Are you still using a 0.4mm nozzle? You probably shouldn’t be!
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Current PrusaSlicer (Arachne is now included in main releases) www.prusa3d.com/page/prusasli...
Models shown
Salty McCreedy www.printables.com/model/1106...
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Genuine E3D Nozzles & Obxidian go.toms3d.org/E3Dnoz
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Filament is Prusament Galaxy Black PLA go.toms3d.org/Prusament
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Every 0.4 nozzle is just one spool of glow-in-the-dark filament from being a 0.6 nozzle.
wait.... why?
@@deadmonkeyeuc2594 glow in the dark fillament has particles ij it that gives the glow in the dark effect, thise particles are hard and dosn't really melt at the printing temperature the plastic is, turning them into an abrasive while printing, basicly sanding the inside of the nozzle. So something like a ruby, diamond, sapphire or hardened steel nozzle can handle it, but brass nozzles are too soft and will be sanded bigger than what they started with.
Holy crap. Thank you
I printed a small watering can using a .4mm nozzle. The process took 8h 39m; it came our very nice. My wife let her friend abscond with it so I printed another one. This time I used a .6mm nozzle and even added a 3rd perimeter; the process took 3h 53m and looks almost exactly like the .4mm nozzle. Thanks much for the knowledge gained on your site. This isn't the first time you have "learned" me.
The speed increase just in software over the last couple years has been amazing. With the slicer improvements, fine-tuned profiles from people like CHEP, and tech like Input Shaper correcting vibration, software is no longer the limiting factor and we are finally printing as fast as the hardware (nozzles, extruders, bearings) can handle.
I have been thinking about nozzle flow and melt zones. I have about 50 rolls of 1.75mm filament so larger diameter is out but using two 1.75mm rolls to feed a single nozzle via single extruder could increase speeds even more without going to crazy high Temps and specific materials. This has already been proven to help speeds with the the CHT nozzle splitting filament which essentially just increases the surface area the nozzle comes into contact with without increasing the length of the melt zone.
Forgive my ignorance, how was software the limiting factor before? It is just things like setting better defaults for configurable properties like acceleration/jerk or is it somesing more fundamental in how the instructions are generated/how the instructions end up?
@@SamTheEnglishTeacher ikr, hardware is the limiting factor for HIGH end printers you need light and stiff gantries to keep up with the high speed (I’m talking 200k accel and 2000mm/s vzbot style)
@@probablyblue426 a person or two "solved" the whole light and stiff gantry problem by just making the 3D printer print upside down lol , since the nozzle is at the base it has a low centre of gravity and can reach high speeds without shaking , imagine something like a CNC machine but you flip it upside down , not only is curious but also seems to work better than the standard 3D printer due to the reasons i mentioned before
@@ulforcemegamon3094 yeah that’s cool but not the problem still, more so the gantry has to be light to handle high accelerations and stiff to have somewhat decent print quality, that design you said would make the frame itself shake less though, I think one high speed printer YTer tried it because you can basically flip a coreXY over, Vez3d ended up mounting it to the wall that’s more of reducing vibration than making the actual motion really light but cool nonetheless
Thank you. 0.6 nozzle ordered for my 10 day old Bambu X1C. I did check, and the Arachni option is available in Bambu Studi slicer.
I would have liked to see this comparison with some non glittery/sparkly/silky material, which tends to make bad prints better looking. I would use a material that is as matte as posible to better appreciate the pure quality of the printed geometry. In any case, the comparison is super cool and is the kind of content I like the most!
Yeah, something like Staubgrau / dustgrey which is useful for printer and profile calibration. When someone like him, who should know better, uses silky filament, I'm 90% certain he needs to cover something up. Oh well, I'll be waiting until SuperSlicer will get this new "feature" and test for myself.
My experience is that silk makes bad prints more obvious. The metallic shine brings out imperfections imo
@@TShearPhoto yeah silk shows every single but of under or over extrusion, ringing, scars from supports, travel over skins, etc
Id like it if they were sprayed with primer and given a zenithal highlight so the surface detail could really be apparent.
Silk/shine makes it look worse, not better. shine shows imperfections.
Thumbnail gold again from Tom
Toy story right? The nightmare of woody where Andy throws him in the trash
@@patrickpredella yeah 'i do t want to play with you anymore'
@@zacsmith6321 so MUCH memories! 🥲
I'm ashamed I didn't get this
I literally thought it was Andy and not Tom
Great summary. I’ve found the same thing as I develop Cura 5.0 profiles. The new features of the Arachne engine allow 0.6 nozzle to produce decent detail at much faster speeds vs the 0.4 standard nozzle.
So it's happening
Lol I was about to go into your channel to check if you had a 0.6 profile for ender 3. Thank you both for so much quality content!
Do we have Chep Profiles for 0.6 nozzles and are the magic numbers the same?
And a 0.4 arachne vs 0.25mm without - just to see what quality we can get. Also a 0.25 arachne vs regular 0.4 )since arachne gives a small speedboost, they might not be too far off each other) or compared to a cheap resin printer
where can i find your .6 profiles for cura??
Hi Thomas! This video definitely belongs in the "Best 3D Printer Tips Ever" drawer. I only print functional parts and switching to a 0.6 mm nozzle has been a blessing. Without your suggestion and explanations, I would never have thought of it, so thank you very much for that!
Why not. 8? Or 1.0?
@@atapene Because current extruder and nozzles cant keep up with the potential speed and slowing effectively the print time down to 0.6 nozzle performance but with lesser details.
@@selfworthy yeah but when you can get more material out a larger aperture you can either go faster or put less stress on the parts, both of which are positives. Lower detail if you are ok with it is fine
I would've liked to have more of a comparison between 0.4 and 0.6 both with arachne. I agree that 0.6 makes sens for most usecases and especiallly engineering parts.
