0.6 nozzle with arachne vs 0.4 nozzle

[costin]

With the latest update, i decided to try the 0.6 nozzle i ordered. The new algorithm is supposed to control line width much better and produce results on the 0.6 similar to the 0.4 while having a speed advantage.

Based on my testing, i could not achieve any significant speed advantage. It seems on the 0.4 nozzle this printer already pushes the limit of the melt rate and going to a wider nozzle does not improve things.

Here are some prints:

This one was done using 0.6 defaults with my tuned eryone silk pla but layer height changed to 0.2

It had very noticeable artifacts, seemed to under-extrude despite me bumping the flow multiplier a bit.

The top layer was actually very clean

The speed difference at 0.2 layer height was about 10% between 0.6 nozzle and default speed and the 0.4.

So there was significant degradation in quality for almost no gains in speed.

This is the same print on the 0.4 nozzle:

I had the same issue with 1 layer being off arround the middle, not sure what that’s about. Overall the quality is much better.

The top layer inside the boat was actually better on the 0.6 nozzle.

I decided to try to print faster on the 0.6 hoping there would be a decent speed difference and tried to match the speeds on 0.4 but reduced them a bit.

I used babmbu pla since i figured it’s the easiest and best tuned. Turned out really bad and i stopped the print

I made one more test using much lower speeds for outer wall and played with temp and line widths a bit, there was an improvement but not much better than the first test with a very minor speed boost.

Overall – i dont see a reason to go for 0.6 if you print PLA on this printer. I think it is very heavily tuned for a 0.4 nozzle and it pushes the limits of the material.

I did not test this with ABS, but i expect that will flow better and might see some improvement.

I’m sure my settings could be tuned much more and produce a good print, but i feel like it will end up being about as fast as 0.4 once i get there. I did not see any significant strength increase and to be honest, i see no benefit to the larger nozzle.

Worth noting that i was printing with silk and lowered the speed to make it shiny, if i didnt care about that, i could bump the speed up significantly and still get an almost perfect print, probably faster than with the 0.6 nozzle.

I did not optimize placement on the bed, the best result is by slightly angling the print and placing the front slope facing the aux fan. I left this in the middle with the slope facing away from the fan.

Curious what other people’s experience might be.

Bonus:

My marble PLA just finished drying, and other than the print popping off the bed, it looks absolutely stunning

[Dudditz]

I have read quite a few other posts that have similar conclusions as to yours regarding the .6 mm nozzle. What are your thoughts on using the .6 nozzle when specific filament - more abrasive such as wood or glow in the dark indicate .6 or larger? I am curious what marble filament you are using there, looks great.

[froboz]

Thanks for testing, but, I don’t think you are looking at it the right way.

The benefit of a bigger nozzle is to support bigger layer heights, the benefit of the Arachne slicer is adaptive layer heights and line widths so you can retain accuracy where it is needed.

Using a bigger nozzle with the same layer height just gives you a bigger default line width which doesn’t do much and on a small intricate model like benchy even less.

I don’t think Bambu have done any work on profiles for the larger nozzles. Why are the speeds in the only 0.6mm profile so much lower? The filament volumetric limit is what should be used to limit speed to what the hot end melt rate can manage. Has anyone actually measured maximum flow rates? Is the 30mm^3/s specification accurate?

[costin]

I have personally not used those filemtns, i only do petg, abs and pla. I have read a lot of accounts from people in discord saying they print carbon fibre on the 0.4 with no issues.

The marble pla is eryone marble pla. They claim it is non abrasive and i can say i had 0 issues with it, i am taking a bit of a chance and using AMS with it.

[costin]

I agree with everything you said, i was testing a video posted a while ago by someone claiming the 0.6 with this algo can replace the 0.4. So i wanted to see if thats the case.

You bring a great point and i should have done the math with the volumetric rate defined for each material.

