Is carbon killing your nozzle? A technical analysis and new product from E3D. (Lots of microscope images of nozzle wear!) This has been a lot of fun, with surprising results for how aggressively carbon wears brass nozzles out. Really enjoyed spending some quality engineering time under the microscope, doing some cool metallurgy, and lots of printing of the weirdest materials around.
Very pleased with how the new nozzles perform, I literally cannot get them to wear, no matter what nasties I run through them.
@Sanjay_Mortimer1 , could you tell me whether these new nozzles work better with PETG?
PETG has the annoying quality that it sticks very well to brass. And once it has build up enough it does a small doodah in the middle of a print. Could this be a solution?
In my experience these are unfortunately no less PETG sticky than brass.
Residue and fouling of the nozzle and heater block is something we’re working on and have some good potential solutions for though. Nowhere near ready yet though.
@Sanjay_Mortimer1 Have you done any comparison testing with the nickel hardplating, epoxy coating, or tungsten sulfide coating nozzles that are also being advertised for improved wear resistance with carbon fiber filament?
@Ashley_Webster Yes, I know, keeping things clean helps. But on larger prints it’s inevitable that some blobs get formed and fall off. I made a big print of some 14 hours or so, and I was lucky all the blobs fell in the infill part of the print, so no harm done. But what if it gets stuck on a outer layer? It could even dislodge the print from the bed or the printer could lose alignment. So, a nozzle without these disadvantages would be nice. Maybe a sort of wipe-pad like the TAZ has could be useful too.
Another small problem I’m having with PETG is that support structures are very hard to remove. Any tips there?
@Rien_Stouten It’s a shield that is put around the part you print to clean the nozzle between layer. It has the added advantage to keep your part to “catch cold” (can be valuable with ABS):
Check the following screenshots
@Michael_Memeteau
Ah, yes, now I understand. Bit stupid of me for not getting it. I’ve even used it in the past with ABS prints. Thank you for pointing it out, but it won’t solve the problem, I think. The point is that PETG really loves to stick on the nozzle, building a continuously thickening layer, and when it has reached a certain thickness, a blob sticks on the print. It’s a bit like having a leaking hotend. But I will try that shield sometime, you never know, maybe it could catch it.