Polycarbonate?! Is there a need for these technical materials in 3D printing? Don't forget to like & subscribe and share this video on Facebook, Reddit, Twitter, and other platforms!
Please check out Priline PC-CF. I've been using that stuff for a couple years now (I think it's only available on amazon) I'm a mechanical engineer and I use this stuff for everything (mounts, brackets, etc.) I print this using my prusa mk3 and Railcore using profiles for prusaslicer for atomic CF-PETG. Thank you for your amazing content! It helps to educate me and allows me to help make proper decisions for my engineering models!
So would you consider using this for Voron parts given the strength and heat properties? I wonder how PC creeps? That would make a great test series, the creep characteristics of different materials. Also how common lubricants effect strength over time. We really need you to become a full time you tuber so you can answer all the questions!
I was always told to increase the temp by 10 degrees for steel nozzles for what that’s worth, I also confirmed my A2 nozzles and Nozzle X benefit from this on all materials
Yeah the prints from the steel nozzle are weaker because the extruded plastic is colder. Steel is less conductive so heat transfer into the material is slower.
@@zakariakhamees I mean if you do a lot of technical stuff why not? Some projects of mine require several kg of plastic and with a E3D SuperVulcano it is not a problem. With a 1mm nozzle I get over 50mm^3 / s of material flow and over 70mm^3/s with 1.2mm. So given the denstiy of plastics is usually between 1.2g/cm^3 - 1.4g/cm^3 I run between 220g/h (50mm^2/s and 1.2g/cm^3) and 350g/h (70mm^2 and 1.4g/cm^3). In theory the SuperVulcano can go over 100mm^3/s but that requires the 1.4mm nozzle and I find that too big. But yeah for technical prints 1kg spools can be a bit of a joke. Just does not last long enough.
I greatly appreciate your focus on exotic engineering filaments and testing procedures. You've been an excellent resource for supplementing my design process for functional parts. Cheers.
@@seanwieland9763 Agreed. Though I wasn't necessarily talking about this specific filament, but rather his channel in general. I am cautiously optimistic that PC will replace ABS as my "go to" functional filament. I tend to print pretty large prints (machine parts, jigs, robot chassis) and even in my 50C chamber printer I get a bit too much warp for fitment on parts with my current PC. PC-CF is pretty stable, though. Might have to add active heating.
@@coltonmccormack8978 I want to try PC-CF but it is kinda expensive and requires hardened nozzles. Yeah, I wish polycarbonate should become a common filament along with PLA and PETG. There are some properties of ABS that just suck, its smell and its low tensile strength. PC is far stronger than ABS and should be appreciated more!
It looks like Prusa just changed the formula on this 3 days ago and it is now less dense. I wonder how much that affects its properties. From Prusa: "Prusament PC Blend has a new formula since 9. 6. 2021 The material density is now slightly lower than before, resulting in a minimal spool weight of 970 g. The approximate length of the filament is 330 m - the same length as the standard Prusament."
Stronger filaments will always be useful for prototyping and functional parts. I'd love to see an engineering materials strength test and comparison. PEEK ,PEKK PEEK blends, PC, Carbon Fiber variants!
@@xxxm981 I think slice engineering and volcano make hotends for it but maybe he could have test parts printed by VisionMiner or something because they never seem to do strength tests.
Jup, very likely. On my first printer i usually had to up them by 5-10°C after installing a SS nozzle. But that's what i would expect to be the crulpit in this case too. But i'm sure Stefan will figure that out way more excessive and in detail in the close future. 🤣
I thought the same, you probably need to re-tune your print temp when using a different nozzle material as well as potentially running pid auto tune to calibrate for the change in thermal property of the nozzle. Also for the best results it may have been better to tune the temp to start with instead of using the stock profile.
In my experiance printing with the E3D Nozzel-X I needed to raise the temps by 10-20 degrees to get good results. Switching to a copper heat block (from the stock aluminium) negated this.
Where is the Prudament PC Carbon Fiber video? You mentioned it was coming soon, 7 months ago. Eitherway, thanks for all you do for the 3D printing community.
Stefan's scientific approach is extremely valuable - and so far at least apparently unique. Those is the "go to" channel for genuinely science-based reviews.
Thanks for the nice video as usual! I use a tungsten carbide nozzle and to me it was life changing: no thermal issue or difference with brass, but no wear out at all, even after kilos of PA-CF. I see you mostly don t mention tungsten carbide nozzles, but it is a superb addition to my machines
I use a hardened steel one for carbon filament. Printing my standard filament, I have to raise 5 to 10 degrees and also reduce the speed a little bit to avoid clogging
The brass nozzle wore out and so was wider than the steel, this is why adhesion was improved. If you added an extrusion multiplier to the steel nozzle you’d get the same effect
I would also say due to the worse heat dissipation you should use 5-10 degrees higher temperature. I also found layer adhesion is worse when same print temp is used
So what I'm hearing is that we need a comprehensive guide on different types of nozzle materials and types, from simple brass and steel, to fancy stuff, like brass with sapphire tip, or nickel plated copper. Looking forward to it
Thank you for the video. Great as always. Cheers Mate. I print with PC Blend on my Prusa MK3S eoth the hardened steel nozzle. I had to increase the nozzle temperature by 5 to 10C. I also print within an enclosure as I print large parts and warping is possible without an enclosure.
Dude.. You work so HARD!! WOW. I'm probably a step below beginner at this point and its so encouraging to see the information that you and so many other folks have already put out! Thank you.
Have you ever tried testing 3DXTech brand filament? They’re supposed to have some of the best mechanical properties for each type of filament they offer, along with the benefit of being easy to print
I would LOVE to see a video with some comparisons of print strengths with different nozzle types. It surely makes sense that it would produce different results as the different materials nozzles would be made of have different specific heat values, and would probably transfer heat to the plastic in different ways.
In my opinion, strength decrease due to steel nozzle is because of very low thermal conductivity of steels. Brass has about 120 W/mK thermal conductivity while steels has around 15-80 W/mK. I experience the same problem with my ruby nozzle and to solve that, i print slower and hotter then the normal brass nozzle with ruby. This subject could be a video topic for you :) You may want to catch up brass nozzle printed part's strength by slowing down steel nozzle printed parts speed and compare the results.
I had this same thought the other day. We know that printing hotter can increase strength, but too hot can degrade a filament. What about printing at the higher end of a temp range, but super slow? You want to melt the plastic as thoroughly as possible, but not destroy it.
This is the correct answer. For steel nozzles you have to increase temps 5-10 degrees and sometimes print a bit slower (depends on how fast you are already printing). I wish he had increased the temp for these tests
If the steel nozzle is hurting layer adhesion (presumably) due to lower thermal conductivity compared to brass, I wonder if a nickel plated copper nozzle would do the opposite 🤔
@@Sembazuru Copper is the most thermally conductive material with a thermal conductivity of about 400W/mK. Brass has about 120, but depending on the specific alloy it could be different. For steel it is hard to say, since it really depends on the alloy, but should be more in the range 30-60
This is why I use tungsten nozzles. Better thermal conductivity than brass (170w/mk vs 110) and it's naturally a hard material. I haven't done any strength tests of nozzle material and temp. Would be interesting to see the showdown.
