The catch here is that the printing quality will be much lower than if you printed with a 0.4mm nozzle at a 0.12mm layer height, or even with smaller diameter nozzles and using an even lower layer height, but it will print much faster. Now, nozzle diameter and layer thickness are not the same and don’t affect the end result in the same way: Layer height affects print quality mostly on vertical or slanted parts of the print, while nozzle diameter affects the level of detail mostly on the horizontal plane, and this is because a larger diameter nozzle will print wider layers, which shouldn’t be visible vertically.Įssentially, a larger diameter nozzle lays down wider perimeters and also allows you to increase the layer height (up to 80% of the nozzle’s diameter), which results in much faster prints. Nozzle Sizeīy printing with a nozzle that has a larger diameter and increasing the layer height you are able to shave off a lot of printing time for the model, sometimes being able to print even three or four times faster. It’s worth noting that the minimum values don’t depend on the nozzle but rather on the stepper motors of your printer, which is why generally you shouldn’t go below 0.04mm (more on this in a second), but the reason there’s a minimum value is because printing with a high vertical resolution (low layer height) but with a large minimum line width (nozzle diameter) generally makes little sense. Here’s a table with the recommended maximum and minimum layer heights for each nozzle diameter. It’s worth noting that the layer height should never exceed 80% of the nozzle’s diameter (there’s no minimum value). Increasing the nozzle diameter will allow you to print at an increased layer height as well as lower the number of perimeters needed to print a wall, for example, since the perimeter itself will be wider. The default nozzle diameter for most printers is 0.4 mm, but they usually range from 0.2mm all the way up to 1mm. Nozzle Diameters and how they affect layer height Image Source: Prusa Blog. This is especially noticeable on the roof and the top of the side walls/rails as a very visible staircase effect. That’s a pretty big drop in print time and the only difference is the layer height.Īs you can see, the right benchy has a lot more visible lines. The 0.12mm benchy printed in 3:24 hours and has a total of 400 layers, the 0.32mm benchy took 1:26 hours to print and has 150 layers. Take these two Benchy prints, for example: The left one was printed at a 0.12mm layer height and the right one at 0.32mm. What’s the tradeoff? Well, printing at a higher resolution, or lower layer height, increases the time it takes to print an object drastically since the printer will need to lay down twice as many layers or even more, whereas increasing the layer height will result in faster prints that have less overall detail.Įssentially, you’re trading print time for detail. For example printing a 20x20x20mm cube with a layer height of o.12mm will have 166 layers, but only 71 layers with a 0.28mm layer height. The lower the layer height, the more detailed the print will come out because more layers will need to be printed to complete the model. Layer height, also known as resolution or detail, is the height of each individual layer of extruded plastic on a 3D print.
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