What line widths do you want to use? If less than 0.8 mm then a 0.4 mm nozzle is just fine, especially since you can have it make a 0.4 mm outer wall for higher details, and wider lines for everything else.
@@marcus3d Yep, it's what I do. And I basically just print functional stuff too, increasing line width was one heck of a magic trick to speed up printing. Just keeping in mind the hotend flow and we're good to go. Of course, the same is true for a 0.6mm one too being able to flow more by being less restrictive, but every now and then we do need ("we" meaning both myself and at work) some sharper details that the 0.4mm can do.
Yeah not quite comparing apples to apples. I get that you are trying to work on the assumption that everyone is happy with 0.4mm definition they're used to. But really that definition itself is out of date.
@@danyoungwas please elaborate
@@vmx200 elaborate on what
One thing to keep in mind with those running a bowden setup: a 0.6mm nozzle will have a lot more stringing, and might not be able to get rid of it entirely.
bowden should be banned
Why? The retraction has to be adjusted for varying nozzles but no reason it can't be correctly set.
Switching to 0.6 for the models that don't need a lot of fine details is a good idea, especially with more modern slicers. However, (small) finely detailed models just tend to come out better with smaller nozzles (given the same slicer!). You know what's really great? You can swap out the typical nozzle within minutes if you like. That way you can print lots of details with a small-bore nozzle, and quickly print larger mechanical parts with a larger-bore one.
Depends on the printer. With older printers you can get the nozzle scraping the bed if you don't re-calibrate with a new nozzle (that can add 5-20 minutes depending on printer)
i have one printer where volumetric is the limiting factor so i got a 0.2 on that :)
I remember when I got my 1st CR10 MAX and couldn't believe it came with 0.4 as standard, before I even printed a test print I installed 0.8 which works perfectly for my larger products. All my other printers run 0.6 and achieve great detail even at .4mm layer heights, and when time is money you quickly realise bigger nozzels are an incredibly good investment. I've actually won business because I have been able to turn around jobs so much quicker that expected. Often they are functional prints rather than cosmetic ones, so using 0.8 and 0.6 nozzles has sllashed the print time and so turnaround time. Multiply that time saving across multiple printers and it's a game changer. Thanks for aother great video 👍 James
I remember having to make a springy part for a retention clip to keep the face plate on my computer case. It was just too thin so the slicer made gaps and I had to interleave 3 different shapes between the layers just to keep it physically connected and functional.
That's just a slicer issue though, proper slicers had adaptive extrusion width for ages now
A tip is to design parts wall thickness with your layer width in mind if you dont already. Full perimiters make stronger prints and less issues like what you're experiencing during printing.
I made the switch to 0.5mm a couple years back and it's been great. Even with the classic slicing methods, 0.5 really didn't loose much definition but allowed for significantly faster prints. Makes your question of why we switched to 0.4 in the first place even more interesting.
I agree. 0.5mm is great. It's easier to calibrate than 0.6mm and the speed upgrade and less clogging is definitely worth it. 😎🌎✌️
Probably the best way if getting higher resolution in the early days, now with better extruders and software I guess it's just not nessasary, I am curious what the bust would look like at 75% scale, would prolly see a benefit using .4 maybe?
@@DeanTheDoctor Less clogging? Clogging at any of these larger sizes is so rare for me it's impossible to compare but I'm almost certain any increased clogging with 0.6 over 0.5 would be due more to poorer quality nozzles than the size itself.
I've rarely had clogs myself, but it helps with the peace of mind when it comes to dust in the environment and when choosing more economic brands of filament. When it comes to third world countries, not everyone is going to have access or the ability to get quality parts, so videos and community content help others to know what options are available, but it's whatever suits your needs best. 😊🌎✨
I prefer 0.5mm because i often design parts in mm increments and 1mm isn't cleanly divisible by .4 or .6
Oh man thanks for this! I was facing this thin wall issue a lot in the past with nozzles over 0.4 as I print a lot of wing profiles. Great news!
In an educational setting, the slow speed of 3D printers is by far the biggest limitation. I have used bigger nozzles in the past to get quicker prints and I think you just convinced me to do it again. Thanks for the great video!
Thank you for this. I'd like to recommend that you use a narrower [edit: corrected from wider] aperture (or the video equivalent) when showing models side-by-side. In many of your shots, it was not possible to compare the two because only one was in focus.
What you want is a larger depth of field--the distance ranges from the camera within which subjects will be in focus. A wider aperture actually narrows that space and makes it trickier to focus exactly right.
Wide angle lenses add a fish eye effect I believe your looking for the macro lenses bud that gives you better detail for a small Frame shot up close
@@Aaron-ne4kr I knew this and wrote it wrong. Narrower aperture. Thanks for correcting me.
@@FUCKDSS That's not what I was referring to. Greater depth of field would be the goal.
Possibly replacing video B-roll with a pan across a still image? That would make it easier to make sure the part we should be looking at is in focus, and with a tripod Thomas can get a slow enough shutter to make up for the narrow aperture (this is harder in video, as the shutter speed is limited by the frame rate)
I use my printers mostly to protoype components, pcb housings, etc. I switch about a year ago to 0.6mm nozzles, and sometimes to 0.8mm, and man, having a print done in a hour instead of four, or in half a day instead of a full 24 hours is amazing. Also, it works really well with the whole "quickly measure stuff, do 30 minutes og CAD, print test piece in 20 minutes, modify CAD and print full piece" workflow To be honest, if you cannot afford to lose "details" on a print, get a resin printer.
I really need to do this, I never print with fine details
@@instanoodles Just use thicker lines in the slicer when using 0.4 mm nozzle
You don't need a 0.6 mm nozzle to print 0.6 mm or even 0.8 mm line width, but a 0.4 mm nozzle will do just fine. However, if you're going for 1+ mm line width then yeah, 0.6 or 0.8 mm nozzle is probably good.
