Will we ever be able to mix nozzle sizes?
Would be great to be able to print with a default 0.4 or a 0.6 nozzle, but then have the printer switch to a 0.2 nozzle for finer text on the surface, for instance…
Is this wishful thinking?
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I think the limitation is probably more in Bambu Studio than in the hardware I would think. Time will tell.
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Dr Tao has stated that they are working on this, but he likens it to non-planar printing. Extremely difficult to program for. They’ve made it work with some geometries but not others. Eventually this will be a feature but probably not soon
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ATM unfortunately, yes.
A 50% use case for this would be first layers for more detailed text/images, should be simple to add.
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While I would love to see it, an issue that I believe would be a requirement is to have 2 spools of the same material so that each extruder can draw from the same material type and color.
This is what I also believe. The limitation then would be the AMS on how many colors each can use. If you look at how it slices, it picks and chooses which side to use if more than 2 colors based on which is used more. The Slicer will always choose the right as default, and for the most used color will select the right.
On an example, I have this keychain that has 1 mm tall letters in black which the .2 prints in great detail, so if I wanted to use that head, then all the black would come from that side, and if the overall color used is black, well that would greatly increase print time. If I only wanted the letters to print with the .2, how would the slicer know to use the .4 for the rest of the black? The machine will just do what it’s told by G-Code, so nozzle size makes little difference to it, but to create the G-Code, the slicer needs to be extremely specific, and mixing nozzles would be beyond it’s capabilities, the only exception would be if the .2 only printed colors only used for fine detail. It’s possible to separate out 2 blacks by making the letters in my case a different color in the slicer, but then what happens if the .4 nozzle surrounding the letters overlaps and messes up the letters by printing out of sequence?
I was more for mixing nozzle sizes for layers rather than colours/materials within single layers.
For instance, maybe I would want to use the 0.2 nozzle for the first 3 layers of. model, to get the finer details of text etc, then the rest of the model can continue in 0.4, or vice versa…that should be more easily doable, right?
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I fully see what you are looking for and agree, that would make a lot of sense too. I still think it boils down to what the slicer can process since it will want to use both nozzles for multicolor, but like in manual mode, you should be able to select which nozzle does what and where, so maybe a future thing? For kicks, I haven’t tried it yet, but what does the printer do if the nozzles are mixed and it does a nozzle read? Does it lock up until the nozzles match?
I only have 0.4 so never tried mixing nozzle sizes TBH, but I have an AMS on each nozzle, so if I could print using a 0.2 on the left for the first 3 layers, for example, and then switch to the 0.4 for the rest of the body, I would be a very, very happy boy!
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Bambu! Make it SO! This would greatly speed up print times on a lot of what I do and give high quality in the end.
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This would be a game changer for me. I’d buy the H2D or C right now if it had this capability.
You could possibly cut down on the math if you raised the nozzle size up to the filament level. that way you have to design with intent to use multi nozzle, load 2 blacks mark one as 0.4 the other as 0.2 and paint you object with one or the other.
Its a small step in the direction we want but it would offer the functionality to to fill the first layers with 0.2 and the rest with 0.4 this would also translate to support and infill settings being configurable on the filament. this works better on H2C I would imagine.
you could also extend this into virtual filament where the same spool could be used but the filament/nozzle mapping is held in memory.
Not the perfect solution but it should relieve the slicer of the burden of choice.
This would be an incredible upgrade to this machines capabilities and a real game changer. I hope they get this working at some point. I would love to be able to print certan layer ranges with different sized nozzles.