CTC 0.10164mm Print Test

[Njoro]

"so I've been printing using 0.4mm nozzles" but when I tried 0.2mm it was a disaster, the extrusion was inconsistent and I put the idea aside for awhile. Over the last couple of weeks I ordered the all alloy extruder off Ebay; they are not plug and play as it turned out the springs are way too strong which meant the toothed drive was biting too deep.
Also the the filament pass through holes were miss-aligned, which meant having to move the motors back by about 3mm; lucky for me we laser cut 3mm Ali a lot and the perimeter waste from some off-cuts come out at 10-12mm wide which is perfect for a long shim to move both motors back.
I had to "guesstimate" where to cut the springs one spring needed ½ a turn off while the other side was ¾ turn cut off.
I replaced the hot end blocks for new ones which I thought would come handed but both the blocks were identical in regards to the tiny grub-screw that locks the thermistor in place; One grub screw is now inaccessible from the bottom of the hot end block "small inconvenience".
I experimented with a levelled and locked build plate by simply placing 4 small identical width M3 nuts under the build plate and tightening the build plate against them; for this idear to work I've had to modify the heat sinks by cutting the bottom most fin off and milling a notch to allow access to the extruder grub-screw, now I just allow the hot end to rest on a feeler gauge. The picture is of an open test cube with the nozzle set at 0.1064mm or around .0004Inch.

I've used a thicker hot end "insulation" which has helped in controlling the temperature, there is no deviation in temperature at all from the set 184 degrees. I reduced the print speed to 30mm/sec to see how that runs,I've re-printed the PLA gears for a 360" pan and they are amazingly well printed.

"Hmm" unable to add image? any help welcome!

[rob.thomson]

Nice.

I used to print all the time with 0.2mm.   

Eventually I just went back to 0.4 for a few reasons.

1.   0.2 really makes it hard go get the bed level.  Any deviation of less than 0.2 and your later does not go down.

2.   Constant extruder jams.    With a small nozzle..    You need to keep the filament very free of dust.     My workahop is not a dust free... So always needed up with clogs.

3. Speed.   0.2 is just soo slow.

That being said..  0.2 gives lovely quality.

[Njoro]

"Hmm" unable to add image? any help welcome!

:o "ahh I get it" "need to wait a bit for it to upload". :laugh:

[Njoro]

Nice.

I used to print all the time with 0.2mm.   

Eventually I just went back to 0.4 for a few reasons.

1.   0.2 really makes it hard go get the bed level.  Any deviation of less than 0.2 and your later does not go down.

2.   Constant extruder jams.    With a small nozzle..    You need to keep the filament very free of dust.     My workahop is not a dust free... So always needed up with clogs.

3. Speed.   0.2 is just soo slow.

That being said..  0.2 gives lovely quality.

Agree it's too slow, that cube printed without any "clicks or jams", I forgot to mention that I bore out the tip to 3mm to accommodate the silicone tube and it then took over an hour to unblock a tiny slither of brass out of the hole. :laugh: