Upgrade to All-metal nozzle

Today I finally manage to upgrade my almost two years old 3dprinter with an all-metal nozzle.

I say “finally” because I spent around three to four months with the new nozzle in its package. Just focused on other topics, especially mountain activity as you can see in my other blog SisifoEscalador, in Spanish.

I have a BCN3d printer from RepRapBCN. I clogged the old nozzle several times -who doesn’t…?- but it went to a point that it affected the ability to print properly.

It took me quite some time today to perform the upgrade, just because I had to add another fan aiming directly to the nozzle sink, replace the support for the other fan that aims at the top layer and then modify the Z end stopper height and of course calibrate everything.

I still have a minor task, to put all the cables in a neat way.

First thing I’ve done is to check that the temperature is correct and that when heating it stays at the desired temperature. Time for a test print!!

For me the cube is the HelloWorld! of 3dprinters. Quick and easy to print, also reveals any calibration issue in any of the axes.

In fact, I have a calibration issue on Z axis. The cube is 30 x 30 x 29.5 mm. Damn!

And if you look at it there is some sort of glitch in a layer. To investigate….

Generally I can say the printer works smoother. I had issues with first layers using the old nozzle, sort of not delivering enough plastic. But this does not happen anymore and the first layers and the brim look neat. It also prints faster.

I have also change from 0.5 to 0.4 mm nozzle. I cannot notice the difference yet, but will do so. I have some remaining LayWood, hope it does not clog. I heard this is a typical issue with this material when nozzle holes are thins.

There is also a short video of the first layer. Sorry, comments in Spanish. I did not think I was going to post it!