Very good comment. I for example print basically only engineering items which do not require fine details or templates for a router. I'm printing with 0.8 CHT. Some parts take with optimized profile, this nozzle na bondetch lgx extruder up to 40 hours and 2 spools. With 0.4 it can possibly take almost a week.
I have about doubled the speed of my printer with input shaper on Klipper, and it's at the limit of a Revo hotend at 0.3mm layers heights and 0.4mm line width. With 0.6 line widths and 0.4 layer height it would double the material flow again to 24mm^3/s (about the performance of high flow extruders), and this is on my modded Anet A6 bedslinger! I could run 0.6mm line width with the 0.4 nozzle but I might as well keep the quality since I'm at the limits of the hotend anyway. I think my next real challenge is sufficient cooling.
Great advice, you are completely right! I made the switch yesterday (i3 MK3S+ 0.6 Nozzle) and the results are fantastic. Thanks very much!
Amazing. Spent today changing out the nozzle and recalibrating at 0.6mm. Test printed part of a large mech model in various configurations since I know what to expect out of it at 0.4mm. After using watching your video, I cut a literal hour off the print time of the model part with no practical loss in quality. Just crazy! About the only thing I am still dialing in is support interface distances now. Thanks so much, Thomas! Cheers!
When Nozzle X came out I got a 0.5mm, even that has been fantastic in my main printer. I love it when software makes hardware better.
Yeah, I’ll probably get some sort of 0.4-0.6 (this video has me intrigued) diamondback nozzle and use that as my “daily driver” ; Large enough that it is fast, but bot crazy, and can handle *any* material pretty much.
A 0.5mm nozzle is my go to nozzle as well. It's easy to calibrate, clogs less, and can lay down reasonably thick lines (0.8mm, +/- 0.2mm) without loosing too much detail or exceeding the limits of the nozzle. 😊🌎✨
@Daniel Andersen I also will when high flow nozzles like the CHT are available hardened. I'm mostly limited by volumetric rate. I like the 0.5mm because I can get good quality while maximizing hot end flow rate. They're starting to become available though.
IMHO software cannot make hardware better, but software can make hardware worse, because the hardware's capabilities obviously don't chance, but our chances for making use it do. Sadly the latter is the case with about any modern product, for the enterprises and vendors cutting down budget for increasing their net income, unless an sophisticated open source community arises and is working together for getting out all of the hardware's best. :)
I have a 1mm nozzle in my parts box for the quick prints that dont need detail( helmets) and since I switched to that, I have realized there are better choices out there rather than the .4mm nozzle. My go to is a .6mm, has been for a long time. Ive often thought about trying a.8 nozzle
I use 1.0mm often too, prints are very quick.
For big parts I use .8 nozzle with 1mm line width and .5mm layer height - fast and strong prints.
0.6mm nozzle FTW! beeen printing with it for almost a year and i am really happy with how fast it is. now im really excited for Arachne! Thanks for the info!
Such a great video! I love technical details like this in a production setting.
Would be great to see a part strength comparison between the nozzle sizes as well
This
Kinda speaks for itself though. You'd probably be able to find what you're looking for with a single google search
As a result of this excellent video I have changed my standard nozzle to 0.6 mm and standard layer height to 0.3 mm. Using the 0.3 mm Quality printing preset I am very happy with the reduced print time. I just started a print job involving 29 interconnected pieces that using the 0.4 mm nozzle and 0.3 Draft preset was going to take over 22 days end to end print time. Using the new settings this becomes slightly less than 15 days end to end print time. One caveat, the support material required for one complex part was a real bear to remove compared to the part printed with the 0.4 mm settings.
did you use special support filament for the interface?
Awesome video!! I really enjoyed the objective testing and straightforward info. Doin the community a great service!
Great video. I switched to 0.6 a couple years ago and never looked back. Thanks for confirming my same observations. Mahalo for sharing!🙂🐒
Great video, very interesting! I know you mentioned it, but it would have been nice to see some examples of a 0.4 nozzle with Arachne just to see the improvements over a normal 0.4.
Exactly what I was about to comment.
Indeed, the comparison does not seem to be fair... 0.4 with old software versus 0.6 with new software... We all are going to use new version... So how would the perform with the same slicer?
@@andresdans Yeah unfair comparison for sure. It's the same tradeoff there always was. A smaller nozzle can do finer detail but it's slower. The point should be that the detail difference between sizes has decreased, which means for a smaller decrease in detail, you can speed up your print a lot more.
As always, a model of meaningful and systematic preparation, followed by clear and understandable presentation of the source information. Worth joining to support Thomas in this work.
Wow this is crazy!!! It is apparent how much work you put into it! Amazing!!
Thanks for the excellent video. I changed to a 0.6 Nozzle X because off it and I am super happy with the results!
I switched to 0.6mm nozzles some time ago on Tom's suggestion. I have been very happy with the boost in print speeds and haven't really run into issues with the 0.6mm nozzle. I'm very excited about this new Arachne algorithm. Another thing that's worth noting with larger nozzle sizes is that you have a larger range of choices for layer height. What I mean is that with a 0.4mm nozzle, you can print from between 0.08 and 0.32 mm layer heights. That's a range of 0.24 mm. With a 0.6mm nozzle, you can print from 0.12 to 0.48 mm layer heights, which is a range of 0.36mm.
if you have good direct drive extruder i have not seen a big problem printing PLA at 0.4 on 0.4 nozzle and 0.6 at 0.6 nozzle so i would not limit the extrusion to 0.32 to 0.48 repectively. Especially on 0.6 nozzle.
@@arva1kes The 0.32 to 0.48 comes from the 80% rule. It's not a hard rule, as you have experienced, but my understanding was that printing with a layer height equal to the nozzle diameter doesn't give very good squish, so layer adhesion might not be as good, and overhangs will have a harder time.
