who cares about layer height when you have thick lines?

[cipher0]

I understand this has become a marketing trick for 3dprinter manufacturers, but what I'm surprised about is not seeing this discussed in forums like this one.

Who cares if the new Ultimaker or a Solidoodle with custom software settings can print at 20 micron layer height, if the minimum width of the extruded plastic stays the same 0.42 / 0.48 mm? No matter how awesome and smooth your model will look in the Z axis, the top and bottom parts of the model will have noticeable line seams.
Unless this can be changed as well and nobody is talking about it, 0.02mm or even 0.1mm is pointless to go for aesthetic reasons.

[richardphat]

You never print curve with low angle profile for functional device do you?

Because you don't get to see that seamlines when printing under .075mm which is vital for specific application and requirement. That's the difference between 100 and above. For casual print, it's useless as thrash, for prototyping, you dont wan't your low profile angle to be rugous.

[cipher0]

The people who seem to be talking about this are advertising this as a way to get prettier prints.
I get your example where it is useful though.

[richardphat]

I do agree though that they should be smart about advertising, productivity wise, it's a no for printing at 20microns.
Because any printer could achieve easily 20 microns resolution prints (Nema 17) if well calibrated.

[cipher0]

I think there's still this question: can you increase the "resolution" on the x and y planes as well?
By that I mean decrease the extruded filament (wall) width? 0.02 mm or even 0.1 in Z but 0.42 or 0.48 mm lines, mostly visible on the top and bottom of the model just don't make much sense together, if you're going for it for aesthetic reasons, which most these posts even about 0.1 mm layer height suggest.

[curious aardvark]

I can see your point.

However for precision and fine detail in the vertical plane higher resolutions are quite useful. And as long as the model is 1mm or wider the horizontal resolution is largely irrelevant. The horizontal placement precision is extremely important. But not the resolution.
That said I pretty much don't print much below 0.2mm as most of the time I'm not making artistic models.

That said you can get 0.2,0.3 nozzle diameters for really fine work.

But yeah advertising a fff printer as being 0.02 mm layer capable is pretty daft. Even small prints would take days.

[cipher0]

That said you can get 0.2,0.3 nozzle diameters for really fine work.

Where can I learn more?

In the Slic3r program at least there's a way to set the line thickness in software to less than the nozzle diameter, but when I do that the model is sliced the same way meaning the distance between the lines remains the same which just results in weak brittle printwith holes.

I'm interested in what fff printers are capable when it comes to resolution. Not much use for in practice because of speed but will be really interesting to be able to print tiny models with very fine detail (100 microns and 100 micron extruded plastic diameter, so the model will have the same detail in X, Y and Z)

[richardphat]

Imo, I'll only toys around with .2 or .3mm nozzle if I know what the heck I am doing. The chance for clogging really increase because the pressure applied to the filament may cause leakage

[curious aardvark]

well if the slicer software knows what diameter the nozzle is then it'll throttle back on feed rate. So I don't think pressure would be a major issue.

Filament type would probably be a much more relevant issue.

I suspect you'd need some of the more advanced pla. polymkr do non-clog, non warp, pla that would suit smaller diameter prints much better than cheaper filament.

A lot of the art of current 3d printing is matching filament to purpose. And there is currently a huge selection of specialist filaments to choose from :-)