Do you guys wait for obvious failures or look at hour count? I have ~150 hours on the .4 that came with the unit, looks good so far.
More abrasive filaments (especially CF filled) will wear the nozzle faster than generic PLA. Unless you always only run the exact same filament and can characterize some nozzles over time, the best answer to your question is “it depends” on the filaments you’re using.
I’m on over 600 hrs on the original factory 0.4, even after using PLA-CF and Glow in the Dark PLA
Two indicators that nozzle needs changing
- it is noticeably shorter and flatter (compare it to a new one)
- stringing or similiar defects
The first is obvious, the second not that much. The second case is caused by abrasives wearing out the inside of the nozzle, thus screwing retractions.
If you print mostly PLA (and not white nasty PLA with titanium dioxide) then the same nozzle can last a lifetime if you take care of it (clean it with a brass brush).
I purchased a few other nozzle sizes to mess around with, I was just wondering if I should keep putting back the original .4 until it shows signs of wear
sound like the answer is yes, plus I didn’t know you can visually see the wear, I thought it was more of an internal to the nozzle thing. I’ll compare the .4 with a new .4 before replacing, then you can see how much is worn.
I just replaced my nozzle after 894 hours of print time. This was the stock nozzle that came with the printer. The biggest issue I noticed was more stringing with filament that I regularly use and it sputtering when it was printing. zviratko is right with the indicators. You’ll know when it needs to be replaced. The number of hours is not a good indicator as there are more factors that can wear down the nozzle faster.
Just replaced original 0.4 nozzle on P1S after 1300hrs. Alternate between PLA and PETG-HF, for the most part. Started having first layer adhesion issues, followed by obvious gaps in print due to under extrusion. I did maybe 2 or 3 cold pulls over the life of the nozzle and didn’t see much for residue. Very impressed with the life of this nozzle (probably because they control the entire purging process). I will probably shoot for 1000hr replacements moving forward.
Just touching base for anyone else coming here from Google. I am a terrible person who has never changed the .4 nozzle in 3,780 hours.
The nozzle was mildly bent, but to be honest, there wasn’t any real sign of needing to replace the thing. It still printed amazing. I just had a light box that I pulled off this evening with terrible colour stringing between the layers and figured I should change the thing. First sign in nearly 4k hours that it neded changing. Colour me impressed.
I finally replaced one of my X1C’s original hardened steel nozzles with just under that, 3,109 hours - only reason I did was because ironing was being inconsistent with new streaks I hadn’t seen before, did a cold pull and there were some metal shavings in the tip, after that it worked okay for a bit but I noticed a lot of oozing. swapped it and it’s like new so that nozzle happened to have some tip wear.
On other Bambu printers I generally swap the nozzle and extruder at the same time for a spare whenever I have a jam usually from heat creep (sometimes it gets hot in my basement), just as a time saving measure and then unclog and put them back in my supply, so I haven’t been tracking those, just this one printer happened to never have a clog in all that 3100 hour time. Anyone who says Bambu Lab machines are throwaways or cheaply made has never had the pleasure of maintaining one. I work in a print farm part time fixing issues on an entire farm of BBL printers - I’ve replaced everything from a rubber foot to a motion system that took half a day, the parts are cheap, I can find a lot of em in a pinch at MicroCenter in an emergency, but mostly we overbuy to have on hand spares and rarely need them. mostly PTFEs, the occasional first-stage feeder in heavy use AMS’s, sometimes the drive shaft in an AMS. Just remedied 5 X1Cs that had diagonal VFAs in side walls by cleaning the idler pulleys with WD40, but we had started replacing them with spares when we figured out all we had to do was clean them. Used a printable tool model on makerworld just for that.