@@quinnobi42 I totally agree on bridging it will be really bad especially as pressure gets released on every start of the run and it will sag since it might not be dragged enough, but would its another debate on the printing strength if it should be over or underpressurized. On the 80% rule - one thing to bear in mind, is that diameter of nozzle changing bigger will change volume exponentially. 0.4mm nozzle is 0.13mm2 while 0.6mm nozzle is already more than twice the volume coming at 0.28mm2 (because square root and pi is involved so essentially setting. in other way sayin - feedrate to 200% on 0.4 nozzle print would make the single wall from 0.4 to 0.6mm only, not 0.8). So while 80% rule seems accepted @0.4mm i would argue that 0.6mm would not fall into that math anymore. it gets really ridiculous on 1mm nozzle sizes where you should extrude at 0.8mm following 80% rule, but volume difference on 0.8mm vs 1.0mm is whopping 37% (0.5mm2 vs 0.79mm2) so essentially you would very soon run into situation where you have nozzle running "half empty" and worse. I hope it helps to understand my point of view why going on bigger nozzles it's not 80% of diameter. I would see it to be more in the ballpark of 80% of volume, not diameter if you move away from well known 0.4 nozzle.
The rule of thumb is 75% of nozzle size. YOu dont gain anything. Its the same raitio. Going below .2 on a .6 nozzle is inconsistant.
@@maxkool0076 I've had perfectly good results with a range from 20% to 80%, which for a 0.6mm is 0.12 to 0.48. While you might not gain anything from a percentage perspective, the range of acceptable values between 20% and 80% is larger for bigger nozzle sizes.
I agree, but up to a point. I don't think reality is black or white, but there are a lot of shades in between. I used quite a bit larger nozzles to print mainly in the same time but with MORE quality, using lower layer height. This works amazing with models that are wide and short on Z, and it gives especially beautiful prints when you have slopes. But larger nozzles have a substantial trade-off: the seam. If you have one big model that has just one seam across all its body it's fine, when you have something with lot of "branches", where each has its own seam it starts getting bad quickly. In that case using a 0.4 mm nozzle to print everything thicker (0,6 or even 0,8), but with the exclusion of the outer perimeter and top layer, can give you a beautiful print, with no almost no time penalty compared to a full 0.6 mm print (or maybe even faster if you do infill at 0.8). My primary printer is pretty fast (250 mm/s with 20K acceleration are my daily speed, that I can even push a lot more if I want something quickly), I'd like to have a 0,33 mm nozzle to print an amazing outer skin and a faster 0,66 everything else!
Very handy and detailed explanation! Will be trying this for sure. Thx
hey man, after seeing this vid, went out and bought a 0.6mm nozzle and after a bit more tweaking (my retraction had issues) i think your advice is great. for my uses, the larger nozzle is ideal and saves me HELLA time. good stuff!
Interesting video. As a hobbyist, I always treat print time as a "It takes as long as it takes" issue. I am luck enough to have a couple of printers, and I generally use a .4 or .8 nozzle size. Most of my printer these days are either reasonably detailed, or just need to be strong, so those options work really well for me. I really need to get a printer with a Revo hotend, because nozzle swaps are not on the list of things I enjoy about 3d printing.
It's still tedious with Revo hotends. It takes even longer to change the nozzle.
My solution is to swap the entire hotend. Much aster than changing the nozzle........
@@alejandroperez5368 ??? HOW ??? With proper Start+End-GCODE modification, you're literally swapping in 30seconds.
A bit late to the party, but with most nozzles you can use one of those attachments for putting screwdriver bits in a drill. Just heat your extruder, do a few retractions, and quickly swap the nozzles.
I run a .6 on my Ender 3 V2 and a .8 on my Ender 3 Max. The .8 it really nice especially when you start doing larger prints. 90% of the things I print aren't detailed enough to justify anything smaller,and the few that do the .6 has always been small enough. .8 is nice too because you take a standard print you would normally do, cut walls in half and double layer height and it's basically the same print in half the time.
Great job on the video and the .6mm swap suggestion. I just switch to .6mm today on two of my X1 Carbons and I do see improvements. Very much appreciate the effort put into this video. Thank you.
Thank you for this informative and useful video. I will swap the nozzles tomorrow. 👍
I run with a 0.8 most of the time. Sometimes I even print with a 0.4 line width, with pretty acceptable results.
And I'm sitting here with a 0.4 printing at 0.8
@@silver1fangs 0.8mm doesn't work well on my printer with a 0.4mm nozzle but 0.6mm line width with "print thin walls" activated in Cura is great. Always wanted to order 0.6mm nozzles but never did. Due to this video they are now ordered.
I love the 0,8 except the sharp corner got abit round, need more tolerance, and remove support is a pain.
Try printing a 54mm miniature figure.
Would love too see how the .6 differs from the .4 in cura. Not just prusa’s new slicer feature. The video should have been titled more towards prusa slicer, but then again, you got me and I watched it even though it won’t work in cura. Thanks for the video, as always, good info. And now for some guacamole…
Well you talked me into using a 0.6mm nozzle and the new PrusaSlicer arachne. 🤘😎👍
So, I took the plunge. 0.6mm nozzle on for the last week and a bit. I mainly print functional parts. It’s worked really well. A little tuning to get extrusion width sorted etc, but it has been great to get to grips with. I’ve found 0.3mm height, 0.9mm extrusion width, and 15% rectilinear works amazing on my anycubic mega x. Found 72mm to be optimal print speed so far, which since anycubic recommend 60mm for a 0.4mm nozzle isn’t bad. More experiments needed for speed at some point. Great video, and thanks for sending me down this rabbit hole 👍👍👍👍
For a given nozzle size, you can increase extrusions width much more than slicer tricks can reduce extrusion width. Put another way, use the largest nozzle you can for the smallest details you want to print. With a 0.4mm nozzle, I've printed with extrusions up to 1.5 mm wide and 0.5 mm thick. Put another way, it's pretty easy to print bigger than the nozzle size and it's harder to print smaller than the nozzle size. Just find whatever size works best for you, but keep your mind open to pushing the extrusion width without switching nozzles out.
