I want to upgrade my nozzles to either stainless steel nozzles or wear resistant brass nozzles. What style is the nozzle? MK8? MK10? I was looking at these nozzles at proto-pasta: Micro Swiss Plated Brass Nozzle | 3D Printer Nozzles – ProtoPlant, makers of Proto-pasta
not sure which one works for the CTC 3D Printer
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Stainless nozzles typically won’t be an upgrade over brass, they are just necessary when printing certain materials, especially if it’s printing something edible like chocolate or whatnot, or a medium that would rapidly degrade brass. Nickel plated brass would give a good boost of lubricity for your extruder.
I wouldn’t recommend using abrasive materials with ptfe liners at all. If you want to use those materials you should consider upgrading to all metal with threaded thermal barriers that are internally stepped (non-stepped doesn’t work) along with a threaded cooling bar. I upgrade mine to all metal for this reason, also because of constant clogs. Now I can feed it anything and won’t clog. I’m using AVN Swiss thermal barriers and nozzles. They are stainlesswith a special coating.
I met with a local fellow who has a CTC and the nozzle is quite different than the AVN Swiss ones that we stock. I don’t know of an off-the-shelf solution for the CTC. We are having good luck on our Dremel and FlashForge machines with these Nickel Plated Brass Nozzles.
Those AVN nozzles are not an off the shelf solution, and were only a suggestion if one were to go the all-metal route which is the smart move if you plan on printing with abrasive materials. Otherwise, good luck, what you had, is exactly what you will need with a ptfe-lined thermal barrier. Those AVN swiss nozzles only work with threaded thermal barriers that don’t have a ptfe tube in them, therefore the hole for the thermal barrier and nozzle are both smaller. Printers with ptfe (what you have) have a larger diameter hole in both the thermal barrier as well as the nozzle, because the ptfe extends all the way into the nozzle. This way you know for sure that the ptfe gets hot enough for some of the ingredients in it to slowly degrade and pollute your air with toxic stuff ~
If you want an off-the-shelf solution, basically any nozzle will work that has a larger diameter hole for the ptfe tube to fit in. Nickel Plated Brass Nozzles sounds like the best decision for an off-the-shelf-solution, however I don’t know how much of a difference that will make over a standard nozzle, as I imagine the ptfe liner would wear out way sooner than any nozzle will (basically a kind of plastic). I personally wouldn’t print abrasive materials with ptfe-lined hotends. Actually I won’t use anything with ptfe in it not only for health reasons, but for reliability.
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I’m not sure what size nozzle the CTC printer requires but Bob is right that stainless nozzles won’t really be an upgrade over brass. We have just released our new lines of aluminum and tool steel nozzles to address a multitude of printing issues (along with our Duraplat3-d brass nozzles that we’ve been making for a couple years now). You can find them and all the tech specs on our website here www.p3-d.com
Thanks.
Jay
Nozzles of any kind “won’t really be an upgrade” over any other nozzles. The change is negligible and hardly matters at all. What is important is the thermal barrier and it’s internal geometry. You know keywords like “transition zone”, “melt zone”, “cold zone”, “heat-break” are things that actually matter. Nozzle “upgrades” are a band aid. Stop telling people your nozzles will fix a multitude of printing issues because they will buy your nozzles and it will print the same.
Your thermal barriers however, are what will solve almost all problems. I checked it out, and you have the internal step that’s required.
@robertpaul sorry, I got a bit lost in the conversation. Who is trying to solve a multitude of issue and how? We endorse the avn nickel plated brass nozzles only for improved wear resistance compared to standard uncoated brass. We are very happy with the results thus far and find the improvement adequate to reduce printer downtime without having to reduce printer speed because of similar thermal conductivity to brass.
That was to Jay of p3d, with the new lines of aluminum and tool steel nozzles. Not saying they aren’t good, they are probably very good, but I wouldn’t go as far as saying they would address a multitude of problems. More like one problem or slight quality improvement if any. Because if you got some strong air blowing on that and you have a great set up (like the thermal barriers for instance) the nozzle will be one of the last factors to consider.
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@robertpaul gotcha! Thanks for the additional information…
@robertpaul - not sure where the initial hostility seemed to be coming from, I was merely agreeing with Bob when he made the comment about stainless not really being an upgrade over brass. Of course the entire hot-end plays a key role in the extrusion process, with many different components contributing (such as the thermal barrier tube as you noted).
One big knock on stainless nozzles from many people is that they have to slow down their extrusion speed (not everyone of course, as some inherently print slower than others and may not have had to do this). The other main reason is that, while they are harder than brass, they are actually pretty soft on the metal spectrum. We have several customers printing carbon fiber 24/7 that had to routinely swap nozzles (be it brass or stainless) due to the wear increasing the orifice size and leading to inconsistent prints. That is the main reason we released our tool steel nozzles which are much better at resisting wear than the stainless (and as an added benefit have a higher heat transfer). If they can change nozzles only 1/4th as many times then that is less work on their end and more printer up-time.
So I don’t think I ever claimed that our nozzles were a magic bullet to cure all your printing issues, clearly that’s not the case. But they will be an improvement in many aspects, in particular the hardness and wear life if you are printing abrasive materials.
In that case that is what you should of said the first time, not “multitude of issues”, because you listed basically one issue it solves, and although important—one issue, even two—is not considered a multitude, and using that word actually does make it sound like a magic pill. I was trying to clarify.
There was no hostility, that’s all in your head. I’m simply a merchant of truth and I deal in truth. Which is why I complimented your thermal barriers; truth has no emotion. When you’re a company trying to sell something it’s even more likely that I will correct you.
No worries, I understand the scrutiny of being a merchant and no one should take a manufacturer at face value without doing some investigating. I will stand by my comment of saying that our line of nozzles address a multitude of issues, it’s just that I only listed the one or two pertinent to this thread though. I was trying not to sound too much like a walking advertisement for our products and rather encourage users to do their own research and let them know that there are other products available. In case you are interested though, some issues I’m referring to are:
- Quality. Years ago, before we were manufacturing nozzles (and far before AVN was), we were forced to buy what was on the market or OEM replacements only to be sorely disappointed with the consistency and quality of nozzles (many manufactured in China).
- Reduce extrusion force and clogging by lowering the surface friction inside the melt zone and orifice. Thereby leading to more consistent filament feeding and prints.
- Brass plated nozzles for customers wishing to do all-around printing with something better than straight brass.
- Aluminum plated nozzles (for those looking for the highest thermal transfer available - significantly higher than brass)
- Tool steel nozzles for abrasive filaments
- Tool steel nozzles for higher heat transfer than stainless nozzles
We strive to be the highest performing, highest quality nozzles on the market. That’s why we stand by our products 100% and if any customer isn’t satisfied with our products, a simple email to us is all it take for us to issue a replacement or refund. As I noted, our brass nozzles have been on the market for 2 years now, we have many thousands in the field and hundreds of positive feedback for the issues I mention (reference our ebay username performance3d).
And many thanks for complimenting our thermal barriers. As with all our products, we strive to get the details right (and obviously the stepped bore is a pretty important detail).