Its definitely the thermal properties of the nozzle that affects layer adhesion. From your test, the brass nozzle almost got double the performance of the steel one for layer adhesion. This makes sense because the thermal conductivity of brass is about 110 W/mK compared to steel at 52 W/mK. Layer adhesion would even be way better if you used a copper nozzle because it's more conductive at 385 W/mK. I think you should make a video comparing few nozzle materials and see the results 👍🏻
I have noticed the difference between nozzle types before with clear PETG. Using a nickel plated copper nozzle the print is glossy and semi-transparent, while using a steel nozzle the print has a matte look and is almost white instead of semi-transparent. There is also enough of an impact on layer adhesion that I can feel the difference with my hands on thin walled parts. I think the benefit of using a nozzle with higher thermal conductivity vs. just increasing the temperature is that a nozzle with higher conductivity allows you to print with a larger range of speeds during the same print. If the temperature is increased for a steel nozzle, the filament will start to degrade faster at slower speeds when the thermal conductivity is less of an issue. I am also not 100% sure that temperature is the only factor, since after increasing the temperature with a steel nozzle I looked at the top layer surface using a microscope and compared the steel nozzle to the nickel plated copper nozzle. To me it looked like the part printed with the nickel plated nozzle was much smoother at a small scale. Almost as if the rougher surface finish or higher plastic adhesion properties of the steel nozzle caused the layer surface to be rougher. This could then cause tiny air bubbles to get trapped inside the layers as the next layer is put down, reducing the layer adhesion strength.
I'd love to see a comparison of nozzles made of different materials. I never really gave it any thought before, but you're absolutely right that different metals' thermal properties would affect the result.
The perfect winding is what I noticed when you showed the spool of black PC filament. I thought you rewinded it that way. WOW. Compared to other filament makers this is really neat.
I'd love to see a series testing different nozzle materials. I'd also like to see a comparison of volcano style vs normal length nozzles with the same heater and orifice specs.
Very interesting results.. Think this is the first PC that I have seen that actually stands up to moisture. Will be keeping this material in mind for future projects.
Prusa claims that their PC Blend can be annealed for better temperature resistance. It would be interesting to see how the other physical properties are affected by annealing and how annealed PC Blend compares to annealed PLA in the thermal test.
For the nozzle material observation it has been observed in the past and mostly attributed to thermal conductivity. I think it is a combination of thermal conductivity, thermal capacity of the nozzle material and internal surface finish. The process of hardening the steel after machining I think affects the internal surface finish. Less smooth finish internally for the nozzle usually means less fully melted material. You can easily get matt finish PLA prints with a hardened steel nozzle because of this. This is also why I think nickel plated copper nozzles are the best type of nozzles for engineering materials that are not abrassive. It would be interesting if you compared E3D nozzles brass, nickel plated copper, hardened steel, nozzleX and slice engineering vanadium nozzles. Also looking forward to the PC CF Prusament results.
Just found this channel a few days ago...its awesome. I would love to see a discussion on 3D printing molds for vacuum forming, the pro/cons of various materials and how well they hold up after multiple pulls, deformation, materials with good porosity, thermal impacts from the heated plastic sheets of HIPS, PETG, and ABS.
Most polymers don't bond to carbon fiber unless you get nano silica. It might make it weaker. Plus most carbon fiber filament is sketchy short fibers not medium to long continuous strands which would be stronger.
@@brandonsmoot4056 yeah, I’m not convinced the benefits of CF outweigh the cost or the wear and tear. Other polymer blends like PC-PBT look more promising, but I haven’t done a formal test like this.
Great comparison between brass and hardened steel. because steel does not conduct heat as well, this is expected. It is also why we run the hardened nozzles at least 10C above their brass counterparts!
Love these videos! On the topic of layer adhesion, have you tried testing samples printed in a heated chamber? Especially with these higher temperature materials, I would expect the layer adhesion to improve substantially.
I definitely encountered the same difference when going from brass to hardened steel nozzles. In my own testing, I had to up the temperature 20C in order to get similar results. For example, normally I print PLA at 205C, but switching to HS nozzle, I'd up it to around 225C. When I first encountered this I was very surprised. I ended up making up two identical hotends that I could quickly swap between on my MK3S in order to do back to back tests, same gcode, just different nozzle. And yeah, that's when I isolated it down to the HS nozzle being the cause of the poor layer adhesion.
I never realized how high PLA rates across the board in total. It's not very often that the "most basic" option is also among the best in most respects.
You should test PVP Polymer (Polyvinylpyrrolidone) as a bed adhesion material. I have been using this for quite a while and it works great on ABS, PLA, and PETG. I haven’t tested other materials. Most impressive is ABS. It will not separate from the bed until the bed has cooled close to room temp. I use standard bed temperatures that you would use with a PEI print surface. Apply the PVP to a PEI bed or better yet use Garolite as the print surface. I dissolve 0.2% PVP in denatured alcohol by weight, then simply wet the bed with this solution and let it dry. PVP is available in powder form as cosmetics materials. You can even get it from Amazon.
I really like it for automotive use, better temp capabilites than abs/asa, strong, easy to print (in enclosure), not hygroscopic like nylon (big plus), cheap compared to similar spec materials etc, preordered the pccf version to get additional temp properties, looks promising.
Hi Stefan, Thanks a lot for the informative video. I would like to suggest making a competitive video of creep resistance of different materials, as this is a very fundamental property for some applications. Keep up the good work, and thank you again.
Thanks for that review Stefan - I've been wondering when you would get around to it! I've made some fairly large prints using Prusament PC Blend, and found that even if I use a good covering of the glue stick, the part's tendency to warp is strong enough to actually curl the magnetic sheet up away from the build plate. I solved this problem by using bulldog clips - placing one at the very rear centre of the plate, and one each side at the very front - all places where it won't foul the Z-axis motors. I wait until the Z-axis has reached about 5mm before pausing the print and adding these clips (also removing the clip handles). This has given me some success with a part which is a triangular axle mount for a garden cart, about 190mm per side. It's amazing how strong this material is, and I have the carbon fibre variant on backorder as well!
Another great informative video. However, in watching it...particularly having switched between the brass & steel nozzles...an idea popped into my head. I'm certain that the great majority of those watching your comparison videos greatly enjoys the material comparisons...but, I have a strong feeling that there are others who, like me, would really like to see at least one video comparing nozzles, especially in regards to the most popular/common filaments. A perfect example would be the Olson Ruby nozzles. People are familiar with the standard brass & steel nozzles...but, they're probably less familiar (many not even knowing anything about) the various Olson Ruby nozzles, such as the one made with brass, and the one made using a copper alloy. While these 'specialty' nozzles were originally created for use with more abrasive filaments (such as those containing carbon fiber), I don't see why they couldn't be used with the more common (PLA, PETG, etc) filaments. So...how about it? How about doing some nozzle comparison videos, comparing at least one (probably the brass) version of the Olson Ruby nozzles against the 'standard' brass & steel nozzles?
Interesting video! I had similar issues with hardened nozzles. Even standard Nylon became brittle and weak. Therefore I use Microswiss's plated nozzles mostly or DyzeDesign's tungsten nozzles. The latter don't fit a regular hotend though. I haven't tried the ruby nozzle yet which might be interesting to put to the test.
I've heard before that with Nylon drying it prior to printing creates best results for quality, but in the printed state to achieve best results, the printed part should be allowed to reabsorb moisture prior to use. Is it possible there is a similar property with PC?
PC will not improve its properties after printing by absorbing moisture. Nylon indeed does not improve uts properties. It just loses stiffness and therefore is less brittle. Which may or may not be an advantage, depending on your application.
Water is acting as a plasticiser in Polyamides, so it makes them tougher. Afaik this is NOT the case with PC and also the overall moisture uptake is way smaller.
110% agree with engineering materials to be offered in 500g spools. It would make it affordable as the most common way to use them, i think, is to print PLA part first, iterate the design using cheap materials and then print it once with the proper one.
I do a lot of prints with PLA and PETG with carbon fiber. They provide great strength and superb print quality. Sometimes they don’t even look like 3d prints. I’ve tried more than 5 brands of hardened steel nozzle… In the end I decided that using a brass nozzle for each 300 grams of fiber filament works better than any of the hardened ones. Even with increased temperatures, print quality and strength are greatly decreased with the steel ones.
This is great! Would also like to see a review of PC-PBT. So wonderful to see the 3D printing community finally start to take polycarbonate blends seriously - especially for functional parts.
@@digibluh thermal a big issue with different materials for the nozzle, but also if the filament path is worn so that some areas of the nozzle aren't in contact with the filament then that could be a cause for even less heat transference (air is a relatively good insulator). My point was mainly aimed at 'Prosumer' level printers were the manufacturer refuses to sell cheaper components like nozzles as consumables, but expects the owner to buy a complete hotend, for about ten times the price. Apparently we don't have the skills required to hot change a nozzle, but are able to swap out any other components as long as we buy proprietary. It's also unnecessarily wastefull replacing all those components, for a bit of steel, brass or copper.
Are you interested in testing the affect of color on print quality and strength? I've always been skeptical, but everyone says that white ABS or ASA is bad because it requires a lot of pigment. I also wonder how much it varies between materials; I have a roll of white PETG which prints better than clear, but maybe PETG benefits because it becomes less excessively sticky.
Stefan... Respekt !! Sehr lehrreiche und professionelle Videos !! Auch die Tests, die du machst sind gut und nützlich. Neben dehn-, biege-, kerbschlag- und temperaturfestigkeiten vermisse ich die Abriebfestigkeiten im Vergleich unter den compounds. Ganz speziell wurde ich dir gerne folgende Fragen stellen: - Welches Filament würdest Du für z.B. Zahnradflanken verwenden, die einer hohen Reibung ausgesetzt wären? - was muss ich beim Kauf eines Druckers beachten und dieses Filament benutzen zu können - welche modelle an 3d Drucker kannst du empfehlen
I'd really appreciate an in-depth test between brass and steel nozzles. I've always had the feeling that I need to print hotter with my hardened steel nozzle to maintain a similar layer adhesion as with brass, but it's all guesswork and it would be nice to see this quantified!
hi Stefan, love the content as always. Are you still planning on a prusa CF filament review? (Maybe you covered it on patreon already I need to check there still).
I also wold love to see a comparison between different types of nozzles in the same dimension. Hardened, brass, brass with coatings and the ruby nozzles.
The thermal conductutivity of the nozzles is the reason for the different layer adhesions. The steel nozzle has a much lower thermal conductivity preventing the same exit temp of the filament leading to lesser layer adhesion, and it causes the material to flow less easily making the brass nozzle produce more "dense" parts from amount of filament extruded.
Ich hab schon einiges mit prusament PC gedruckt und bin extrem happy damit. Das Thema brass - Steel ist sehr spannend. Bitte untersuchen :-) Und bitte infos zum PC CF von PRusa :-) habe schon eine Rolle bestellt. hatte bsiher nur PETG mit CF und fand die oberfläche immer sehr schön. Hoffe das das bei PRusa auch so ist. und vor allem das es weniger warping gibt. Danke für deine Videos sind wie immer sehr sehr hilfreich.
I read somewhere that steel nozzles may transfer heat a bit worse than brass, so it's useful to increase print temperature by 3-4 degrees to make them work properly
You should test it without cooling fan. I tested polymax PC with and without a some cooling fan. Like most other filament, cooling fan kill the layer adhesion on PC filament.
The nozzle difference probably stems from the different thermal conduction. The gap could be closed via longer nozzles, as found in the volcanoe hotend, though, I think. Nice video!
Your experience with a hardened nozzle is very similar to my own. I thought i could have one nozzle on my printer and print everything with it, but i had horrible underextrusion with a hardened nozzle and PLA. The PLA also came out way more matte than with my brass nozzle. Two things help, either slowing down speeds or increasing temperatures. But they don't fix the problem. Now i switch between nozzles when i need to print fiberfilled materials or regular materials. I also always increase my temperatures and reduce my speeds when printing with the hardened nozzle.
When you test nozzle materials, putting plated brass in the mix would be helpful. Not only for thermals, but also wear resistance compared to hardened steel.
I just installed a plated copper nozzle from trianglelab. Which is supposed to be able to print abrasive materials. I wonder how that would go with prusament pc blend?
@@Brocknoviatch The PC blend isn't abrasive. The idea is that it's a pain to switch nozzles, so you want a nozzle that has the thermal characteristics of brass, but the toughness of hardened steel, without having to buy a ruby which might just decide to crack. But I haven't seen any good comparisons showing how well plated brass works compared to solid hardened steel with abrasives (e.g. anything with carbon fiber in it).
Didn't you have a Prusament Carbon Fiber video? Are you making one? I have some and I want to know if you have any sights I missed. It's working great but I like your insightfulness
I recently installed a hardened nozzle with a silicone sock. Reduced strength from a lack of "ironing" and direct heat transfer was a concern and it appears my concern was correct. Hopefully we can continue innovating to improve performance from more durable nozzles.
Yes, it's similar to Polymax. Warping is a big problem. It's a little bit higher than ABS. For my ABS and PC are both difficult to print without warping. Biggtest problem is to print big parts for my printer itself. I have overhangs and with fan off I can reduce warping completly but using support or printg without support it's not possible. So at the end I have very very small warping on some big parts but I use them for my printer succeful. I print with 40% infill and 4 walls and 15% fan.
One filament i'd suggest for an upcoming test is Fil-A-Gehr PPA (polyphtalamide) offering high strength and chemical-resistance at around the price of PC
It’s now a favorite of mine. Use it in a dental tool cleaning machine. PC-CF (also from Prusa) got soft and my PA was to expensive (75€, 500g). My last 2 spools came without glue sticks 😢
For testing the nozzles, it would be interesting to see not only how the material of the nozzle affects the prints, but also how much each type is affected by other factors including fan speeds, silicone socks, bed temperature, and enclosures and heated enclosures. I know this would result in many, many tests, but it could result in finding a combination that creates significantly stronger prints.
Liked before watching as I'm super interested using this for house projects, but was waiting for the CNC torture tests. :) I always print with a steel nozzle actually, needs more tuning but once done seems fine for me.
Ahoi Stefan, What a surprise. Just a couple of days ago I tried to print PLA(!) with my E3D Nozzle X (steel nozzle) at 0.3mm layer height, 0.65mm width with a 0.6mm nozzle on a Voron 2.4 with a Mosquito Magnum. Layer adhesion was awful, I could break the layers with my bare fingers, and increasing the temp to 220°C did not help. After many hours of trying different settings (even measured heatbreak temps and tried different hotend fan settings) I finally switched to a standard E3D brass nozzle and voilá, layer adhesion was superb again. Layers were printed at about 80-110 mm/s which was way below the max rated flow rate of 30-35 mm^3 a Mosquito Magnum is capable of. With the given settings 150+ mm/s should be possible. Tbh I was even more surprised that this isn't a known "topic" on the internet, on Facebook or on the Discord channels I'm in because steel nozzles aren't new on the market. I think that steel nozzles have, due their lower heat conductivity, a limitation of maximum flowrate they can be used for otherweise layer adhesion will greatly suffer. At about 25 mm^3 the adhestion was so bad that the infill began to not connect to the outer walls! Again, with 0.6mm E3D V6 brass nozzle this wasn't a issue anymore. For now, if I have to switch to a steel nozzle, I'll print really slow so layer adhesion won't be an issue. Maybe, for your next test you might also include Slice Engineering's "Bridgemaster" nozzles when you compare brass wih steel nozzles regarding layer adhesion (maybe they'll send you one)? It seems those are made out of copper and are maybe better suited for the job to survive carbon blends and also being able to maintain a high layer ahdesion due their higher temperature conductivity compared to steel . I'm about to try those soon but my scientific "can break layers with bare fingers" test isn't really meaningful :-D LG Ben
For a stiff filament that is easily printable, you can try testing FormFutura CarbonFil. My spool was quite a bit stiffer than ColourFabb XT-CF20. Also, you should try out tungsten carbide nozzles. They claim to be tougher than hardened steel nozzle with the thermal properties of brass.
My theory about the layer adhesion differences between steel and brass is that the filament acts the same way pasta does through dies made of the same material. The steel die leaves a shiny clean surface on the extruded plastic while the brass leaves a ragged more irregular surface for the proceeding layers to better adhere to.
You noticed the brass printed samples were more heavy and stronger. So I expect it is not a thermal issue, but more like the filament "flows" into the layer below. Find it hard to imagine what may be an explanation for the suggested thermal properties of the nozzle. More likely is that the wear and tear of the brass nozzle creates some string like extraction of the filament which is essentially adding a zipper-like structure between layers.
It could be a thermal issue. If the brass nozzle is able to let more thermal energy to get into the plastic then the plastic will get hotter and presumably it's viscosity should go down allowing more filament to flow out of the nozzle. Note, this is only a hypothesis.
You should try out a tungsten metal (not carbide/ceramic) nozzle instead of using steel nozzles. In the USA you can get a precision machined tungsten alloy nozzle for around $45. This will solve the issue of the nozzle having significantly lower temperature than the heatblock. Tungsten alloys have higher abrasion resistance than steel, have the lowest thermal expansion out of any usable metal (extrusion rate / nozzle opening stay same at all temps), and most importantly have waaaaay better thermal conductivity than steel.
@@Sembazuru the carbide (because carbide is a form of ceramic) has terrible thermal conductivity and results in even lower layer adhesion than a steel nozzle. this is the main issue with steel, carbide, and ruby nozzles. tungsten metal on the other hand has thermal conductivity almost on par with copper and the only material used for nozzles better than tungsten alloy is synthetic diamond. synthetic diamond nozzles ofc have the highest abrasion resistance and thermal conductivity out of any nozzle material but at a couple hundred dollars a piece to have machined verses the around ~$45 for tungsten alloy, tungsten alloy wins out as best possible performance characteristics while still making sense cost wise.
@@RazorSkinned86 TC's thermal conductivity is 110, right in the same ballpark as brass (120), which as the default nozzle material for our class pf printers can be considered the baseline. Tungsten metal is 164, not that different from brass. Granted, I think that is pure Tungsten, I'm not sure about the Tungsten alloy used for nozzles...
@@owowowdhxbxgakwlcybwxsimcwx I used microSwiss plated copper nozzles once for a big batch of HTPLA-CF and started to notice the flat tip of the nozzle started to take on a copper color. I switched to TC after that.
Polycarbonate?! Is there a need for these technical materials in 3D printing?
Don't forget to like & subscribe and share this video on Facebook, Reddit, Twitter, and other platforms!
It's mixed with pbt per their MSDS.
Also push plastics sells it in America for 50$ a kilo. Goes down to 30$ a kilo of bought in bulk.
I also print with it exclusively.
Please check out Priline PC-CF. I've been using that stuff for a couple years now (I think it's only available on amazon) I'm a mechanical engineer and I use this stuff for everything (mounts, brackets, etc.) I print this using my prusa mk3 and Railcore using profiles for prusaslicer for atomic CF-PETG. Thank you for your amazing content! It helps to educate me and allows me to help make proper decisions for my engineering models!
So would you consider using this for Voron parts given the strength and heat properties? I wonder how PC creeps? That would make a great test series, the creep characteristics of different materials. Also how common lubricants effect strength over time.
We really need you to become a full time you tuber so you can answer all the questions!
I was always told to increase the temp by 10 degrees for steel nozzles for what that’s worth, I also confirmed my A2 nozzles and Nozzle X benefit from this on all materials
Yeah the prints from the steel nozzle are weaker because the extruded plastic is colder. Steel is less conductive so heat transfer into the material is slower.
Yes, steel doesn’t retain heat as well as brass.
Interesting, if this is well known then Prusa slicer needs to add in the choice of material for hotend
@@Ebonyqwe This could easily lead to confusion if the actual printing temp is set to be different from the one desired.
@@stevenmcculloch5727 im not sure how it could be so confusing.
"Not everyone needs a 1kg spool" ... Me looking for 10kg spools...
10 kg! Are you printing a house or what? 🤣
@@zakariakhamees 1kg with a .8 nozzle is like nothing
@@ogxoutcast69 That makes sense 👍🏻
I'm over here ordering multiple 2kg spools of PETG, because I just print so much
@@zakariakhamees I mean if you do a lot of technical stuff why not? Some projects of mine require several kg of plastic and with a E3D SuperVulcano it is not a problem. With a 1mm nozzle I get over 50mm^3 / s of material flow and over 70mm^3/s with 1.2mm. So given the denstiy of plastics is usually between 1.2g/cm^3 - 1.4g/cm^3 I run between 220g/h (50mm^2/s and 1.2g/cm^3) and 350g/h (70mm^2 and 1.4g/cm^3).
In theory the SuperVulcano can go over 100mm^3/s but that requires the 1.4mm nozzle and I find that too big.
But yeah for technical prints 1kg spools can be a bit of a joke. Just does not last long enough.
I greatly appreciate your focus on exotic engineering filaments and testing procedures. You've been an excellent resource for supplementing my design process for functional parts. Cheers.
I hope that polycarbonate blends won’t be considered “exotic” much longer.
