My printer, a Makerbot Replicator 1 clone, came with a .4mm extruder nozzle. Was looking at the other sizes available.
Is there an advantage using different nozzle sizes? I guess the smaller the hole the finer quality the print. But i guess the trade-off would be that the prints will take much longer because its extruding less?
And larger nozzles would produce poorer quality prints but would in theory print faster?
That’s pretty much it. I might add you may experience trouble printing composites (wood or metal filled filament) with small nozzles, especially 0.15 mm. Larger nozzles also let you print thicker layers, and you may want to look into getting a hotend with a larger heater because with large nozzles since you extrude more volumetrically and you want to make sure it all gets heated fully.
Adam pretty much covered it! And @Chris_Barnes , you’re pretty much spot on. Finer detail, with a lower maximum layer height. This means more layers, more time. Additionally, this also means more work for your slicer as well, since it has much more to compute (if slicing time is a concern for you)
I wouldn’t think so as long as you keep layer height under 90% of the nozzle width. You don’t want to try to print layers 200 microns thick with a 0.15 mm nozzle. Bridging and overhangs are really a speed (edit: and cooling) issue.
@Adam_Steinmark don’t forget tempature! Too hot and it droops. I just got a new (nicer) printer and once I start getting it figured out, I’m going to try my hand at bridging. When I first saw that, I thought it was magic. Lol. After some digging it seems possible with some trial and error.
@Chris_Barnes With smaller nozzles you do indeed get better details at the expense of print time.
As a general rule to maintain good layer and surface quality keep max layer height to about 75% of the nozzle size or less. About a quarter the diameter (0.4mm nozzle with 0.1mm layers) produces high quality prints with the thinnest being about 0.05mm for supper fine. Some filaments that flow better can do higher thickness ratios. As Adam mentioned 90% is about the max you can expect. (Edited)
There are other trade offs as well as larger nozzles with thinner layers will do better and flatter overhang quality (think the bottom half of a sphere) whereas smaller nozzles will do better top side surface and detail.
You might also need to adjust the print speed and temperature as smaller nozzles will calibrate differently when thermally compensated for the same filament. I can make interchangeable parts that fit with less than .004" of clearance with different nozzle sizes but the settings for the same filament are different for each nozzle size to do this.
With proper cooling at about normal print speed you can bridge over 15mm with barely (<0.1mm) any sag and produce 30 degree (from horizontal) overhangs with no support material required.
Edit: Thinner layers work better on bridging for me. Much faster cooling.
Lots of good points here – just one more distinction I want to make. Smaller nozzles do NOT meaningfully improve “print quality” as I think most people would define the term. They allow printing finer details, with the same basic print quality (eg layer height and ringing and mechanical artifacts like screw wobble). If the model doesn’t have fine detail, a smaller nozzle doesn’t really do much.
The extrusion width setting is what limits where the slicer lays down noodles of plastic. If you assume extrusion width = nozzle size, which is a safe minimum, then smaller nozzles allow more detail work. With a 0.4mm nozzle:
Every corner is rounded off to a ~0.2mm radius
The minimum gross feature size (such as box wall thickness or width of embossed surface like the letters on the Benchy model) is 0.8mm
But… if you go to a 0.2mm nozzle…
Corner radius is 0.1mm (whoopdie-doo)
Minimum feature size is 0.4mm
Does that actually help your specific printing? If you’re making 25mm D&D miniatures, yes, but for a lot of people it won’t do anything visible at all. And in exchange, you have to drastically low print speeds to deal with higher back-pressure and a smaller extruded noodle. Personally, I recommend using the largest nozzle that gives you the minimum feature size you need. I use a lot of http://0.5.mm and 0.6mm.
** One minor exception to the “print quality” bit – small nozzles do ooze less with runny filaments like PLA, which can help if you have retraction stringing issues. But they also produce more nozzle back-pressure, which can increase volume elasticity such as Bowden tube stretch and thus afterflow effects, so it’s not a slam dunk.