I recently purchased a hardened steel hotend to use with the marble PLA I also bought. I’ve been wondering whether I should switch back to the stainless steel hotend when I print in regular PLA/PETG, or if I should just leave the hardened steel one in there full time. I tried searching online, and I’ve found a couple of conflicting suggestions. Some say there’s no reason not to leave the hardened in all the time, and others have said stainless is better for regular PLA/PETG because of temperature regulation (or something like that). I’m hoping to get the thoughts of those on here. Thanks!
There is nothing to be gained by switching back to stainless steel, and you risk damage to the wiring connectors.
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I have no guidance other than, believe it or not, some (maybe all?) printer manufacturers recommend one nozzle per type of printed material.
I.E. they’re recommending a dedicated PLA nozzle, PETG nozzle, etc. ((which I know doesn’t answer your question)
I personally don’t switch nozzles when changing materials. But I’ve only used my stainless so far.
X1C comes with hardened steel(installed? Idk). But if it comes with it installed, I’d assume it’s perfectly fine for PLA and PETG.
I do know since you had to get a hardened nozzle, perhaps you need the hardened extruder as well for course material?
I`d assume to protect against contamination ? which id think bambu circumvent with the purge/flush
Possibly, but let’s not assume everyone runs an AMS. Then it’s up to the user to manually purge.
On the one hand, it’d save the manufacturer from letting the user know their purge issue was that they tried to purge PETG at PLA temps.
Or it could be as simple as they hope to sell more nozzles
You dont need an AMS to purge/flush the printer (A1 mine at least) does it every time i load filament
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When you change types of filament, you need to manually purge to make sure you got the previous filament out in sufficient quantity.
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i will refer you to my previous comment , also the one nozzle/hotend* bambu sell is for specific filament types like abs ? edit , pedantics
What brand marble did you use?
The stainless has better heat transfer, is less sticky to filament buildup, and won’t pull magnets out of your piece. If you have an A1, sure, put the original back in if you want, if you have an X1/P1 just leave the hardened in.
Another possibility is to reserve the stainless as a “PETG only” nozzle (if you have an A1).
As will I
Sorry, I have an A1 mini and I’m using Bambu’s marble PLA. I should have mentioned that in my original post.