@@seanwieland9763 Agreed. Though I wasn't necessarily talking about this specific filament, but rather his channel in general. I am cautiously optimistic that PC will replace ABS as my "go to" functional filament. I tend to print pretty large prints (machine parts, jigs, robot chassis) and even in my 50C chamber printer I get a bit too much warp for fitment on parts with my current PC. PC-CF is pretty stable, though. Might have to add active heating.
@@coltonmccormack8978 I want to try PC-CF but it is kinda expensive and requires hardened nozzles. Yeah, I wish polycarbonate should become a common filament along with PLA and PETG. There are some properties of ABS that just suck, its smell and its low tensile strength. PC is far stronger than ABS and should be appreciated more!
It looks like Prusa just changed the formula on this 3 days ago and it is now less dense. I wonder how much that affects its properties. From Prusa: "Prusament PC Blend has a new formula since 9. 6. 2021 The material density is now slightly lower than before, resulting in a minimal spool weight of 970 g. The approximate length of the filament is 330 m - the same length as the standard Prusament."
Prusament PC blend in the original formula was the ultimate filament for gears!!! I hope that changing the formula does not make it less good...
Thanks for the information. Might need to consider re-testing a couple of properties.
@@CNCKitchen you should also try the new Prusament PCCF (PC Blend+Carbon fiber)
so you get jipped 30grams? wow
@@wervelstroom Taulman Alloy 910 is the best for gears.
Stronger filaments will always be useful for prototyping and functional parts. I'd love to see an engineering materials strength test and comparison. PEEK ,PEKK PEEK blends, PC, Carbon Fiber variants!
Especially stuff like PEEK.... sadly i don´t think he has a high temp Printer you would need for that
@@xxxm981 I think slice engineering and volcano make hotends for it but maybe he could have test parts printed by VisionMiner or something because they never seem to do strength tests.
@@infernaldaedra i would love it if VisionMiner did standarized test instead of burn crush
Yea but to be fair getting the high temp for PEEK is the least of your problem with this material 😅😅
@@mophie6941 Okay but how strong are the parts between the different blends and polymers?
Love the in-depth review!
It's remarkable how many hours you put into testing.
what happened to the prusament PC CF review?
I’m guessing 10-15 degrees hotter with a steel nozzle will bring the results inline.
Jup, very likely. On my first printer i usually had to up them by 5-10°C after installing a SS nozzle. But that's what i would expect to be the crulpit in this case too.
But i'm sure Stefan will figure that out way more excessive and in detail in the close future. 🤣
yup, I was gonna say
I thought the same, you probably need to re-tune your print temp when using a different nozzle material as well as potentially running pid auto tune to calibrate for the change in thermal property of the nozzle. Also for the best results it may have been better to tune the temp to start with instead of using the stock profile.
I wonder what would happend with a copper nozzle.... Or if u are rich a gold one
In my experiance printing with the E3D Nozzel-X I needed to raise the temps by 10-20 degrees to get good results. Switching to a copper heat block (from the stock aluminium) negated this.
Where is the Prudament PC Carbon Fiber video? You mentioned it was coming soon, 7 months ago. Eitherway, thanks for all you do for the 3D printing community.
Stefan's scientific approach is extremely valuable - and so far at least apparently unique. Those is the "go to" channel for genuinely science-based reviews.
Thanks for the nice video as usual! I use a tungsten carbide nozzle and to me it was life changing: no thermal issue or difference with brass, but no wear out at all, even after kilos of PA-CF. I see you mostly don t mention tungsten carbide nozzles, but it is a superb addition to my machines
same, tungsten is the way to go
For the hardened steel, I thought you need a higher temperature to get the same results.
Yes, 5 to 10 C above brass.
I use a hardened steel one for carbon filament. Printing my standard filament, I have to raise 5 to 10 degrees and also reduce the speed a little bit to avoid clogging
For PC Blend 10C higher
There are some rumors but I haven't stumbled upon any real data.
@@CNCKitchen what I am hearing is "I have a new materials testing video for hardened steel nozzles" coming out at some point in time!
The brass nozzle wore out and so was wider than the steel, this is why adhesion was improved. If you added an extrusion multiplier to the steel nozzle you’d get the same effect
I would also say due to the worse heat dissipation you should use 5-10 degrees higher temperature. I also found layer adhesion is worse when same print temp is used
So what I'm hearing is that we need a comprehensive guide on different types of nozzle materials and types, from simple brass and steel, to fancy stuff, like brass with sapphire tip, or nickel plated copper. Looking forward to it
I really like your filament analysis videos! They are very useful in helping me choose filament for specific uses.
All your analyses are more detailed than I could ever have imagined!
Thank you for the video. Great as always. Cheers Mate.
I print with PC Blend on my Prusa MK3S eoth the hardened steel nozzle. I had to increase the nozzle temperature by 5 to 10C. I also print within an enclosure as I print large parts and warping is possible without an enclosure.
Dude.. You work so HARD!! WOW.
I'm probably a step below beginner at this point and its so encouraging to see the information that you and so many other folks have already put out! Thank you.
Have you ever tried testing 3DXTech brand filament? They’re supposed to have some of the best mechanical properties for each type of filament they offer, along with the benefit of being easy to print
I would LOVE to see a video with some comparisons of print strengths with different nozzle types. It surely makes sense that it would produce different results as the different materials nozzles would be made of have different specific heat values, and would probably transfer heat to the plastic in different ways.
In my opinion, strength decrease due to steel nozzle is because of very low thermal conductivity of steels. Brass has about 120 W/mK thermal conductivity while steels has around 15-80 W/mK. I experience the same problem with my ruby nozzle and to solve that, i print slower and hotter then the normal brass nozzle with ruby. This subject could be a video topic for you :)
You may want to catch up brass nozzle printed part's strength by slowing down steel nozzle printed parts speed and compare the results.
I had this same thought the other day. We know that printing hotter can increase strength, but too hot can degrade a filament. What about printing at the higher end of a temp range, but super slow? You want to melt the plastic as thoroughly as possible, but not destroy it.
I wonder if a tungsten carbide one would preform the same as a hardened steel nozzle.
This is the correct answer. For steel nozzles you have to increase temps 5-10 degrees and sometimes print a bit slower (depends on how fast you are already printing). I wish he had increased the temp for these tests
@@cruduskellies tungsten carbide performs almost exactly like brass, which is why I prefer it over hardened steel. It’s more expensive though.
@@haysoos123 thats good to know! I definitely think I might do that.
If the steel nozzle is hurting layer adhesion (presumably) due to lower thermal conductivity compared to brass, I wonder if a nickel plated copper nozzle would do the opposite 🤔
Intriguing hypothesis. I haven't looked up the thermal resistance values to see how close (or far apart) they are.
@@Sembazuru Copper is the most thermally conductive material with a thermal conductivity of about 400W/mK. Brass has about 120, but depending on the specific alloy it could be different. For steel it is hard to say, since it really depends on the alloy, but should be more in the range 30-60
This is why I use tungsten nozzles. Better thermal conductivity than brass (170w/mk vs 110) and it's naturally a hard material. I haven't done any strength tests of nozzle material and temp. Would be interesting to see the showdown.
