Highest resolution you've printed?

[lance-greene 7]

Hi I'm just interested to see what the highest resolutions people have been printing successfully with the Ultimaker printers, I know they say that v2 can print 20 microns but what have prints turned out like printed like that? Very interested to hear.

 

[gr5 2,172]

Your resolution is limited more by nozzle radius (limits X,Y resolution) than by Z. This is true on all of these FDM printers (printers that heat plastic through a nozzle). The nozzle hole diameter on UMO and UM2 is .4mm (radius .2mm) so .2mm radius curve is the tightest corner you can make on the 4 vertical edges of a cube. The top and bottom 8 edges are not limited by nozzle but by layer height as you say. Still most of the model is limited by XY more than Z.

If you look at make magazine's recent report on similar 3d printers, the UM2 came out on top of all the other printers.

http://cdn.makezine.com/make/magazine/V42-preview.pdf

 

[dgsharp 0]

I did one or two test prints at 20um early on and they turned out ugly, fuzzy, etc. I didn't think it was worth trying to improve it because trying to get that sort of resolution out of this type of machine is basically a waste of time: it takes forever and just isn't worth it for anything I've seen.

[tinydancer 0]

I print at 40-60 microns all the time, to me the prints come out looking amazing so I've never tried anything lower.

 

[swordriff 119]

Printing at lower Z resolution is much more difficult than at higher.

Here are some factors:

 

Size of the object is important, if it is small then there is not sufficient cooling time

before layers, again depending on your minimal layer time, and

the initial buildplate height also plays a part, more at low levels/thin models.

Frequently people adjust the buildplate too close.

Personally I adjust by eye only, and when using a 0.4mm head i

adjust from "nozzle touching glass plate" and "3 clicks down" in the inner point.

Then I adjust by eye only the left and right screws, tapping the buildplate from below to

see that there is a movement.

If the distance is too close it is more of a problem with next layer nozzle move digging into

the previous layer.

If it is too big, lets say more than 0.5mm (with 0.4 nozzle) then the only issue may be

1st layer not sticking so well. But if you pass THAT obstacle, then height "adjusts itself" in the

"setting" of the first coupl'a layers, and prints better.

Also, like the old foxes in this forum always re-iterate; print slowly.

Remember; if you keep 50mm/s in Cura ( I do and most others ), then

the speed setting in UM2 at 100% gives you just that, 50mm/s.

We call this speed setting in UM2 a "modifier".

When you keep Cura at 50, (advised), then putting UM2 at 80% calculates like this:

50mm/s (from Cura) x 80% (from UM2) = 40mm/s speed.

Quality of material is also an important factor.

I have printed a lot of different material. From aliexpress, from ebay, from other sources.

I find that the PLA i bought from Ultimaker is absolutely top class (I am in no way affiliated with them).

There are different characteristics in solidifying speed, temperatures, thickness, foreign particles, etc..

Many problems go away when you print quality PLA at 220, height 0.2, 30-50mm/s effective speed, and use the

Atomic Method between all material changes and even more frequently.

: TinyDancer is confirming what many others have found, that Z axis resolution is not the most important

factor.