Layer Thickness Control

[satish 0]

Can Someone explain me how does a 0.4 mm nozzle dia print 20 micron layer thickness.

How does a 3d printer control layer thickness, because the string coming from the nozzle is always the same 0.4 mm.??

 

[gr5 2,334]

The 20 micron is the height. If you tell Cura to slice 20 microns thick it will move the Z axis 20 microns between layers and when it prints the layer above, it (usually) is printing mostly directly on top of a layer below such that there's nowhere for the plastic to go but sideways so you get a trace of plastic 20 microns high and 400 microns wide. It works better than you might think.

Of course it's kind of silly to have a vertical resolution of 20 microns and a horizontal of about 200 microns (radius of nozzle hole). So at that point you might want to get a smaller nozzle. There are .25 and .3mm nozzles available from 3rd parties. But then it takes much longer to print. But if you are printing something very tiny like a ring - it's good to use smaller nozzles.