Yes and No
I did a first test of the .3mm nozzle: It works, but the extruder is very unreliable. Lots of jams, although I did a “clean, new assembly” including a M6 nut supporting the retainer washer.
Not sure what’s going wrong. I’ll disassemble and rebuild the extruder again tomorrow and give it another shot.
The photo shows one of the .3mm test extrusions compared to a standard .5mm test extrusion.
I did a first test of the .3mm nozzle: It works, but the extruder is very unreliable. Lots of jams, although I did a "clean, new assembly" including a M6 nut supporting the retainer washer.
Not sure what's going wrong. I'll disassemble and rebuild the extruder again tomorrow and give it another shot.
The photo shows one of the .3mm test extrusions compared to a standard .5mm test extrusion.
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on Monday, November 2nd, 2009 at 23:46 and is filed under Experimental, MakerBot enhancements.
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Zaggo – would you elaborate on the jamming issue. Is it stripping filament, stalling the motor, both? How long will it run before it jams? Can you tell if the filament is getting contorted just after the pinch wheel pulley. When it is flowing from the nozzle is it smooth and consistent like what you get from 0.5 or is it twitchy and anemic? The sample in the photo looks very good.
You are doing really great stuff…I’m looking forward to your results…
Rick
It is problems with the increased pressure, needed by the smaller nozzle. At my first try, the high pressure of the filament destroyed my Printruder after approx 10 cm extrusion :)
After that I reactivated the original MK3 extruder and modified the front retainer plate with a Dremel to be a MK4 extruder (i.e. the motor still has support from the additional ball bearing). I use a double idler wheel in this extruder.
With this setup (and a completely cleaned and rebuild heater section, just to be sure), I was able to extrude approx. 120 cm before the filament stripped. I tried this several times. When giving the filament a little more room between the pinch wheel and the idler wheel (~ 2.5mm), the filament slipped before starting an extrusion. Going back to 2mm spacing brought back an extrusion but the filament got stripped again after extruding 50-100cm.
I’m currently rebuilding the extruder with the standard .5mm nozzle. I’ll first print a new printruder base plate and motor bracket (both destroyed by my first test). I changed the design to be stronger and hopefully withstand the higher pressures needed when extruding with a .3mm nozzle.
Although it wasn’t nice to see my Printruder distroyed, at least it proofed that the pinch wheel/bearing construction seems to be much stronger than the rest of the construction…
Sorry to hear about the printruder. Maybe I should attach warning labels!!