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16 / 27
Jun 2016

Thanks to all these tips, I’m now inspired to push the limits on my TAZ! I’m trying a 30-micron Marvin. I’m up to 1.4mm (-ish), and it seems to be working.

If I have success, I’ll put my settings up here (they should be very similar for the Mini).

I suspect I’ll start to have issues on the lower half of the body, but the legs are great!

if you want great results at 50 microns, you have to change the nozzle size - 0.35mm or even 0.25 mm. I would say with 0.5 mm nozzle you can go as low as 100microns. It’s really easy to swap the nozzle on the mini! personally I wouldn’t even try to print at 50microns with 0.5mm nozzle!

Also consider the overhangs on Marvin. When printing the eyebrows and eyes at say, .2 layers, the overhang is minor relative to the layer height As the layer height decreases to .05mm, the overhang becomes that much greater (4 times in this case) relative to the layer height, and 4 times as difficult to maintain its form.

Lowering print temperature a bit should indeed help with this, increasing fan power if you are using PLA or Colorfabb XT that can take the extra cooling without warping.

Keep in mind that changing the nozzle with void the warranty on your extruder. That being said, they also recommend that you use a torque wrench to install the new nozzle, and do it at a specific temperature (185, IIRC).

I’d almost recommend buying a second extruder assembly, and switching the nozzle just on that one. Still, you should be able to get acceptable results with your stock nozzle.

Yeah, I totally see your point. Honestly, I don’t think its worth goofing up my extruder so I could get better 50 micron prints. Because at the moment, I CAN print at 50 microns with decent results. So, while I may invest in a new nozzle in the future, I think I’m good for now…