Nozzle width: actual hole size or extrusion size?

[ceramichammer 0]

After a solid year of printing with the V1 hotend and nozzle, I finally destroyed the nozzle during disassembly. Because I'm in the USA and a cheapskate, I ordered nozzles from MakerGear. I purchased a .35mm and a .75mm nozzle. On their description page, it says the 0.35mm nozzle actually extrudes at 0.43mm. It says nothing about the 0.75mm nozzle. I know that this is influenced by die swell but what parameter is the "nozzle width" setting is Cura actually expecting?

 

[aaron 2]

Im pretty sure it is the diameter of the smallest part of the opening of the nozzle.

 

[calinb 11]

I have the full set of MakerGear nozzles. They work well. The MakerGear extrusion diameter values (extrusion into free air) are quite accurate. Obviously, extrusion onto a build surface and resulting line widths are a different matter.

Mostly I use the .50 mm nozzle, because I print a lot of ABS. The 0.25 is only useful for PLA and I find the 0.35 to be extremely marginal for ABS with the stock UM filament feeder.

Using a simple test case, I swept Cura across my nozzle sizes and a little more. Cura gcode output was invariant within each of these regions:

???-.20

.21-.24

.25-.30

.31-.40

.41-.79

.79-???

So obviously Cura is just using the nozzle size setting to determine a reasonable range of extrusion rates. If your setting is in the right ball park, the results should be valid.

 

After a solid year of printing with the V1 hotend and nozzle, I finally destroyed the nozzle during disassembly. Because I'm in the USA and a cheapskate, I ordered nozzles from MakerGear. I purchased a .35mm and a .75mm nozzle. On their description page, it says the 0.35mm nozzle actually extrudes at 0.43mm. It says nothing about the 0.75mm nozzle. I know that this is influenced by die swell but what parameter is the "nozzle width" setting is Cura actually expecting?

 

[Daid 306]

If you are unsure, it's better to enter a slightly larger then smaller nozzle diameter in Cura. What the nozzle size effects is the extrusion width, so the with of the lines it will try to put down. As you can easy put down 0.8mm lines with a 0.4mm nozzle entering a slightly larger nozzle is no issue.

(I hear Paul Chadler, the kind&queen of 3D printing quality, also uses makergear nozzles in his Ultimaker)

 

[calinb 11]

I use a trick with Kisslicer that have not tried with Cura yet. I sometimes get much better results by setting my nozzle size and line widths much narrower than my my nozzle orifice size. I typically do it in my quest for perfect solid infill (at the cost of my patience, of course). The trick can achieve better solid infill where even slowing way down with the thicker settings results in little to no benefit.

 

What the nozzle size effects is the extrusion width, so the with of the lines it will try to put down. As you can easy put down 0.8mm lines with a 0.4mm nozzle entering a slightly larger nozzle is no issue.

 

[joergen 2]

The nozzle hole size affects mostly the throughput per second (see illuminarti's posts), while the slicer controls the amount of plastic, in order to get the smaller extrusion width calin was talking about. the range is roughly from 0.5-3x, and is affected by the actual speed, and the size of the shoulder: a finer point helps with finer details, while a wider shoulder (with smaller extrusion width) helps smearing the plastic into a smoother surface.

it will be interesting to see smart slicers for dual extrusion: i.e. one fine nozzle, and one rough nozzle to print the proper parts of an object (thick and rough for infill, thin and flat for top surface, thin and fine for details and probably outer skin)

 

[gr5 2,172]

The nozzle size also affects the positioning of the head. For example if you are printing a 10mm cube with a .4mm nozzle, in the gcode, the head will move 9.6mm because the idea is that the plastic will stick out an additional .2mm on each end.

At least this was true with the older slicer. Haven't tested steamEngine.

- George

 

[calinb 11]

I've mostly played with nozzle size and width settings in Kisslicer and I forgot to mention that I also usually play with the flow to get the finer infill to fill out well and overlap too. Then I use the Inset Surface feature to get the walls back where they need to be.

 

The nozzle size also affects the positioning of the head. For example if you are printing a 10mm cube with a .4mm nozzle, in the gcode, the head will move 9.6mm because the idea is that the plastic will stick out an additional .2mm on each end.

At least this was true with the older slicer. Haven't tested steamEngine.

- George