Its definitely the thermal properties of the nozzle that affects layer adhesion. From your test, the brass nozzle almost got double the performance of the steel one for layer adhesion. This makes sense because the thermal conductivity of brass is about 110 W/mK compared to steel at 52 W/mK. Layer adhesion would even be way better if you used a copper nozzle because it's more conductive at 385 W/mK. I think you should make a video comparing few nozzle materials and see the results 👍🏻
I have noticed the difference between nozzle types before with clear PETG. Using a nickel plated copper nozzle the print is glossy and semi-transparent, while using a steel nozzle the print has a matte look and is almost white instead of semi-transparent. There is also enough of an impact on layer adhesion that I can feel the difference with my hands on thin walled parts. I think the benefit of using a nozzle with higher thermal conductivity vs. just increasing the temperature is that a nozzle with higher conductivity allows you to print with a larger range of speeds during the same print. If the temperature is increased for a steel nozzle, the filament will start to degrade faster at slower speeds when the thermal conductivity is less of an issue. I am also not 100% sure that temperature is the only factor, since after increasing the temperature with a steel nozzle I looked at the top layer surface using a microscope and compared the steel nozzle to the nickel plated copper nozzle. To me it looked like the part printed with the nickel plated nozzle was much smoother at a small scale. Almost as if the rougher surface finish or higher plastic adhesion properties of the steel nozzle caused the layer surface to be rougher. This could then cause tiny air bubbles to get trapped inside the layers as the next layer is put down, reducing the layer adhesion strength.
I'd love to see a comparison of nozzles made of different materials. I never really gave it any thought before, but you're absolutely right that different metals' thermal properties would affect the result.
The perfect winding is what I noticed when you showed the spool of black PC filament. I thought you rewinded it that way. WOW. Compared to other filament makers this is really neat.
You are truly an asset to the 3D Printing community!
I'd love to see a series testing different nozzle materials. I'd also like to see a comparison of volcano style vs normal length nozzles with the same heater and orifice specs.
i'm curious about nickel plated copper nozzle, it should have more heat capacity and better heat transfer
I've got a roll of this and it likes to warp, even in an enclosure.
Stefan, you're the genuine article 👍 Keep it up and greetings from Finland.
Very interesting results.. Think this is the first PC that I have seen that actually stands up to moisture. Will be keeping this material in mind for future projects.
Prusa claims that their PC Blend can be annealed for better temperature resistance. It would be interesting to see how the other physical properties are affected by annealing and how annealed PC Blend compares to annealed PLA in the thermal test.
I think he made a video about annealing PLA in an oven a while back
For the nozzle material observation it has been observed in the past and mostly attributed to thermal conductivity. I think it is a combination of thermal conductivity, thermal capacity of the nozzle material and internal surface finish. The process of hardening the steel after machining I think affects the internal surface finish. Less smooth finish internally for the nozzle usually means less fully melted material. You can easily get matt finish PLA prints with a hardened steel nozzle because of this. This is also why I think nickel plated copper nozzles are the best type of nozzles for engineering materials that are not abrassive. It would be interesting if you compared E3D nozzles brass, nickel plated copper, hardened steel, nozzleX and slice engineering vanadium nozzles. Also looking forward to the PC CF Prusament results.
Just found this channel a few days ago...its awesome. I would love to see a discussion on 3D printing molds for vacuum forming, the pro/cons of various materials and how well they hold up after multiple pulls, deformation, materials with good porosity, thermal impacts from the heated plastic sheets of HIPS, PETG, and ABS.
Looking forward to the carbon version - unless it devours ends.
Get a hardened steel end. They dont cost much and work fine.
Most polymers don't bond to carbon fiber unless you get nano silica. It might make it weaker. Plus most carbon fiber filament is sketchy short fibers not medium to long continuous strands which would be stronger.
@@brandonsmoot4056 yeah, I’m not convinced the benefits of CF outweigh the cost or the wear and tear. Other polymer blends like PC-PBT look more promising, but I haven’t done a formal test like this.
Carbon is complete nonsense. We need glass filling.
Great comparison between brass and hardened steel. because steel does not conduct heat as well, this is expected. It is also why we run the hardened nozzles at least 10C above their brass counterparts!
Still no "CNC Kitchen™"? ;-)
Congrats on the trademark and on your contribution to the community being acknowledged by Angus in his latest video!
P.S. i am all for deeper investigations into the nozzle material impact!
Love these videos! On the topic of layer adhesion, have you tried testing samples printed in a heated chamber? Especially with these higher temperature materials, I would expect the layer adhesion to improve substantially.
I definitely encountered the same difference when going from brass to hardened steel nozzles. In my own testing, I had to up the temperature 20C in order to get similar results. For example, normally I print PLA at 205C, but switching to HS nozzle, I'd up it to around 225C. When I first encountered this I was very surprised. I ended up making up two identical hotends that I could quickly swap between on my MK3S in order to do back to back tests, same gcode, just different nozzle. And yeah, that's when I isolated it down to the HS nozzle being the cause of the poor layer adhesion.
Brass and hardened steel conduct heat differently. That's why.
I never realized how high PLA rates across the board in total. It's not very often that the "most basic" option is also among the best in most respects.
You should test PVP Polymer (Polyvinylpyrrolidone) as a bed adhesion material. I have been using this for quite a while and it works great on ABS, PLA, and PETG. I haven’t tested other materials. Most impressive is ABS. It will not separate from the bed until the bed has cooled close to room temp. I use standard bed temperatures that you would use with a PEI print surface. Apply the PVP to a PEI bed or better yet use Garolite as the print surface. I dissolve 0.2% PVP in denatured alcohol by weight, then simply wet the bed with this solution and let it dry. PVP is available in powder form as cosmetics materials. You can even get it from Amazon.
generic glue stick are actually PVP/PVA
I really like it for automotive use, better temp capabilites than abs/asa, strong, easy to print (in enclosure), not hygroscopic like nylon (big plus), cheap compared to similar spec materials etc, preordered the pccf version to get additional temp properties, looks promising.
looking forward to the carbon fiber version review. the finish looks beautiful
Hi Stefan,
Thanks a lot for the informative video.
I would like to suggest making a competitive video of creep resistance of different materials, as this is a very fundamental property for some applications.
Keep up the good work, and thank you again.
Thanks for that review Stefan - I've been wondering when you would get around to it!
I've made some fairly large prints using Prusament PC Blend, and found that even if I use a good covering of the glue stick, the part's tendency to warp is strong enough to actually curl the magnetic sheet up away from the build plate. I solved this problem by using bulldog clips - placing one at the very rear centre of the plate, and one each side at the very front - all places where it won't foul the Z-axis motors. I wait until the Z-axis has reached about 5mm before pausing the print and adding these clips (also removing the clip handles). This has given me some success with a part which is a triangular axle mount for a garden cart, about 190mm per side.
It's amazing how strong this material is, and I have the carbon fibre variant on backorder as well!
Another great informative video. However, in watching it...particularly having switched between the brass & steel nozzles...an idea popped into my head.
I'm certain that the great majority of those watching your comparison videos greatly enjoys the material comparisons...but, I have a strong feeling that there are others who, like me, would really like to see at least one video comparing nozzles, especially in regards to the most popular/common filaments. A perfect example would be the Olson Ruby nozzles.
