I’ve been experimenting with the E3D volcano. So far, it’s not a huge success. The first nozzle I’ve tried, was the 0,8mm one. Bigg mess. So I switched to the 0,6 mm nozzle. That went a lot better, but somehow simplify3d’s extrusion width auto setting wasn’t useable. Switching to manual settings made a lot of difference.
But I didn’t buy the volcano for a measly 0.6 nozzle. Thinking the problem I had before with the bigger nozzle was probably caused by the extrusion width settings, I tried my luck with the 1,2mm nozzle.
Well, that didn’t work so well. The printer seems to lay down plastic that is thicker than the actual layer hight, so the nozzle scrapes trough the printed layers.
Anyone tried this? What settings do you use?
While I didn’t get a volcano I did try a .8 nozzle on my E3D. First results were not good using Slic3r. One does have to manually set extrusion widths. It got better but still a mess. Had to put aside for when I have more time … It is not a simply a problem of scale.
I’m trying to get my head around the physics of it. The trailing edge of the nozzle hole must see increased pressure as it’s got the already cooling filament below it from the leading edge. The filament would expand once it escapes the trailing edge, be in the way for the next layer. My guess is that you have to drop print speeds a lot and/or increase layer heights.
Was this using 1.75mm filament going to a .8mm nozzle? For those sizes might it perform better using 3mm filament?
I have tried 0.8 nozzle on my e3d v6 and it works perfect! Sliced in cura.
3mm filament
@Markus_Granberg That is my setup. I was trying .300 layers with ABS but probably too fast. Perhaps you can share the settings.
@Jim_Wilson Would seem so but as per @Sanjay_Mortimer 's blog on the Volcano it is just the opposite ! For heating the required volume of plastic vs surface area to heat…
Manual setting of width and height is really the only way when you go for a big nozzle. I spent a month experimenting with 0.8 / 1.2 and 1.6mm nozzles last year. Slic3r and Cura have some of the same and similar issues, but all can be tuned out with manual settings and a bit of hard work.
I plan to post a blog about doing and working with big nozzles, but I know @Sanjay_Mortimer1 from E3D was also planning to do something similar (when they have time!).
It’s interesting how much of a difference using different slicers makes. After using almost exclusively Cura and Simplify3D for the past 6 months, I finally found myself back using Slic3r with volcano for the best results.
We’ve made good prints with the whole range of nozzle sizes, with the nicest prints being done by simply taking my normal 0.40mm nozzle printing profile and doubling both the layer height and the nozzle diameter. No manual adjustment of extrusion widths performed.
It sounds like what you’re experiencing is either extrusion multiplier issues (over extrusion) or your nozzle is too close to the bed for the first layer.
If you post some pics and tag me in I’ll gladly do what I can to help you tweak things into being beautiful.
@Alex_Lee At present we’re absolutely scheduled to the brim with manufacturing just to fill pre-orders for parts which people have already ordered. We’re increasing capacity, spreading load and optimising manufacture, but I don’t expect we’ll be doing smaller nozzles for volcano in any less than 4 weeks.
@Sanjay_Mortimer1 I’ve made some progress,… with slic3r.
I was working with Cura and simplify3d because the latest version of Repetier kept crashing. Slicer seems to be the key. After setting the extrusion width to 110%, I’ve seen an enormous improvement. I have installed an older version of Repetier now, so I can start using slic3r in a comfortable way.
Ok here is my settings: e3d v6 0.8mm nozzle (mendel90) cura (14.09) = layer height 0.5mm, shell=2, print speed 25mm/s (bottom layer 10), temp is 25C higer then with 0.4mm nozzle (245 vs 220). Bed temp 65C. Hope this helps.
@Markus_Granberg Thank you. It seems we have the same printer as well ! Mendel90, E3D V5 with V6 heater block. I was also trying a much faster print … 70 mm/s .
I’ve printed successfully using the 1mm nozzle with 1.75mm PLA and PETG.
The key is to get your extrusion multiplier correct. I’ve gone down to 60% for the first couple of layers. Of course - I was doing 0.8 mm and 0.6 mm layer thicknesses.
Another thing I learned was that with this nozzle slow is not good. I was trying to print at 30 mm/s thinking I would get better results, however when I bumped the speed back to 60-80 mm/s, the over extrusion problem reduced drastically.