Print quality of Tungsten Carbide nozzle H2C

[Soundwave]

Hello BambuLab-Forum,

I come in peace and I am interested in your opinions …

Printer: H2C
Filament: Bambu Lab PETG HF (dried at 65C for almost 10 hours in AMS HT, humidity around 10-13%. Started the print right after drying was finished.)
Left Nozzle: 0.4 HF Tungsten Carbide
Right Nozzle: 0.4 HF hardened induction nozzle
(both from BL as well)

I have just printed a temp tower, as I am not satisfied with the print results of PETG HF. Therefore, I want to start over.

I did not tweak any additional settings. I just printed this temp tower two times. One with each nozzle. Not at the same time.

Left tower = left nozzle
Right tower = right nozzle

As you can see, there are noticeable differences. This Tungsten Carbide nozzle has not seen any abrasive materials at all.

I feel like, that the TC nozzle somehow gives me problems, when compared to the right nozzle.

Is there something I dont know about the TC nozzles? Should I switch to a hardened nozzle for the left side as well, and only use TC for abrasive materials?

Edit:

I changed my own printing profile to the default 0.2 standard profile, and then I re-printed the temp towers. They looked even cleaner, especially the one printed with the TC nozzle. I believe, that my own profile had some issues. Currently, I am rebuilding my standard profile.

Edit Nr. 2:

I want to follow up on my first edit. I am now testing specifically for stringing. The default profile showed no stringing at all. Then I switched back to my own profile, and it was stringing out of ■■■■. This - again - confirmed, that there was something off with my own print profile.

Step by step I have re-created my own profile. So far, no stringing at all. Suddenly, when I turned on Arachne and avoid crossing walls, I got bad stringing again. Each feature contributed to stringing. Then, I decided to tweak my retraction settings in the filament profile. The result? The stringing was eliminated.

The TC nozzle was never the problem, it was my print profile and two settings, which caused/contributed to stringing, and that was totally new for me.

Here is a picture with some remarks, and how it looks like:

From here, I tested with the TC nozzle only…

I now use these retraction settings for my 0.4 HF nozzles (TC and inductive):

>

[CarbonForge]

I would start with a flow calibration first.

To me, temperature calibration is more of a fine tuning step in this situation as it’s bambu filament, batch to batch variation exists but not to the extent where you need to measure a 25-degree range. Others may disagree, but I have never bothered with temperature calibration on Bambu filaments. The default profiles are generally quite good.

It makes more sense to do temp calibration for third party filaments, or for very special situations where the stock profile isn’t good enough - like extreme overhangs, long bridges, etc.

Flow, on the other hand, is a much more variable parameter, where machine to machine variation, individual nozzle variation, your PTFE setup, etc. all will play a role.

[user_3353630899]

I am much simpler. I’d simply use what works best for me.

So rather than fuss, I’d use the right nozzle. Or in short, switch the TC out for a hardened nozzle, because it works best, if you figure you will be printing with both nozzles simultaneously.

Less futzing with the file and less to reset later.

But what do I know? I’m just a dual AMS2 Pro, P2S doodler. Still running at Ludacris speed…

[Sebo3D1]

@Soundwave

Tungsten Carbide

I’m sure you will be able to set the right settings, since thermal conductivity is slightly different they will need different settings. having said that: HF Tungsten Carbide are a trap. People think they pay more they get something better/faster…maybe 0.6mm would make sense, but 0.4mm HF Tungsten Carbide not at all.

[Soundwave]

For sure, there are probably different opinions on what parameter to start with. I stick to temperature, because it is the base for everthing.

I have calibrated the flow rate, pressure advance and finally the retraction settings to eliminate stringing.

The culprit were Arachne Wall Generator and avoid crossing walls on, while my retraction settings were not compensating for these two parameters.

[Gerrit]

Question: what is so specific in your profile, that is not in the standard profile?

Normally I play with number of walls, top/bottom layers and/or infill for strength reasons.

When there is some other specific need, it’s usually part specific and not worthwhile to save in a profile.

In the filament profiles, occasionally some flow rate or temperature corrections. If that is permanent, I will store those profiles.

For PETG-CF with TC nozzles, I had to lower the flow rate to 0.85 which is quite low.

I prefer minimal overrides as profile updates from Bambu don’t override your changes.

After 1.5 years with Bambu, I only created about 5 specific filament profiles and about 10 specific nozzle profiles.

On my Voron I needed a lot of custom profiles because there were no proper preset’s that worked OOTB.