Great results that are consistent with mine. I did see somewhere, can’t remember, that a YouTube tester had the same temperature errors.
The stock heater is definitely the next bottleneck.
My tests were deliberately ran without a temperature modification as I was looking to test E3D’s advice on just changing the max flow rate. Logic would suggest a wee temp increase at the nozzle would help a lot.
Haven’t used the Bambu PLA Tough yes. Did use some eSun version of the max strength and it was a bit difficult to find the temp sweet spot on a modified CR10 smart.
Hi
Has anyone any experience and/or issues with filament changes during prints with the E3D hotend?
I had been using a china clone CHT hotend but when using PLA as support interface layer, the extruder was not able to purge the rest of the PETG from the nozzle using the PLA.
I opened a thread to chat about issues with these high flow hotends: here
I have been using the 0.4mm e3d hotend for a while now. You need to increase your flush volumes 33% or even 50% to make sure you get rid of any color/filament bc these high flow nozzles have tri-hole setup for more flow and mix more of the remaining color/filament inside the nozzle. I have increased my flush volumes for pla/petg bc I’ve been getting bad layer adhesion when chang to e3d w the same flush values when printing stuff w petg/pla interfaces for the supports
On the same setting as stock nozzle, I have gotten some petg/pla mixed with pla/petg on my support layers from the e3d nozzle. If you are mainly printing multicolor I suggest sticking to stock, if you are printing fast or w abrasives or want a long lasting nozzle (+2k hours) I would recommend the e3d hotend
I was modifying the flush multiplier to 0.7 before the E3D nozzle and never had an issue.
Since going E3D, I’ve just been tinkering with 1 setting at a time, so left the flush multiplier at 1.
I haven’t swapped PLA /PETG yet, though but been switching white PC and coloured PLA quite a bit with no issues and a multiplier of 1.
I would agree with staying with the stock nozzle unless there’s specific high flow / lifespan needs or you like to tinker. It’s a good bit of engineering, though very pricey.
A side note here, so not about the Obxidian nozzle.
At the Rocky Mtn RepRap Festival, Big Tree Tech showed both the Revo hotend and something not on their site yet, a CHT high flow hotend that’s under development. Will be interesting to see how those perform.
I’m patient enough to wait until their nozzles have been thoroughly reviewed to make a decision. Will stick with the hardened steel nozzle for now.
I put the 0.6 obxidian HF in my X1C when it came and I haven’t looked back. It’s awesome.
E3D has a chart with flow rates they’ve tested you can work from, go to the product page and hit the documentation tab. Most of the testing is with a 0.4 so you’ll have to experiment a bit if you’re using a 0.6.
I have just been using a flow rate calculator online and putting in the speed I want to print at and going from there with a small test print. I print PETG-CF the most often and with the 0.6 I have the VFR set to 18 which maxes out around 100mm/s speed and my prints come out great and significantly faster than the stock bambu PETG-CF profile. I upped flow ratio to 0.97 too. I basically always turn on arachne also.
There is honestly probably even more headroom to up VFR and gain a little more speed while still keeping the quaility up.
I sold my P1S to get a second X1C and I have another set of obxidian HF’s ready to go for that printer when I get it so that will make further testing go quicker.
Either way, even if you don’t feel like doing the tinkering I think they’re worth it just to maintain consistent extrusion with stock profiles or you can just do a conservative bump to VFR for basically every stock bambu profile and change nothing else and you’ll just get faster prints.
I have the Panda Revo and have an obxidian HF .4 and .6. Havent done a load of testing, but I will say I do like how they print even with standard profiles.
Oh, one thing I’ve found though is I always turn down my bridging flow ratio and up my bridging speed. How much depends on how much I increased VFR and what speeds I’m printing at but I was getting consistent over-extrusion on bridges and changing these settings allowed me to get bridges dialed in.
I have both the 0.4mm and 0.6mm E3D Obsidian hotends along with the Tz3.0. I’ve only tried the 0.6mm E3D so far.
Max flow rate in the Orca slider max flow rate test:
Bambu PLA Matte with Bambu stock 0.6mm hotend 24-25mm^3/s.
Bambu PLA Matte with E3D Obsidian 0.6mm hotend 38-39mm^3/s.
Bambu PLA Matte with Tz3.0 0.6mm nozzle in the Hotend 32-33mm^3/s.
For determining the max flow rate, I don’t go until there are major print defects. I look for small defects and/or a noticeable color shift or change in the finish. What I mean by color shift is if a silk changes color or a filament gets noticeably lighter in color for example. So you may see other people claiming higher flow rates with the same filament, but those higher flow rates are often with a decrease in print quality and/or a color shift.