I tried tuning the 0.6 myself and trying to push higher speeds resulted in extremly poor extrusion – the blue benchy.

Based on some back of the napkin math @ 30mm^3/sec the default profile is essentially pusshing that with 300mm/s speed on a 0.4 nozzle at 0.2 layer heigh. Which requires about 24mm^3/s, but i find clean walls require 160ish, 80-120for best quality as most manufacturers suggest as well.

This is consistent with the 22 they assign bambu PLA.

So… if we extrapolate to a 0.6 mm nozzle, it ends up with the speeds i was seeing, about 200 infill and 100 walls.

So, in terms of volume of material being extruded per second using PLA, i dont feel the 0.6 can really gain much benefit on this printer as the 0.4 is pushing max already. So, unless you need one of the other benefits of the 0.6, its not very useful.

At the end of the day, the print time is a function of how much plastic this thing can melt and lay down, if this is fast enough to hit the limit on a 0.4, it makes sense why going to a bigger nozzle wont help in that regard.

All other materials have an even lower rate. I like the 0.8 for vase mode and the 0.6 was the happy medium for fibre infused, but it seems the 0.4 does fine with them as well.

I’ve never had a printer that can move faster than it can melt the material, so i have no idea what can be done besides cranking up the temps, which will cause other issues… i didnt even consider this when testing since with my previous printers, 0.6 was way faster, but i was doing 40-60mm/sec

[Relish]

iam right now done with the 0.6 test. And yes. its not worth and i think the automatic flow stuff doesnt work as it should. i cant explain in detail but i could use the bambu ABS default settings with very good prints. switched to 0.6 it looks way more worse. fiddled around with EM, flow limits, tons of different extrusion width. you fight with settings like on any other printer.
And iam kind of experienced with Vorons and Ultra High Speed Hotends.
Changing back to 0.4, select Bambu ABS, Press Go and your Back to pretty good Quality.

weird. But since the Hotend is anyway at max theres no reason to use the 0.6 now.
CEO of Bambu promissed: we will have high flow Hotends later.

so i will just wait and enjoy the 0.4 speed

[costin]

had no idea higher flow hotends were down the line, awesome ot hear!

[Relish]

its from the Reddit discussion with the CEO

[Abari]

Just want to chime in that I had the exact same experience.

Switched to 0.6mm so I could print PA-CF and that went poorly. So I decided to print my usual prints that I was doing with 0.4mm (came out perfect with 0.4mm) and with the 0.6mm there’s many imperfections, way more visible layer lines, and barely any quicker.

I’ll try a couple more prints at 0.6mm but will probably end up going back to 0.4mm. Pretty disappointed.

[kritoke]

Trying to remember, but if I recall right, the Arachne on Bambu Slicer only does the bottom and possibly top layers. I haven’t tried it yet, but it’s tempting to test with the Prusa Slicer on .6 mm on the Bambu X1C to see how it does. I personally switched to .6 mm almost a year ago on my Prusa MK3S+ and really never saw a drop in quality. It also helps that there are tuned profiles for the other size nozzles as well. I do notice slight decrease in quality when using Bambu Slicer on my Prusa with the .6 mm (I use the soft fever fork on it since it has profiles for it that I adjusted to match closer to prusaslicer for my .6).

[littleted]

old thread i know but im going with .6 tests at the moment, have some pretty dire clogs as of late, im sure its the brand of Silk im using even after drying it can be a pain. Anyway i sliced my file and its about 20 mins faster on a 0.6 @ .18 layer, now where it gets exciting is because the whole printer slows down for the .6 nozzle you get the extra sparkle from the Silk. I noticed only recently that printing with the .4 nozzle and .16 High quality is really just slowing everything down hence the silk really pops. Im currently running the first test now with a .6 and .18 layer. Lets see what she looks like in 2 hours :). But as youll probably know using any .6 will make your prints much stronger overall hence why they use them on functional prints more than toys and Dragons