The Print Tests: Cheap 3D Printer Nozzles. Can *YOU* tell?

Today we test out those cheap 3D Printer nozzles we were looking at in Episode 1. How did they perform?

Some aff links to the products mentioned:
I bought both those two off amazon. I think theyre literally all the same though across the internet. The red one is the best for starting.

second channel - @foundintech

Chapters
0:00 Intro
0:29 Nozzle sequence
2:03 Initial Conditions
2:51 The Question?
3:27 Quality Tests
4:00 Oddly Placed Music Sequence
4:46 The Quiz
7:21 Quality Results
7:48 Other Sizes?
7:59 How do you measure a nozzle?
8:51 You need gear.
10:23 Nozzle Orifice Variance
11:59 Faulty Nozzles Tho?
12:36 Wear, tear and bedding in
13:35 Slow Mo, Oh no!
15:08 Play Dohn't
16:17 Damage Tests
16:44 PCBWay made this possible
18:58 Damage Results
22:14 Worn not Worn?
22:57 Sum up.

[eraldylli]

For what it's worth, you always come to mind wherever I see "line width" in slicers. You've done a great job throughout these years.

[justinchamberlin]

This tracks with what I've observed over the years:

-Cheap nozzles generally work fine unless the aperture diameter is drastically off.
-Cheap nozzles are inherently more disposable compared to quality nozzles because they don't resist wear over time, in addition to not feeling bad about junking inexpensive nozzles.
-All dimensions on cheap nozzles are suspect, including internals. Avoiding either high or low extremes on flow rate and line width covers up some of the deficiencies, but print quality can suffer when diameters are well out of tolerance.
-The overall cost of using cheap nozzles can be fairly balanced with using nicer (E3D, genuine Prusa, Micro-Swiss) brands - they get replaced more often but the lower unit cost offsets the replacement rate.

There's something to be said for hanging onto older nozzles for prints using larger line widths, but I don't know how that would work well, short of measuring the nozzle diameter over time (requiring measurement tools, calibrations for those measurement tools, and a healthy dose of giving a crap) and adjusting line widths in the slicer to account for those changes. The time invested in keeping records on the diameters of your nozzles - especially if you have more than one printer or jump around from size to size or from hardened nozzles back to brass - starts to be worth more than the nozzles are anyway.

It's no surprise that 0.2 mm nozzles suffer from the greatest variation...it's hard to drill small holes, thousands of times a day, and do so precisely and consistently. I would think that the high-end nozzle manufacturers, who have better Swiss machines, better machinists, and more robust QA, would be better at this - and again, that's been my experience. 0.2 mm nozzles from no-name Chinese Amazon listings are hit-or miss, the handful I've needed to buy from Micro-Swiss have been generally good.

Also, I am a "metalologist" (metallurgical engineer), and you are mostly right about brass. Lead as an element doesn't actually have a ton of solubility in copper alloys at room temperature, and when that material solidifies the lead stays liquid for a fairly long time (C36000 free-machining brass as a whole solidifies at 1, 630˚ in freedom units but the 2.5-3.0% lead by weight in the alloy will stay liquid down to 621˚) and tends to end up as little nodules; these nodules help break up the chips during machining and lubricate the cutting tools, which is why leaded brasses have been so popular for machining applications for so many decades. I wouldn't use the word "amalgam, " however, as that is a term specific to alloys of mercury and any metal elements not named iron, platinum, tungsten, or I believe tantalum.

To me, the concern about tiny chips of brass nozzle material in the plastic leaching heavy metals into food is frankly pretty minor, especially if you live anywhere near a coal power plant or other source of heavy metal air/water pollution...however, people considering using 3D prints for food/medical/[redacted] applications should be far more concerned about microbes collecting in the layer lines. Most hobbyist-level 3D printing filaments cannot withstand thermal sterilization processes like using an autoclave, and nobody in their right mind would print a [water glass and totally not a personal pleasure device] out of PEEK or PPSU. Most filaments popular with hobbyists will even struggle with a thermal/chemical sanitization process like using a dishwasher or purely chemical sanitization by way of a bleach solution (PETG being a possible exception due to its robust chemical resistance), and do you really want to soak your 3D printed dishes in bleach before later scrubbing them with soap and hot water?

Pontificating aside, I very much look forward to part 3. The concept of the Diamondback nozzle, with the thermal benefits as well as stupendous wear resistance, is very attractive to me and one of those will be the next nozzle I get for my SV06+...I have too many cheap nozzles for my Ender 3 to justify getting a Diamondback for that any time soon.

