate it.

I tried a lot of different materials and nozzles so far and I ran into a bit of a problem when I bought E3D's experimental 0.15 nozzle.

E3D's 0.15 page

E3D didn't really provide a detailed explanation on how to configure Cura to such a nozzle. They did list a few settings but then again they say to "set the nozzle settings to 0.15" which Cura simply doesn't have an option for. They also mention that they set the retraction settings to "1mm at 30mm/s" which is a bit confusing too because I looked into Cura's settings and wasn't able to find any settings I can alter related to retraction.

After playing with the settings for a day and searching for any sort of reviews/tutorials on the web and the only thing I was able to find related to this topic is this thread

Here is the forum thread itself

where Ghostkeeper suggests to dig into Cura's cfg files and add a new profile by duplicating and editing an existing one.

I tried doing that and couldn't get any results. When I started digging through the cfg files I got even more confused because I have no idea what the values in those files mean and I was unsure what kind of results it would give me.

I once clogged my Olsson block with plastic due to my incompetence and quite honestly I don't want to get myself into that kind of situation again.

Can anyone give me some pointers with this? This is very confusing.

(i did contact E3D as well but wanted to get some extra opinions while they take their time to respond)

Edited September 30, 2017 by Guest

[gr5 2,210]

Well first of all go as low as you can go in temp. Unfortunately that's basically 180C (if temp goes below 170C the firmware will stop the extruder). You might be able to do 175 C. 170C would be better but you would have to modify the firmware. So try 180C for now.

In cura 2.* it's called "line width". not nozzle width. Make sure *all* line widths are set to 0.15. Changing just one of them is not enough.

The worst thing that is likely to go wrong is that you clog it. Nothing serious.

Ignore that bit about retraction distance and speed. That's set on the UM2 itself. 1mm is for non-bowden printers. Um2 needs retraction distance of about 4.5. Don't mess with that.

Note that 3dsolex sells these I believe in packs of 4 because they can clog easily. But I've done a few prints an no clogs yet (only a few hours of printing though).

Play with layer height and print speeds. Probably a layer height of 0.1 to 0.15 is best but I could be wrong.

You want lots of fan. LOTS OF FAN. You might even want to lower bed temp to 60C. Or cooler. Maybe print on blue tape instead of glass and turn the bed off all the way. Maybe.

If your object is too small the layer won't be able to cool because it's always basically in contact with the head at some portion. So print several objects at the same time so that while it's printing one object, the other has time to cool. I recommend at least 4 objects if they are smaller in cross section than your smallest finger. Put the objects you care least about at the left and right ends and the other objects in the middle. The objects on either end tend to do 2 layers in a row.

Line the objects in a line left to right and close together so the fans blow on one while printing the next one over.

[gr5 2,210]

ooh - tinkergnome just posted this in another thread - how to print below 180C...

You can add this command at the end of the start gcode and check if the behaviour changes:

;reduce the minimum printing temperature to 150C

M302 S150

I never tried this myself.

[Nick__Mad 0]

Ok, that clears things up quite nicely. Thank you very much for the feedback.

Quite honestly I wouldn't know what to do without your help

[Nick__Mad 0]

Success! I think with even more tweaking I can get cleaner results.

These are the settings i used.

I had some issues with Ultimakers PLA for some reason the printer couldn't push the filament through the nozzle and the plastic stopped dead in its tracks. I tried to insert and eject it a few times until I swapped it for Verbatim PLA which did extrude and produced the prints in the image. This particular print was made with 220C and it turned out almost perfect. However, when I tried doing a second print with different PLA I realized that you were right in changing the temp to 180C because even at 180C the printhead melted the top of my print. I had to pause and let it cool for a bit and after resuming it finished properly. It seems that it depends on the plastic itself.

I'm very thankful for your advice gr5.8)

Edited September 30, 2017 by Guest

[gr5 2,210]

Try printing 2 bency's at the same time. This lets one cool while the other prints. @labern any advice? @labern is a "tiny printing expert"

[gr5 2,210]

Also try slicing with even smaller nozzle size - try setting to 0.13mm nozzle as often the nozzle hole is smaller than the manufacturer claims or can get a layer of something (gunk) on the inner walls. And it's better to set the line width a little too small than a little too big.