Hello Everyone,
Today I'm preparing for calibration on the Ender 3 V2.
Specifically retraction, which I will discuss in further detail later in this blog.
But to calibrate retraction, we will need to change nozzles first.
Some questions might be:
"Why would one want to change nozzles, for what purpose, are they different sizes?"
Yes they are different sizes, measured in millimeters. Larger sizes will push more filament through, making way for faster printing, but with less fine detail.
With larger diameters, calibration will become moot for the lower diameters and different slicer profiles will need to be saved.
Previously I was printing with an 0.8 mm nozzle, and in this photo above, the reader will see multiple sizes that are on a printed holder on my printer. (it was printed with an 0.4 mm nozzle @ 0.12 mm layer height.)
"What does removing a nozzle entail?"
One might ask..
Heat and a wrench.. Preferably a plastic/rubber handled non heat conductive wrench..
The Fluidd Dashboard is the control grid, powered by Raspberry Pi. What the reader will now witness is a remote connection via my home network to access the Fluidd Pi control station.
This is the control station or central nervous system if you will. All the jobs are uploaded through this dashboard, and there are a plethora of user controls that are accessible which will override G-code parameters. (Emergency shut down, speed control, temp control, etc.)
You will notice the Extruder temp is 181.7 C.
180 C is the minimum temperature that most PLA will begin to melt at.
When manually pushing the filament through, the operator of the printer will gain a much more comprehensive "feel" for the filament, and will know which temps are the most suitable for printing through trial and error.
After the nozzle has been heated, the process is very straight forward for the mechanically inclined.
Here are some photographs of the hot end fixture assembly broken down for nozzle swap.
The nozzle connects to this heated hot end, and the hot end is connected to the extruder (the other red component up top), and that blue tube is called a bowden tube.
The bowden tube is more critical than many would guess, it feeds the filament to the hot end by way of an e-step motor (Which requires calibration!)
These parts work together for retraction which is a "push/pull" operation on the filament that reduces blobbing and stringing. I will dedicate entire posts to this calibration later in the blog.
Extruder
Once the new nozzle is inserted, you can give the filament a little push through the bowden tube, and if still heated, you will see oozing. There should be no obstructions, and the ooze should flow easily. The only thing that should stop the easy flow is lack of heat. If the nozzle is heated and you cannot push the filament through, this is indicative of a clog.
That's it for nozzle changing folks! It's not as hard as it looks, but be careful because it's easy to get burned from hot metal!
Have a great day and thanks for stopping by!
@print3dpro