Nozzle Choices

[printbus]

Welcome aboard!

Others are certainly welcome if I'm incorrect, but I believe the hexagon hot ends can print anything that the Magma can. Some of the hot ends have plastic parts or use a Teflon liner that can impose a limit on how high you can go with a print temperature. The hexagon is all-metal, so it won't have that constraint. By higher temp, it means you can print material like nylon. There have been a few that had issues with a hexagon, and have moved onto other all-metal hot ends like the E3D v6.

3mm vs 1.75mm gets a lot of discussion. In theory, 1.75mm has a debatable benefit in that the extruder stepper motor has a bit more resolution in how much cold filament needs to be drawn for the same amount of extruded material. On the other hand, much of the extruder hardware is sort of optimized for 3mm filament. It can be trickier to load 1.75mm because of this. If you might get into flexible materials like Ninjaflex, 3mm will possibly be easier to work with in the standard Wade's extruder used on the MakerFarm. It'd be less likely to "fold up" in the unsupported gap between the hobbed bolt that draws the filament and the barrel of the hot end.

[JimG]

I have the 0.4 Hexagon for 3mm filament. I chose the hexagon because I plan to print with nylon at some point. I wanted the ability to print PLA, too, so that ruled out the Magma.

When I told Colin I was leaning towards 1.75mm, he indicated that he thought the 3mm might be a better choice for me. I did not press him on this, so I can't tell you why he said that, or if I even understood him completely. The 3mm is working for me, and I have no complaints.

It does seem, however, that there are more sources and color choices for 1.75mm filament than for 3mm filament. If there is a downside to the 3mm, that might be it.

The additional resolution available with the smaller diameter 1.75mm filament makes sense, and is something I had not thought about before buying. OTOH, in my experimentation with ESTEP settings and the equivalent values in slic3r configurations, I am not able to see noticeable differences in print behavior across a fairly wide range (+/- 5% or more) of extrusion rates.

I, too, am anxious to read what others have to say on this subject.

Jim

[printbus]

...OTOH, in my experimentation with ESTEP settings and the equivalent values in slic3r configurations, I am not able to see noticeable differences in print behavior across a fairly wide range (+/- 5% or more) of extrusion rates.

Yeah, I don't think I've read anyone saying they thought there's a print quality difference between 3mm and 1.75mm. IIRC, the benefit has to do with the amount of extruder motor torque involved.