If i wanted to put out a lot of plastic would it be worth

3D Printing
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If i wanted to put out a lot of plastic would it be worth considering going to 3mm filament and maybe a 1mm nozzle.

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Why 3mm?

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Im running 3mm 0.8 nozzle with a e3d v6. At 25mm/s I need to run it at 240c (pla) to heat up the fillament fast enough.

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Interesting question Wayne. Take that thought to the extreme, say a 25mm cylinder of plastic being extruded through a 10mm nozzle and it helps inform the answer.

Generally you sacrifice your ability to make accurate parts. If you want to put a lot of plastic out you just melt it and inject it into a mold which makes parts quickly and accurately. (so you can consider that the other end of the spectrum of answers)

So what are you hoping to achieve by shooting out a lot of plastic? Speed of production? How much accuracy are you willing to give up? And at some point the speed requires hot plastic but you have to wait for it to cool a bit so that it sets before you do the next layer. That is governed by the specific heat of the material you are using.

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@Thomas_Sanladerer That is my question. Would it be beneficial to go to 3mm, is there an advantage to putting out a lot of plastic by switching to 3mm. I don’t know. I have never used 3mm filament.

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@Markus_Granberg So going to a larger nozzle there is a problem with the nozzle temp being able to keep up with the flow? Is it because of the 3mm filament or the .8 nozzle or both you think?

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@Chuck_McManis This is for a sculptor that does head of state statues here in Asia. The sculptures can take months and are extremely expensive. He has the idea to use a 3d printer to make the object as close to correct as the printer can but even if the bigger lines show its ok as he will finish it up by a traditional methods. Even if the print takes a week it still has shaved weeks off of the time. So more plastic is better.

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@Wayne_Friedt interesting application, perhaps even faster use 123D catch to get the head of state in a 3D model, print a hollow head shape, use that for a plaster of paris mold and then cast one out of bronze, concrete, whatever. Printing a hollow life sized ‘head’ shape won’t take more than a day on a nice delta printer.

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Wayne. The high temp is do to the 0.8 nozzle (high flow rate). Cant help you on 3mm vs 1.75 as I have only tried 3mm.

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@Markus_Granberg Thanks

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@Wayne_Friedt here’s my thoughts on 3mm vs 1.75mm:

  • For the same materials flow, 3mm filament stays in the melt zone longer
  • However, 3mm also takes longer to melt all the way through, and I have a feeling those two effects cancel out each other
  • 3mm will require way more force to extrude, likely to the point where even a geared extruder won’t be able to keep up anymore. On the same token, direct-drive for 1.75 will likely also not work.
  • Generally, short melt zones will be problematic. You’d either have to increase the temperature to insane levels with tight hotends like the E3D or use one with a longer melt zone, like the Budaschnozzle.
  • It also don’t know how well a 40W heater cartridge will be able to keep up. I know for a fact that a heater resistor will not be able to supply enough heat.
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If you want to print fast on an E3D-v6 make yourself an extra long nozzle. You can use an M6 Mig welding tip (0.8mm) and drill it out a bit. Dirty hack, but you can get some serious volume per second going on.

I think I might make a super fast extruding replacement block and nozzle for these kinds of things.

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Could running dual heating cartridges one on either side of the nozzle help in addition to a longer melt zone?