Cura 5 now asks for line width, and not nozzle size
@@urgamecshk you still input nozzle size in the printer settings
@@Dave_the_Dave not in Cura. You input the filament size, and line width. Thats it
@@urgamecshk my man, I'm not sure how it uses it in slicing but nozzle size is an input to Cura 5.0.0. I'm looking at the screen right now. Across the top of the window you have your printer, material settings, and then slicer settings. Dead center it says something like "Generic PLA, 0.6mm nozzle" and in the drop down is the nozzle size selection. I do believe it uses it to determine what the minimum line width it will try to print.
since I changed one of my printers to revo, I change the nozzle depending on the job
well, that sounds sweet!!! 👌🏽
I like the concept of Revo, but I’m a bit too much of an Open Source Snob, i may get one of those “manual toolchangers” maybe? Like my wallet can even afford the nozzles alone though! Either way that does seem like the dream short of some sort of automatic toolchanger with a bunch of toolheads!
Same, I've used 0.4mm on my printer for years and just absorbed the extra time cost rather than burning my fingers, deal with possible leaks, etc. I decided to change to the Revo on a whim. Now I'm changing the nozzle size 3-5 times a week and it's really great. It's one of those things where you see a product, get all these great ideas in your head how it will be, and it actually works out just like that in reality.
Fantastic video, thank you. I am currently on the (ill advised) mission to print table top miniatures on a filament machine. The combo of small apt and pets makes resin too risky for me to be comfortable with. I have just started experimenting with .2mm nozzles to try and really dial in the fine details (particularly weapons and accessories in the models) and it seems like the addition of arachny is going to be a big help. I am excited to slice something up and start trying it out.
Your videos always inspire me to get back to using my printer. Looking forward to trying out a 0.6 nozzle
Cura 5 has let me print some remarkably thin details like small text, especially with “print thin walls” turned on. Compared to previous versions it’s like night and day in this aspect
I just updated Cura 5.1, do I have to "turn on" Arachne in Cura? I don't see anything for it, someone said it's automatic?
@@mszoomy Yes, Arachne is on by default. I swear there was an option to toggle which engine you use but I can't seem to find it in 5.1 However you can tell if its working by changing the color scheme in the preview to "Line Width". You should see some slight variation in coloring.
@@funx24X7 thank you!! I was so confused 😆 I'll try the line width thing and see if the colors change
It would be nice to see the comparison on lighter colored, silk PLA. Black filament tends to hide flaws pretty well.
This is a great comparison and I'm excited to try out my 0.6 nozzle with the new slicer. In the video though it can be hard to see the differences when the 0.4/0.6 prints aren't always labeled, and the points of comparison aren't always in focus
This was very helpful thank you! I have a flashforge 5m pro and am new to 3d printing. I hope this feature is available. I have been experimenting with the .6 nozzle and .25 nozzle.
I've been using a .6 CHT since they launched and it's been great, I don't do abrasives so I've only had to replace it once, I see faster prints and good layer adheision. There is a reduction in quality of details but most of what I do is structural not decorative so as long as the part is dimentionaly accurate and durable it's fine for me.
Very similar experience for me!
I reckon it's worth to have both, if you're willing to swap between them depending on your very specific needs. I personally would keep .6mm on most of the time, specially with Arachne, and returning to .4mm (potentially with Arachne, I didn't quite understand if it does better with or without it on) for very precise models
Watched this… as usual Thomas makes perfect sense… ordered a 0.6mm nozzle straight away… arrived this morning… sadly am away for a week so will have to wait, but have perfect model waiting for when I get back!!
Greate video. I really look forward to Arachne. I made the switch to 0.8 nozzle on all my printers including my Prusa Mini. Two MK3 series printers have the Slice Mosquito. On the Mine, I used the Bondtech CHT Coated Brass Nozzle to help with the flow. My favorite layer height is 0.4 and sometimes 0.5. I seriously love the time savings. I still change to 0.6 and 0.4 nozzles when detail and the aesthetics require it. Most things I print are functional parts. Initially the reduced print time was my reason for increasing nozzle size. I quickly realized stronger parts and shorter iteration time on the design process.
I swapped to a 0.6mm MicroSwiss plated nozzle on my QiDi printer a few months ago. Faster printing, change in print quality is sometimes imperceptible, ability to print at 0.3mm layer height, some parts are stronger than with 0.4mm nozzle, no clogging with fibre reinforced filament and excellent printing with TPU. Feels like an upgrade and a no-brainer 'mod' for £15.
Thank you for posting .
100% agree with your 0.6 recommendation. I switched to a 0.6 two years ago and have never looked back. I have only had some rare minor issues with thin walls. With 0.6 your walls will be stronger, you will get better layer adhesion and print faster. Now that we have variable wall thickness this is definitely the nozzle of choice, since there are really no downsides any longer. If you want ultra fine details a SLA printer is the way to go for those anyways.
I've always been partial to .5 since my first printer came with that size. Also the first layers just look so clean.
Great video. Ordered the linked nozzles on Amazon and gonna give this a go!
I've been on the fence for a while now about switching to .6, and I think this seals it. I just ordered a genuine e3d .6 for my prusa, and a 10 pack for the rest of my printers.
im printing with .6 for about 4 months now, once you change it you'll never go back (maybe just for one case print). its so much faster
If you have more than one printer, I'd recommend keeping at least one 0.4mm, one 0.8mm, and 0.4 or 0.6 for the rest. My choice of printer is mainly driven by the diameter of nozzle I wanted to use and you gotta admit sometimes you just wanted something fast without caring a bit about the details.
