What Size 3D Printer Nozzle is the Most Precise?

[@brucewilliams6292]

You did a great job on putting this together. That was a lot of work and some interesting findings.

[@3DPrintedMolds]

This is now my most popular video by far so I'm definitely going to be doing more!

[@puncherdavis9727]

Do you have a link or reference point for the G-Code to knock items off the printing bed I was tickled pink to see that

[@3DPrintedMolds]

@@puncherdavis9727 so I have some experience writing g-code by hand so I could pretty much read it and tell what lines I needed to copy and paste in. I could upload a quick instruction video if there's interest

[@puncherdavis9727]

@@3DPrintedMolds I have the exact same printer and that would be awesome if you could please

[@flat-earther]

interesting

[@user-wv3ew8qq7m]

It shouldn't really be about the nozzle, but about the thermal expansion of the working material It makes sense that a large nozzle would be off, because there's a large bulk being deposited in every pass. That bulk shrinks at the same time, so the result gets skewed As the nozzle diameter goes down, the mass flow goes down with something like the square of the diameter. There's less heat to dissipate per pass, so whatever shrinkage you get is more likely to occur before the next deposition pass The limit of this is an infinitesimal deposition, which would be cool and shrunk to its final size after a dt infinitesimal time interval We don't see this because the limit of the model I've outlined assumes constant heat loss when cooling, but in the real world the previous layers retain heat which also conducts into the current deposition The result should be an improvement in dimensional accuracy as the nozzle diameter decreases, until thermal conduction from the previous layers overpowers the advantage of reducing the deposition mass rate in the thermal equilibrium of the printer What would be a very interesting experiment would be to redo this analysis with a large fan pointed at the printer (turned on after the first layer is adhered) and the print temperatures adjusted appropriately. I would bet that you'd see the "smaller diameter = better accuracy" trend continue to an even smaller nozzle diameter before you stopped seeing an advantage Edit: that's not to say I don't appreciate a good statistical analysis! Interesting idea, and interesting video

[@3DPrintedMolds]

@@user-wv3ew8qq7m this video has been doing surprisingly well and I will be doing more statistical analysis videos in the future. My main idea was to really just test the default printing parameters with each nozzle size and see which one worked best. I tried to limit it to a single variable to test, being the nozzle size. I don't disagree that each nozzle can probably be even finer tuned for better results. A lot of people out there with the current generation printers are using them more like an appliance and just want to click a few buttons and print, so that was my reasoning behind only testing default settings. Given this video has been doing well I plan on doing all kinds of tests like this in the future. Parameter testing Filament brand reviews and comparisons Material comparisons Printer reviews and comparisons Environmental factor studies (ex. I run a dehumidifier in my printing room, does it make a difference? Ambient room temperature?) There's probably a million different things I could test this way.