People are familiar with the standard brass & steel nozzles...but, they're probably less familiar (many not even knowing anything about) the various Olson Ruby nozzles, such as the one made with brass, and the one made using a copper alloy. While these 'specialty' nozzles were originally created for use with more abrasive filaments (such as those containing carbon fiber), I don't see why they couldn't be used with the more common (PLA, PETG, etc) filaments.
So...how about it? How about doing some nozzle comparison videos, comparing at least one (probably the brass) version of the Olson Ruby nozzles against the 'standard' brass & steel nozzles?
Interesting video! I had similar issues with hardened nozzles. Even standard Nylon became brittle and weak. Therefore I use Microswiss's plated nozzles mostly or DyzeDesign's tungsten nozzles. The latter don't fit a regular hotend though. I haven't tried the ruby nozzle yet which might be interesting to put to the test.
I've heard before that with Nylon drying it prior to printing creates best results for quality, but in the printed state to achieve best results, the printed part should be allowed to reabsorb moisture prior to use. Is it possible there is a similar property with PC?
Maybe? Although, this stuff seems to have been designed not to absorb much. Worth thinking about, for sure!
PC will not improve its properties after printing by absorbing moisture.
Nylon indeed does not improve uts properties. It just loses stiffness and therefore is less brittle.
Which may or may not be an advantage, depending on your application.
Been printing with pc blend for over a year, it sits out in my basement with no moisture issues. I love this stuff.
Water is acting as a plasticiser in Polyamides, so it makes them tougher. Afaik this is NOT the case with PC and also the overall moisture uptake is way smaller.
@@CNCKitchen Hey Stefan, ich hätte die Möglichkeit zu messen welches Material bei Prusa eingeblendet wird, habe aber kein Filament ;-)
I'm very curious how a volcano nozzle would impact this material!
Or a plated Copper one
Or a matchless nozzle
110% agree with engineering materials to be offered in 500g spools. It would make it affordable as the most common way to use them, i think, is to print PLA part first, iterate the design using cheap materials and then print it once with the proper one.
Hey, Stephan! You mentioned that there should be a video about CF-PC that you were preparing in between!
Keep up the good work, as usual good testing, and through information
You should get a tungsten carbide nozzle, it has a similar thermal conductivity to brass but is harder and more abrasion resistant than any steel.
I do a lot of prints with PLA and PETG with carbon fiber.
They provide great strength and superb print quality. Sometimes they don’t even look like 3d prints.
I’ve tried more than 5 brands of hardened steel nozzle… In the end I decided that using a brass nozzle for each 300 grams of fiber filament works better than any of the hardened ones.
Even with increased temperatures, print quality and strength are greatly decreased with the steel ones.
This is great! Would also like to see a review of PC-PBT. So wonderful to see the 3D printing community finally start to take polycarbonate blends seriously - especially for functional parts.
Interesting about nozzles, stay away from proprietary hotends where can't change nozzles, unless you keep a set for each type of filament.
definitely thermal, most people know that steel nozzles need a temperature bump over copper.
@@digibluh thermal a big issue with different materials for the nozzle, but also if the filament path is worn so that some areas of the nozzle aren't in contact with the filament then that could be a cause for even less heat transference (air is a relatively good insulator). My point was mainly aimed at 'Prosumer' level printers were the manufacturer refuses to sell cheaper components like nozzles as consumables, but expects the owner to buy a complete hotend, for about ten times the price. Apparently we don't have the skills required to hot change a nozzle, but are able to swap out any other components as long as we buy proprietary. It's also unnecessarily wastefull replacing all those components, for a bit of steel, brass or copper.
Are you interested in testing the affect of color on print quality and strength? I've always been skeptical, but everyone says that white ABS or ASA is bad because it requires a lot of pigment.
I also wonder how much it varies between materials; I have a roll of white PETG which prints better than clear, but maybe PETG benefits because it becomes less excessively sticky.
I love the PC Blend. I have a roll of Prusa Orange PC. I print it on my Mini. My bed is already toast, but I still use gluestick
Stefan... Respekt !!
Sehr lehrreiche und professionelle Videos !!
Auch die Tests, die du machst sind gut und nützlich.
Neben dehn-, biege-, kerbschlag- und temperaturfestigkeiten vermisse ich die Abriebfestigkeiten im Vergleich unter den compounds.
Ganz speziell wurde ich dir gerne folgende Fragen stellen:
- Welches Filament würdest Du für z.B. Zahnradflanken verwenden, die einer hohen Reibung ausgesetzt wären?
- was muss ich beim Kauf eines Druckers beachten und dieses Filament benutzen zu können
- welche modelle an 3d Drucker kannst du empfehlen
I'd really appreciate an in-depth test between brass and steel nozzles. I've always had the feeling that I need to print hotter with my hardened steel nozzle to maintain a similar layer adhesion as with brass, but it's all guesswork and it would be nice to see this quantified!
I saw a Sidewinder X1. That makes me happy.
hi Stefan, love the content as always. Are you still planning on a prusa CF filament review? (Maybe you covered it on patreon already I need to check there still).
I also wold love to see a comparison between different types of nozzles in the same dimension. Hardened, brass, brass with coatings and the ruby nozzles.
The thermal conductutivity of the nozzles is the reason for the different layer adhesions. The steel nozzle has a much lower thermal conductivity preventing the same exit temp of the filament leading to lesser layer adhesion, and it causes the material to flow less easily making the brass nozzle produce more "dense" parts from amount of filament extruded.
Ich hab schon einiges mit prusament PC gedruckt und bin extrem happy damit. Das Thema brass - Steel ist sehr spannend. Bitte untersuchen :-) Und bitte infos zum PC CF von PRusa :-) habe schon eine Rolle bestellt. hatte bsiher nur PETG mit CF und fand die oberfläche immer sehr schön. Hoffe das das bei PRusa auch so ist. und vor allem das es weniger warping gibt.
Danke für deine Videos sind wie immer sehr sehr hilfreich.
I read somewhere that steel nozzles may transfer heat a bit worse than brass, so it's useful to increase print temperature by 3-4 degrees to make them work properly
Now I have to go back and watch the PC+ABS blend filament you made to see how this stacks up.
I'm looking forward to the review of PC Blend Carbon Fiber.
You should test it without cooling fan. I tested polymax PC with and without a some cooling fan. Like most other filament, cooling fan kill the layer adhesion on PC filament.
Would love to see more research into the nozzle differences.
I'm super eager to watch the carbon fiber PC test!! :D :D :D Thanks! keep it up!
The nozzle difference probably stems from the different thermal conduction. The gap could be closed via longer nozzles, as found in the volcanoe hotend, though, I think.
Nice video!
Been waiting for this for a long time
Your experience with a hardened nozzle is very similar to my own. I thought i could have one nozzle on my printer and print everything with it, but i had horrible underextrusion with a hardened nozzle and PLA. The PLA also came out way more matte than with my brass nozzle. Two things help, either slowing down speeds or increasing temperatures. But they don't fix the problem.
Now i switch between nozzles when i need to print fiberfilled materials or regular materials. I also always increase my temperatures and reduce my speeds when printing with the hardened nozzle.
When is the review for the carbon fiber pc blend coming ;) ?
When you test nozzle materials, putting plated brass in the mix would be helpful. Not only for thermals, but also wear resistance compared to hardened steel.