@@harrytsang1501 I have a Cetus2 on the way, and that printer will be handling the one part we print that has top detail and dual extrusion, so I'll likely keep that as .4 or even drop it to .2. I print that part at .1mm layer height for good dimensional accuracy. It's a really short print, so I help the automatic build changer is usable, so I can auto swap the beds while I sleep (each print is 3 hours). I could see keeping one of the faster printers running a .4 tho! :)
I have a resin printer for details. This is going to be a game changer for me.
First, try increasing your extrusion width and layer height to what you would use for 0.6 mm. You may be surprised that you can extrude quite a lot of material through a 0.4mm nozzle.
one thing that's extremely overlooked, especially for simple, chunky, structural prints, is what i like to call "overprinting": even with just with a 0.4mm nozzle, it's no problem at all to print line widths of .8 and up to 1.5mm, and layers of .5 to 0.7mm. of course this is situational, but it works like a charm to print rock solid PETG parts "hot and slow", as well as in vase mode. not for everybody or every print, but interresting to play around with, especially with what the arachne engine promises! i'll most definately have to play around with this.
Yeah, I don't get that either. Especially in vase mode, when I want thicker walls, I just set the extrusion width to 1mm and that's it. Why would I bother changing the nozzle? Most of the time I print with 0.5mm as most of my technical designs have walls that are multiples of 0.5mm thick. In general I optimize my extrusion with between 0.4mm and ~0.8mm depending on the print to get fast printing and less gap fill. I'm desperately waiting for a variable extrusion width feature where I just set the min and max extrusion width I want and the slicer decides. That arachne looks interesting, never heard of it...
@@RoterFruchtZwerg Vase mode is quite an extreme scenario not really encountered normally in the wild. Tried overextruding a few times but the parts just don't hold dimensions reliably anymore. They might look good enough, but would behave too unexpectedly to fit in real-life applications. Also it damages the nozzle MUCH faster since it's getting a lot of pressure at the exit. I'd expect that a 0.4 nozzle would actually become a 0.6 nozzle after a month of intensive printing.
if the target extrusion width doesn't fit comfortably under the nozzle's tip, or the tip's face isn't uniform, it will probably mess up dimensional accuracy & cause weird blobbing etc. meaning it's one of those things were it makes sense to use reputable/well-machined nozzles...
Great explanation of arachne. Thanks!
I switched to 0.6 last year and the print time improvements were so drastic I never looked back. It's rare that I need or notice the extra detail. Can't wait to try Arachne, maybe it will be time to level up to 0.8 CHT nozzle instead.
..or you can create setup profile with 0.4mm nozzle to print 0.6mm linewidth and increased speed to get the same results. I'm no expert in 3D printing but I get the same results or even better with these settings. There are several videos how to and what to do. I still think the 0.4mm nozzle is still the best option for most of us!
I'd go further. I print with a .3 nozzle and only have about a 10% hit in max flow rate. I print at 0.6 line width frequently. I've even printed with 1.0 linewidth with this nozzle. I've been tempted to test my .2 or even a .1 nozzle and see how much of a difference that makes. Honestly, the "big" hit is that the smaller nozzle means shorter layers. But if I'm printing at the same flow rate, that is mitigated by quite a bit.
I think 0.4mm nozzle have been more than enough for printing threads ect. Like Thomas said in the video it has been compromise to find the golden center line for most of the printers and parts.
@@screet123 I think you are missing what I am saying. I'm saying that I'm getting effectively the *same* print time with my 0.3 nozzle as when I was running a 0.4 with about a 10% difference. The quality is certainly no worse. I'm not saying I get better detail. (I do) The only reason to go with a bigger nozzle is if your gantry is your limiting factor and that would be because you are wanting to print in line widths *greater* than 1mm. My guess is that Thomas is making the assumption (incorrectly) that linewidths need to be within 25% of the nozzle diameter. They don't. (Case in point, I can print with a 0.3 nozzle at 1mm line width with no problem.) I think the best way to look at it is that your nozzle diameter is the minimum line-width you can get, maximum is dictated by the flat part of your nozzle. Your cooling, gantry and maximum flow rate dictate the width within that range that you can get away with. The flow rate is from the hot end and the nozzle diameter/nozzle itself. A smaller nozzle diameter does mean a lower maximum flow rate but it is not linear relative to the nozzle diameter. Something like 10% per .1mm from 0.4mm nozzles. (So a .8 would let your flow rate be about 40% higher.) The reality is that unless you need to print a large volume of plastic for strength reasons, your limit is going to be dictated by your gantry's rigidity, maximum speed and acceleration. The ender 3 can manage about 50mm/s maximum while printing. That means that unless you are printing at 1mm line widths at .2 layer height, you aren't maxing out your flow rate. So, with all of that, unless you need to print at >15 cubic mm/s (maximum for a v6) I don't see the value in going with a larger nozzle when you can increase your line-widths. Oh, and increase line widths helps a *lot* with overhangs. It does hurt bridges however.
I agree 100% Starting with my Lulzbot at .5mm, I didn't notice any appreciable difference than on my MK3S+ with .4mm. Only 2 of my machines now have .4's in them...Prusa Mini+ and Kingroon KP3S, and my large format machines use .8mm. Everything else is .5mm or .6mm. Great topic and explanation, moving our hobby forward!
How's your experience with the Kingroon? They are still quite rare, but the build looks solid for the price, especially the large model.
