What happens if it clogs is my question
@Alexander_Pritchard , you do a cold pull or two and get back in business?
@Erik_Cederberg Awesome! Really envy these testers 
Hoping one day I’m lucky enough to be a tester!
@Thomas_Sanladerer are you going to try these out? I would love to get your opinion on these. Could they be a game changer for printing abrasive filaments?
“Neutron particle experiments” OK, that explains the boron carbide comment. Geez. I can see this being beneficial in some other exotic circumstances. Performance compared to a brass orifice is kind of a given. Stainless is known to wear with abrasives. That I can find, the web site doesn’t say anything about performance compared to die steel, which seems like a curious omission given that’s the real competitor, not brass or stainless. For carbons, die steel should be plenty fine. I wonder how tungsten carbide holds up, a bit of research seems to suggest comparable hardness to ruby. But DDD will have tungsten early next year, I think. So not sure where that leaves ruby except for nuclear research and similarity exotic circumstances.
agree with most on here, unless the cost can be brought down to a reasonable price, this is going to be a niche item for only those endeavors that can justify the cost.
Gems meet 3D printing…wowza! Have you done a split (cut down the middle) autopsy to see how one of theses looks for wear? I am curious what metal erosion there is since I imagine metal is exposed before the ruby tip.
@Erik_Cederberg under the community testing section, “What we found to not damage the ruby in our testing tough, is printing with the very abrasive carbon fiber filled filaments, like the Colorfabb XT-CF20 or the Formfutura Carbonfil”. Note the “tough” instead of “though”. Could you bring that to their attention?
How heat resistant are these? I usually clean my nozzles by heating them to nearly 1000C. Will there be Volcano nozzles?
@NathanielStenzel : Yes we have split the metal, and it is surprisingly little wear on the metal parts even after a lot of printing, this is the case even with fully metal nozzles, almost all the wear is confined to the front face and the output hole, which is why it is so effective to replace just that part with the ruby. About the spelling, thanks, i’ll bring that up.
@Jeff_DeMaagd : Be aware of that Tungsten and Tungsten carbide are two very different materials, where tungsten carbide is in the same vicinity on the Mohs scale of scratch resistance as ruby, and tungsten is quite a bit down, in the same range as hardened steel.
@ChPech : No brass nozzle will withstand temperatures of almost 1000C, the melting temperature for the brass is ~950C for most alloys, and you will have reached the softening point well before that, risking severe deformation if you don’t handle it very gently.
To be honest, we have not even tried abusing them with a 1000C flame, and we do not endorse that method of cleaning them.
Volcano nozzles are not currently in the plan, but might happen if enough people express a interest in them.
I posted this on FB and people are say that you aren’t using real ruby, that its man made ruby? which is it, synthetic or natural?
@Jeff_Dewe We are using synthetic ruby, which chemically and for all purposes is “real ruby” and exactly the same as natural ruby, just without the defects on those found in nature.
Ruby rod or other shape?
@NathanielStenzel : honestly i do not know how they look before they are custom ground to this “volcano” shape, since that is all done by a supplier who also manufactures the synthetic rubys from scratch.
These guys make a similar kind of nozzle for 1.7 filament 3d printers http://www.certronic.it/
@Gentili_Giuliano : Can you actually buy the Certronic nozzles? Never seen them for sale.
@Erik_Cederberg : I can ask, they are Italian so should be easy. Nozzles were available through a kick starter time ago. But I can mail them to get more infos
Looks incredibly cool. I think most are nitpicking a bit, it’s not that expensive as it’s not trying to replace a cheap brass nozzle if that is all you need. I do wonder about unintended etching of print beds though. Seems like the obvious market is for those with their machine working well trying to produce a lot of functional parts using abrasive filaments. If you’re selling the prints the economics are not an issue as long as it meets the advertised claims of durability.