So when I ordered my A1 for Christmas for the family, I got a 0.2, 0.4, and 0.8 Hardened Steel nozzle.
I replaced the 0.4 that came with the A1 with the 0.4 Hardened because I had read that there is no reason to not use hardened steel if you have it even if the material doesnt need it.
The question is, when do i swap to 0.8? Everything I’ve printed off makerworld so far Ive used the 0.4.
I know the 0.2 is for fine printing (letters and whatnot) and greatly increases the time, but when can i swap out to the 0.8?
I.e. when i printed the AMS Lite Top Mount, could I have done it with the 0.8 and saved a lot of time?
Anything larger than .04 would be more for an industrial use (i.e. Parts, gears, etc) something not visible or meant to be as esthetically pleasing. Also, if you are printing with standard PLA or Matte PLA, you may find that higher speeds deliver a better quality than the hardened steel. The thermal conductivity of stainless steel is more favorable in those instances. Depending on what you are printing though, the difference might not even be noticeable. The good thing is that you can quickly swap them out. One of the reasons I love the A1 design.
If using any filament that is more abrasive, (glow in the dark, glitter, etc) definitely need the hardened.
Some of the loss of detail with larger nozzles can be mitigated by choosing “Arachne” for the “Wall generator” in your process settings. Essentially, this will give you almost .4 quality with a .6. Or, .6 quality with a .8.
I use a .6 Obxidian High-Flow nozzle (e3d has the only Bambu-authorized third party nozzles), and rarely if ever feel the desire to go back to the stock .4. I can print thicker layers at a higher volumetric flow rate. I get maybe a 33-50% reduction in print times. Works great for mechanical parts where ultra-fine details are not critical. The speedup won’t be as great with a Bambu .6, but it could still be significant.
So, for me, .6 is the speed/quality sweet spot. I would find a .8 to be too coarse. Though, I understand that they are great for strong vase mode prints. You can easily do a 1mm or 1.2mm wide line with the .8, and that can really change the feeling of heft and durability in a vase mode print.
If you ever tried changing a nozzle on the P or X series and compare it to the relative ease of the A series, you might understand why.
The other issue is most printers settled on the 0.4mm nozzle years before Bambu Lab made their first printer, they simply continued that trend.
If you see some of the carbon filaments, they require a minimum of a 0.6mm nozzle or they will jam.
Until MakerWorld designers embrace models that require those materials, convenience will win out.
I am looking to create more models utilising the carbon and glass fibre materials. I know my audience will be limited due to the far higher costs per roll of filament. Given a standard roll of PLA can be purchased for as little as £12 from Bambu Lab and carbon fibre filaments start at £28 a roll up to £135 per kg, that shift will take time,
I will caveat that you don’t actually get that much speed. The Max Volumetric Flow limits how much filament you can push through the nozzle.
There are some prints in which the thicker nozzle does print stuff much faster, but I don’t think speed should be your main decision maker. But I guess it’s good for prototyping.
The thicker nozzle prints have stronger layer adhesion, so there are some benefits to things that need to be tough.
Yeah, I just learned that it’s more “in theory” than in reality in another thread here.
Makes me kind of regret bothering to get a .8, and double regret not realizing that I accidentally added a 2nd one into the cart before it was checked out!
Oh well, at least I got some spare parts too (complete hotend).
If I was going to do it again, I’d get a single .6, and a bunch of .2/.4 nozzles.
You do get more speed with an Obxidian nozzle. The only third-party officially approved by bamboo lab. I get about 100% more volumetric flow going from stock .4 to OBX .6. This way I can print thicker layers because it’s a .6 and the tool head doesn’t have to slow down to do that so overall I get 30 to 50% more speed. Of course you’re trading this for thicker layers so less detail.
FWIW E3D also has another approved nozzle called Diamondback. AFAICT Diamondback is not much for speed, but for abrasive filaments. Quite pricey tho.
I have the Obxidian in 0.6 and 0.4. And TBH I don’t actually get that much of an improved printing time due to the accelerations and decelerations. Only things like vase printing does print super fast. In practice I can only push it to 35mm³/s MVF. In other words, there is never a chance on most prints to get Max speed.
No one’s mentioned improvement for transparency with thicker nozzles. I’ve definitely read (haven’t tried myself) that an 8mm nozzle will produce clearer results than a smaller nozzle.
I’m slightly tempted to test that, but probably someone has tried comparing already…
Do you know for sure that it’s faster and not just a better time estimate?
I recall one time, and I could be very wrong about this, but I recall once thinking that the time to completion was “slipping”. I don’t know if the time shown in slicer is just an estimate, or a for-real duration.
