Nozzles

Fine Details

If you are looking for the ultimate nozzle in terms of precision, the V6 0.15mm High Precision Nozzles is sure to deliver. It is not as easy to use as our other standard nozzles so we do not recommend them to first time users. If you are looking to try your hand at highly detailed prints but still want an easy to use nozzle, then 0.25mm and to some extent, 0.3mm nozzles will allow you to get a feel of the particular requirements of high detail printing.

General Use

Our V6 HotEnds usually come with a 0.4 nozzle as standard, and the range from 0.3 to 0.6 has become the industry standard over the years. This is a good general purpose nozzle, which will give you a good compromise between resolution and print speed. We find that the V6 works best with a 0.4mm nozzle and 0.25mm layer heights, while the Volcano achieves very good results with a 0.6mm nozzle and 0.4mm layer heights.

High Strength and High Printing Speed

The wider the nozzle, the wider the track, and the wider the track, the stronger the print. Parts printed with large nozzles (0.8mm and above) tend to have incredible strength compared to regular prints. Having a wide nozzle also allows you to print much thicker layers, reducing the total print time drastically (more info on our Volcano Blog Post). If speed is your n°1 priority, we recommend using the Volcano with 1.75mm filament, as the filament has a lower thermal mass (due to a lower cross-sectional area) and therefore heats up quicker when in the melt zone. The question here is: will your extruder keep up? Volcano comes with a 0.8mm nozzle as standard, but goes all the way up to 1.2mm for very large and noticeable layers. At this size, the layers have a certain aesthetic appeal to them, we think.

You can identify 0.15 nozzles because they have 2 dots diagonally on one flat of the nozzle

This nozzle has been engineered to be as user friendly as possible, however, in order to obtain the best prints possible, here are a few recommended settings.

• V6 or Titan Aero
• Powerful part cooling fan. We recommend using a ring type fan duct http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:1443105.
• A Silicone Sock.

• Heated bed capable of at least 100°C
• Light coat of glue stick for initial layer bed adhesion

Although a belt system using http://e3d-online.com/NEMA17-40Ncm does produce acceptable results, artefacts from microstepping become quite visible at this scale. We recommend using or updating your printer to use http://e3d-online.com/NEMA17-40Ncm-D-sha....

Using a geared extruder is essential. We find that a 3:1 gear ratio works perfectly. Our Titan workes admirably.

Recommended materials:

• MatX
• MG94 ABS (recommend natural, available here in 1.75mm or 3.0mm)
• PC-ABS (available here in 1.75mm or 3.0mm)
• ABS
• PMMA
• T-Glass

This printing method uses hardly any plastic due to the small size of the prints, it therefore makes sense to buy good quality plastics, since each print will be relatively cheap. We also recommend using a filament cleaner and to use dry, fresh filament.