Nozzle lifespan question

Bambu Lab H2 Series
1

I’ve had my H2S for a little over a month now and just did my second regreasing at 500 hours. It got me thinking, how long should the nozzle be replaced? I’m using the W.C. 0.4 nozzle, which I believe is the hardened one. I primarily print ABS and PETG, occasionally ASA and PCTG. None of these are abrasive or glitter versions. I have extra nozzles, but didn’t know if there was a guideline to follow. I’m not seeing anything off with my prints, other than large support tree issues, but I think thats related to grid infill.

2

WC = tungsten carbide.

You’re gonna be replacing your printer before you wear that thing out.

Start thinking now about which one of your kids you want to leave it to in your will.

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3

I’ve only replaced nozzles when I got clogs, and even that was more so because I had a bunch of extra nozzles. Otherwise, I probably could have unclogged them. Talking about the standard hardened nozzles.

When I upgraded my X1C to a X2D I realized I had a bag full of un-used nozzles. I have a similar bag of A1 style nozzles I’ve never used. I never changed the nozzle on my A1-mini for the whole life of it!

Not sure how the Tungsten nozzles are. I’ve heard great things. I bet CarbonForge is right though, because even the standard hardened nozzles are pretty nice and long lasting in my experience.

I print a lot of PLA, ABS, PETG, PETG-CF, and some ASA-CF. Along with filaments like glow pla or sparkle pla, which can be abrasive.

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4

Even if I venture into abrasive materials?

5

There’s no abrasive filament that’s going to touch tungsten carbide. The only nozzle material that’s harder is diamond. Sapphire may be on par but tungsten carbide is much tougher. Don’t @ me, sapphire cultists.

To put it in perspective, tungsten carbide is used for machine tooling - it’s the stuff that is used to cut steel, and it cuts it like butter.

Also - don’t ever get tungsten carbide wedding bands, fellas. If you have an accident and the ER needs to cut off your ring, they can’t, so they usually will try to shatter it by hammering instead.

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