I do get the nozzle temperature errors if I try to run “Ludicrous” mode while printing with the E3D Obsidian hotend. You can watch the nozzle temperature drop as it prints.
The heater is definitely the next limiting factor for speed. Without being able to PID tune it or know what wattage the X1 can handle, I’ll be sticking with the stock heater.
I’ve started a roll of PC, I put the flow up 45% from the stock profile and it’s printing lovely. Haven’t tried higher flow or a flow test yet.
As time goes on, I’m loving the E3D more and more. Been perfectly consistent. I’ve been printing PC at high head and cabinet temperatures with a conservative 45% flow increase with great results, if I ran calibration runs I could deffinately squeeze out more.
One of the easiest tinkering’s I’ve ever done to a printer and with the fewest issues. Had nothing negative bar the price.
My next experiments are with a roll of TPU and ABS GF. Nice not having to think about nozzle wear and changing. I eat so many brass nozzles on an Ender 3 I’m kind of past all that……
those are very much on the safer side, good for an average plug&play user but if you are a thinkerer you’ll push it harder for sure (and it’ll keep up)
Hey guys a few things. I wanted everyone to be aware of. I have an x1C and purchased the E3D HF Nozzle for it. I only printed at 125 and mostly 166 speeds. I printed like this for about 3 months straight with every time of filament there is from pla to Nylon6 GF30. It worked great all the way up until i got a clog. e3d sent me a new one. But then it got bad. I started noticing severe ghosting and I very rarely print from home im always away. I started a print to see what was going on and it sounded like my printer was a machine gun. it only happened on the x axis movements. it was so bad my prints looked like something from an unleveled ender 3. I ended up having to return the machine. It worked great up until that point. in closing, be aware I dont think these machines were made to print at these speeds all the time. It was a costly mistake.
On a side note if all you print is tpu. this is the nozzle for you. I have had no problem printing at up to 200mms (Infill) with Ninja’s 95A and a bit slower for the 85A but still faster than the fastest speeds with an ender 3 using pla. be sure to have as little tension on the extruder as possible. Meaning using a half roll, use ball bearings as rollers sunlu. reroll the tpu with a plastic bambu spooll and keep it as close to the extruder head as possible. Don’t use the guide from the back of the printer open the top and feed from there.
I have had some issues with layers not being as smooth as the stock hot ends (with Ninjatek and 3dXtechs tpu) but I believe I may have the temps to high for better layer bonding.
3D Musketeers pushed this hotend as hard as they could and were shocked at the flow rated they achieved. However, Grant did mention that it goes sooo fast if you push it, he warned you might be shortening your printers mechanical life.
The other thing I’d suggest is shorten the time between your maintenance periods for cleaning and lubing, and occasionally check all the screws holding the different axes parts. Also, check the frame screws a little more frequently. Excessive vibration can even cause screws with loctite to eventually break loose.
This video gives you some warnings about nozzle size required for a couple of different filaments
Is your chamber getting too hot? PLA has such a low softening temp that it’s very easy to get the chamber too hot and get heat creep that softens the PLA in the extruder.
I wish 0.6 with Arachne would become the default. Maybe it’s just me but I have resin printers for anything that needs high detail or dimensional accuracy. Basically everything I print on an FDM machine and like 98% of the stuff on makerworld would lose basically nothing from being defaulted to 0.6 and the upside is just faster and stronger prints.
Tom Sanlanerer did a youtube on this very topic, and that was his conclusion as well.
Nonetheless, I retreated back to a 0.4mm nozzle. With little to no effort it prints outstanding nearly every time. Maybe I’m doing something wrong, but on an X1C a 0.6mm was much more of a struggle to get quality that’s as good. I don’t know why.
I got one after seeing the better adhesion afforded by the higher flow. Going fast was not my goal.
Nozzle worked great for a few spools. Then I attempted to perform a warm pull. Filament broke above the “split”, and no matter what temp or filament I’ve tried since then, I haven’t been able to get a clean pull. Tried flushing it out using filament at high temps - definitely get filament flowing through it, but my print quality has suffered. Went back to the stock nozzle.
I’ve had the same issues back in the day with an official CHT nozzle on my ender. I think that maybe 1 or 2 of the split channels gets clogged, and there is no way to flush or pull it out. I’ve tried contacting their tech support for help, but no dice.
If I were to do it again, I probably wouldn’t have tried doing a pull. BTW, I print polymaker PLA. Nothing exotic.