@@Thierry080 I absolutely love my KP3S. I printed: full base to house the p.s., display relocator that moves the display forward and puts it at an angle for easier use and monitoring during a print, and a spool holder/z rod brace atop the 2040 extrusion. Botbit BMG clone(I don't care for titan extruders) with a Red Lizard K3 high flow hotend with .4 nozzle x, 5015 pc fan and 40mm noctua heatsink fan. I did all this after this inexpensive little machine easily earned the @$85 upgrades and now it's one of my go to machines for small parts of ANY material!!!
Excellent video, thanks for doing the test research and analysis.Have not switched on the Arachne engine in Cura, going to it now. Thank you to everyone who comments on this channel, your ideas and feedback are very valuable and much appreciated !
Very helpful , many thanks Thomas👌
I've been primarily printing with 0.6 for years. Can't wait for arachni to be full release quality - might be time to move to 0.8 as my primary size 😁
I have recently bought a second hand Anet A8 with a bad hot end, plan was to make it into a higher speed, low definition printer for handles, brackets, battery holders, bezels etc. Stuff where details don't matter at all. Was planning on going 0.6mm nozzle @0.3mm layer hight, but now maybe it needs a 0.8@0.4mm layer - or maybe even 0.8@0.6mm layer height... What hot end are you using?
@@antontaylor4530 e3d v6. Nozzle swaps aren't bad with the right tool, I love the Zcatch tool, and swap as needed. A 0.8 can really lay down a lot of plastic, to the point that you might need to reduce motion speeds so the hotend can keep up with melting the filament. I view this as a good thing, because you get less ringing, vibration, and overall less noise. But realize you can probably reach the same flow rates with a smaller nozzle and higher move speeds too. There's always trade offs and balances to be found.
@@antontaylor4530 throw a volcano 0.8 on that anet with a cheap e3d mount. will change your life. titan extruder clone might help too. that's my setup currently, printing thick storage containers
Wow, might have to try making a printing press with those arachne settings. The text and thin perimeters made it a hassle to print before
Please do I don't have the cad skills but I would love a good Ole printing press .... I only have an ender 3 so I'm a little bed limited
Thank you, as always, informative!
Thanks Thomas, awesome video as usual!
Kinda unfair to compare 0.4 classic with 0.6 arachne. Sure it might be interesting to see that 0.6 can do what 0.4 did before, but with arachne 0.4 will STILL be more detailed than 0.6 for those that need it. Personally I still going to run 0.2 for some of my prints because I want as much details as possible, and with arachne it going to look so good! Oh and btw, at 13:18 it was quite easy to spot the difference between the to benchies, just look at those arcs ;)
Yep. The video is here to support Tom’s pre-formed opinion, not make a fair comparison that would let viewers make up their own mind.
Tom was pretty clear that the objective of the exercise was, and stuck to it. There are two variables here: nozzle size 0.4 vs 0.6 and slicing algorithm classiv vs with arachne. I think we already know what the just changing one of these variables will produce. Larger nozzle = faster but lower resolution result. Arachne produces higher resolution result vs classic. So Tom focused on 0.4 classic vs 0.6 arachne, with the question being whether arachne's faster print would also be sufficient quality to replace 0.4 classic. Nothing unfair about that.
@@MartinKoistinen The video makes an entirely fair comparison between the two alternatives compared. The other possible comparisons produce rather obvious results, so of less interest.
How is the weight difference of the printed parts between 0.4mm default vs. 0.6mm arachne? (I mainly avoided 0.6mm in the past because the parts got straight 50% heavier and therefore used 50% more filament. So it would be interesting to see your point of view on this aspect.)
i guess it's upto if it's possible to specify wall thickness instead of outer wall count etc. Then slicer could make 2x0.4 slices which speed wise the same but material wise also the same as 0.4 nozzle. For me I have always used 150% inflill even on 0.4 nozzle (so it will try to print as 0.6 nozzle then using 0.4 nozzle). it will make thicker infill and in the same time I would reduce infill percentage which would reduce print moves but still would have thicker-stronger infill).
Thank you for all the information you have just shared here. I think that is quite an important one especially in nowadays there is a lot of speedy printers that can make all the parts run to its limits. So thank you for all these tips you have provided and test You have done. I will gladly use them on my machine and share something I found out by myself with others.
I totally agree. I switched recently and was amazed by the benefits.
8:24 Small comment, you changed two variables at the same time there, that makes it harder to say if the nozzle or algorithm done the improvements. I know what you are showing is that with the algorithm and the 0.6mm you can see what it can do, but what about the 0.4mm with the algorithm change? How would that also improve the print quality? It just feels a little bias as not showing what the 0.4mm can do with the new algorithm. It's a minor thing (like I said I get the point of what you are saying), just feels you skipped a somewhat fair comparison 😉
Agreed. He does say that 0.4 with arachne is fine as well. Just not as quick
The Best of two Worlds. 0.4mm makes you print fast with details. 0.6 print fast, 0.25mm print nice. IMO the nicest Nozzle is a actually a Bondtech CHT 0.6 nozzle with Prusa Slicer 2.5 Alpha 3. Print ultra fast and nice.
Great overview! For some parts I definitely would prefer more detail (resin is not an option for me) and for others more speed (with thicker layers, too). I might just have to give the 0.6mm a go!
The thumbnail is clever, throwing out the .4 nozzle like how andy threw out woody.
Whoa what is that nozzle? It has the ptfe tube combined with the normal nozzle?
It's E3D's Revo nozzle - no PTFE involved!
@@MadeWithLayers I’ll look into it. Thanks
Wouldn't simply using an extrusion width of 0.6mm with an 0.4mm nozzle provide the same or similar benefits? Also, Stephan showed in tests that printing with a nozzle width that is wider than the nozzle (150% to 200%) improves layer adhesion and makes prints stronger.
That works great, I printed a lot of nylon on a 0.4mm nozzle with 0.6mm extrusion width, and similarly have printed smaller than 0.6 on a 0.6 nozzle. But I guess the point of the video is more that 0.6 is a better starting point for what most people print, giving you a more sensible default mid point for extrusion width.