I just installed a plated copper nozzle from trianglelab. Which is supposed to be able to print abrasive materials. I wonder how that would go with prusament pc blend?
@@Brocknoviatch The PC blend isn't abrasive. The idea is that it's a pain to switch nozzles, so you want a nozzle that has the thermal characteristics of brass, but the toughness of hardened steel, without having to buy a ruby which might just decide to crack.
But I haven't seen any good comparisons showing how well plated brass works compared to solid hardened steel with abrasives (e.g. anything with carbon fiber in it).
Didn't you have a Prusament Carbon Fiber video? Are you making one? I have some and I want to know if you have any sights I missed. It's working great but I like your insightfulness
I recently installed a hardened nozzle with a silicone sock. Reduced strength from a lack of "ironing" and direct heat transfer was a concern and it appears my concern was correct. Hopefully we can continue innovating to improve performance from more durable nozzles.
thanks for the great material test
Yes, it's similar to Polymax. Warping is a big problem. It's a little bit higher than ABS. For my ABS and PC are both difficult to print without warping. Biggtest problem is to print big parts for my printer itself. I have overhangs and with fan off I can reduce warping completly but using support or printg without support it's not possible. So at the end I have very very small warping on some big parts but I use them for my printer succeful. I print with 40% infill and 4 walls and 15% fan.
Looking forward to your investigation of the brass/steel nozzle phenomenon 🙏
I'm curious how the mechanical properties of 3D prints compares with injection-molded parts of similar materials.
One filament i'd suggest for an upcoming test is Fil-A-Gehr PPA (polyphtalamide) offering high strength and chemical-resistance at around the price of PC
It’s now a favorite of mine. Use it in a dental tool cleaning machine.
PC-CF (also from Prusa) got soft and my PA was to expensive (75€, 500g).
My last 2 spools came without glue sticks 😢
For testing the nozzles, it would be interesting to see not only how the material of the nozzle affects the prints, but also how much each type is affected by other factors including fan speeds, silicone socks, bed temperature, and enclosures and heated enclosures. I know this would result in many, many tests, but it could result in finding a combination that creates significantly stronger prints.
Liked before watching as I'm super interested using this for house projects, but was waiting for the CNC torture tests. :) I always print with a steel nozzle actually, needs more tuning but once done seems fine for me.
Ahoi Stefan,
What a surprise. Just a couple of days ago I tried to print PLA(!) with my E3D Nozzle X (steel nozzle) at 0.3mm layer height, 0.65mm width with a 0.6mm nozzle on a Voron 2.4 with a Mosquito Magnum. Layer adhesion was awful, I could break the layers with my bare fingers, and increasing the temp to 220°C did not help. After many hours of trying different settings (even measured heatbreak temps and tried different hotend fan settings) I finally switched to a standard E3D brass nozzle and voilá, layer adhesion was superb again. Layers were printed at about 80-110 mm/s which was way below the max rated flow rate of 30-35 mm^3 a Mosquito Magnum is capable of. With the given settings 150+ mm/s should be possible.
Tbh I was even more surprised that this isn't a known "topic" on the internet, on Facebook or on the Discord channels I'm in because steel nozzles aren't new on the market.
I think that steel nozzles have, due their lower heat conductivity, a limitation of maximum flowrate they can be used for otherweise layer adhesion will greatly suffer. At about 25 mm^3 the adhestion was so bad that the infill began to not connect to the outer walls! Again, with 0.6mm E3D V6 brass nozzle this wasn't a issue anymore.
For now, if I have to switch to a steel nozzle, I'll print really slow so layer adhesion won't be an issue.
Maybe, for your next test you might also include Slice Engineering's "Bridgemaster" nozzles when you compare brass wih steel nozzles regarding layer adhesion (maybe they'll send you one)? It seems those are made out of copper and are maybe better suited for the job to survive carbon blends and also being able to maintain a high layer ahdesion due their higher temperature conductivity compared to steel . I'm about to try those soon but my scientific "can break layers with bare fingers" test isn't really meaningful :-D
LG
Ben
Nice! Liked before watching, always a pleasure watching your edutainment content. Cheers!
For a stiff filament that is easily printable, you can try testing FormFutura CarbonFil. My spool was quite a bit stiffer than ColourFabb XT-CF20.
Also, you should try out tungsten carbide nozzles. They claim to be tougher than hardened steel nozzle with the thermal properties of brass.
The Prusament PC Blend parameter settings works wonderfully for Inland PC also.
My theory about the layer adhesion differences between steel and brass is that the filament acts the same way pasta does through dies made of the same material. The steel die leaves a shiny clean surface on the extruded plastic while the brass leaves a ragged more irregular surface for the proceeding layers to better adhere to.
The review of the CF version of this never made it online?
You noticed the brass printed samples were more heavy and stronger.
So I expect it is not a thermal issue, but more like the filament "flows" into the layer below.
Find it hard to imagine what may be an explanation for the suggested thermal properties of the nozzle.
More likely is that the wear and tear of the brass nozzle creates some string like extraction of the filament which is essentially adding a zipper-like structure between layers.
It could be a thermal issue. If the brass nozzle is able to let more thermal energy to get into the plastic then the plastic will get hotter and presumably it's viscosity should go down allowing more filament to flow out of the nozzle. Note, this is only a hypothesis.
You should try out a tungsten metal (not carbide/ceramic) nozzle instead of using steel nozzles. In the USA you can get a precision machined tungsten alloy nozzle for around $45. This will solve the issue of the nozzle having significantly lower temperature than the heatblock. Tungsten alloys have higher abrasion resistance than steel, have the lowest thermal expansion out of any usable metal (extrusion rate / nozzle opening stay same at all temps), and most importantly have waaaaay better thermal conductivity than steel.
Interesting. I swear by my TC nozzle, but haven't tried a Tungsten alloy. A comparison between the two would be interesting.
@@Sembazuru the carbide (because carbide is a form of ceramic) has terrible thermal conductivity and results in even lower layer adhesion than a steel nozzle. this is the main issue with steel, carbide, and ruby nozzles. tungsten metal on the other hand has thermal conductivity almost on par with copper and the only material used for nozzles better than tungsten alloy is synthetic diamond. synthetic diamond nozzles ofc have the highest abrasion resistance and thermal conductivity out of any nozzle material but at a couple hundred dollars a piece to have machined verses the around ~$45 for tungsten alloy, tungsten alloy wins out as best possible performance characteristics while still making sense cost wise.
@@RazorSkinned86 TC's thermal conductivity is 110, right in the same ballpark as brass (120), which as the default nozzle material for our class pf printers can be considered the baseline. Tungsten metal is 164, not that different from brass. Granted, I think that is pure Tungsten, I'm not sure about the Tungsten alloy used for nozzles...
@@owowowdhxbxgakwlcybwxsimcwx I used microSwiss plated copper nozzles once for a big batch of HTPLA-CF and started to notice the flat tip of the nozzle started to take on a copper color. I switched to TC after that.
Love my carbide nozzle
Hi Stefan, did you end up reviewing the Prusament PCCF? I can't seem to find anything on your channel about it... thanks.
Please Do Polymaker CoPA After Annealing!
I would love to see a comparation between a brass and some other type of nozzle material.