Until you're flow rate bound, it shouldn't make much difference at all except possibly on overhangs where the fluid dynamics get weird, and then I'm not sure which is better.
Great video. I went with .6 almost from start since I don't need details either. Happy with quality but will try this arachne and see if it will be even better. Didn't know about it. Thanks!
actcually, as of know, Arachne seems to be the default setting. At least it was for me. Could explain why I think it is so good :)
Great video...as always. Silk avocado shirt is classy. Thank you for the great info.
One shouldn't extrude lines the same width as that of the nozzle hole for best quality and speed anyways. A 0.4mm nozzle can print up to 1mm lines accurately in one go and can print a line 4mm to 10mm thick in one go with varying degrees of accuracy. Look for the channel "Lost in Tech" I was able to replicate a lot of his results on my printer with some varying degrees of success.
You also loose accuracy if you print at narrower widths than your nozzle's hole.
I totally agree, but changing it out has never gone well for me. I carefully follow the instructions for so called "hot tightening", but always run into problems later down the line when the filament leaks out from the top of the heater block! But a pre-tightened nozzle/hotend (from e3d), has yet to fail. Maybe I should switch to a design that can't fail that way i.e revo, but I don't want revo because of the patent issue.
same, I really want to switch to revo but I feel like their patenting (whether it has any legal standing or not) isn't In the spirit of 3d printing
It just sounds like the tolerances on your hotend might be off, maybe being an earlier revision from E3D. I'd sell it and try to get a different one if I were you.
@@theninjascientist689 I have an idea. Super volcano nozzles fit directly into V6 2.85mm HeatSink, I need a metal lathe to turn down the middle into a heat break.... Not sure of the thermal characteristics/strength of brass will work as well for a heat break, but it avoids the hole issue of leaks and filament clogging due to the join...
@@Cheeky_Goose I bought a whole new fully assembled and factory tightened nozzle/hotend from e3d. (which is what I was eluding to). Unfortunately they only offer a 0.4mm v6 prefab currently.
I've been using 0.6 and 0.5 nozzles for years. Very few prints have details requiring smaller nozzles, and the speed benefits make it a no-brainer decision. Nice that the slicers are get smarter about fine details. Hopefully now I won't have to change nozzles for fine detailed prints, but I've already switched most of those to my resin printer instead anyway.
Excellent video! Should not have had a break from watching these as I just got a parcel with 0.8 and 0.25 nozzles in. I'll keep an eye out for arachne. I wonder how it works with 0.25 nozzle and printing miniatures. Will have to see.
As a .6 nozzle user, I'd really like to believe it's true, but .4 is pretty much better. I agree that .6 got a lot better and might be as good as .4 used to be, but arachne made .4 better too. You'd be better using .4 with .6 wall.
I agree with your assessment but something I would've liked you to point out that using a bigger nozzle diameter, while faster, generally also causes prints to use more material. Meaning it is more wastefull. Which some enthusiasts might not like.
but is that true? surely the mass of the print remains the same or at least very very similar... i mean, it's still printing the same geometry isn't it?
SO informative! Very well done
Ordering .6 nozzles , thank you. I do solid infill hard use parts. This will speed up production.
You might also want to consider filament use. You will likely want to print two perimeters with both 0.4mm and 0.6mm nozzle. But two perimeters in 0.6mm are are way more material. Also infill. Mind that this mostly exists to lay down the top layer nicely. Thicker infill is less useful than more infill lines in that regard. A 0.6mm nozzle will create thicker infill using more filament.
But if you use 3 perimeters normally (3x0 .4=1.2), a 0.6mm nozzle only needs 2 (2x0.6=1.2)
It is possible to print infill a way smaller than the nozzle. Since the flow is reduced the speed can be increased without needing an high flow nozzle. It save a lot of material and time and it still can hold the top layer. Internal wall can also be printed a bit smaller than the nozzle if the layer are thin enough to allow the plastic to still squeeze a little.
@@jojodroid31 True. But I'm already using 2 perimeters with my 0.4mm nozzle and am mostly happy with the strength of the parts. So in my case it would be an increase in material.
By comparing 0.4 classic slicer prints and 0.6 arachne prints really tells us very little. Like if you're trying to prove that 0.6 is better or just as good as 0.4 this can't tell us that. And if you want to show that arachne is better than classic slicing, this also can't show that. Like idk why you did this, it's just really hard to get anything out of this experiment since you are using 2 different independent variables with two possibilities each but only are showing two possible combinations 🙃
Very informative. Thank you Tom. Liked and subscribed
Seriously impressed. I'm gonna have to try it out
I have a 0.6mm nozzle on all my machines, great for all around 3d printing
I came to this conclusion over a year ago by experimentation. The goal being to print as fast as possible yet maintain good quality.
Same. the speed boost was 100% worth it with no real noticeable decrease in print quality
Couldn't agree more. Have been printing with 0.6 for over a year now. A good mix between prototyping print speeds and quality.
Great video! Stefan from CNC Kitchen has shown that you can even print 0.8 lines with a 0.4 nozzle. So why not just set the line width to 0.6 and enjoy the same advantages? As long as you don't need the increased layer height.
Another great video, thank you Thomas, there is still a lot of potential in slicer development. Thank you for explaining the new Arachne features. Making yt videos, you need to have an eyecatching headline, and you did very well on this one again. But I'm sure you are aware that the conclusion is very personal. I would definetly prefer having the chance for more detailed FDM prints over the faster print times. Nearly all of my prints are functional and I'm quite often facing resolution limitations. I'm longing for more detailed prints without the mess of SLA printind and the chemical waste. I'd like to see a video that compares the print quality standard vs arachne on a 0.4 nozzle. BR and keep on with your very good and technical focused videos.