[RichardThaddeus]

Don't stop the subtitles, they make amazing videos even more engaging as I HAVE to watch to see the funnies, not just listen

[Katskraftkorner]

As someone who is getting their very first 3d printer, i can say this video is very educational and great information to know when buying replacement nozzles. The photos really brought it home by showing what to look for and expect while I learn how to use both my machine and the software used to slice and design my own prints. I've been binge watching 3d printer videos on here to learn what I can before my machine arrives.

[davidswinnard]

As a (old, retired) photographer I can appreciate the pains you took to deal with the DOF issues. The bespoke ring-light is brilliant (no pun intended). I came to the world of 3D printing when my son lent me his old printer to make some things I need for my other hobbies. Like any endeavour, so much to learn. Thanks for taking the time to make an in-depth study on something I, and perhaps others, take as a given. Nozzle, of course I've got a nozzle...

[azkibsi]

The nozzle with the groove that left a clean ridge on top of the the extruded line opens up an interesting opportunity for creating cross linking between layers that goes beyond the normal standard single planar surface. Having it shaped like a + or * would ensure ridges are created regardless of orientation of the line relative to the nozzle groove. It could act like chopped fibers do to create linkage between layers.

[McFlyOrPie]

Ugh, I can never trust that subtitle guy. Also I'm glad I'm half deaf and always use subtitles. It's fun when you, Technology Connections and many more, put in little easter eggs.

[AlAmantea]

One thing that I absolutely love about your videos... OK, two things... 1- Your sense of humor is spot on, and 2- the deep dives into things cause me to think outside of the box when diagnosing printing problems. These seem quite evident when looked at through your lens, but in reality, are overlooked all the time.
Thank you, and please keep doing what you are doing. I enjoy it immensely!

[JiajuChen]

I honestly love PCBways sponsorships. So far, every one of those sponsored videos across different YouTubers are really creative, and they mostly really benefitted from the Sponsor.

[dekutree]

20:20 Have you ever seen Bob Ross paint snow on mountains with a palette knife? That's what that holey extrusion from the tilted nozzle reminds me of.

[mrrooter]

5:10 correct (stringing and slightly circular holes)
5:43 correct (gaps on the E and M)
6:05 wrong
6:30 couldnt tell (the lines did not showup clearly on my monitor so it was hard to distingush)
7:21 got it correct (surface finish and less gaps on the infill), which was interesting because IMO its clearly better than the others (better enough for the insane markup is still HEAVILY debatable, and potentially tuneable on cheaper nozzles?) and it wasnt just a 5050.

[oliverkalitowski]

Thanks for this huge amount of work mate. Really appreciate it!

[Peter-]

Love the deep dive into nozzles (and the subtitle easter eggs). Once again, great cinematography!

[aldabest]

When you showed the prints where one of them had more stringing, I immediately thought cheap nozzle (which as you said correlates with inaccurate nozzle size). In the past, when one of my nozzles got worn down, it always increased stringing.

After switching over to Obxidian nozzles, I haven’t experienced stringing in 6 months. The new generation of wear resistant and thermally conductive nozzles has been an incredible boon.

[eslmatt]

If you want a nozzle to wear, use some glass fiber filament. Took my brass nozzle down to a nub before i calibrated the filament. I had some cheap stainless steel nozzles, i got through the calibration then one part... I picked up a hybrid microswiss nozzle, seems to be holding up much better.

[RegularOldDan]

That Diamondback is a thing of beauty. Among my (ever expanding) collection of nozzles, I have a 0.6mm. I like it.

Once again, I love seeing these photographic videos from your channel. (Yes, I'm writing this midway through the video, but I know I'll enjoy the rest as well.) Keep up the good work.

[NicksStuff]

13:40 That's the clip we need to show to people who print cookie cutters. Bits of nozzle (which contains lead) ending on the print, great

[SianaGearz]

So i have a toy microscope... for kids... little handheld pocket one... purchased it in the 80s for the price of 7.90 Soviet Roubles, which i know because the price is moulded into the carry case, my memory isn't that good. It has an integrated scale etched into a piece of glass embedded in the cover, so you can measure small things. So i did measure my nozzles. They do come out correctly sized, the ones i do have. The microscope also has an integrated incandescent side light, and is specified to have 30x magnification.

I hear you can get a piece of glass, i don't know if it's maybe a microscope slide or something, with a scale like that etched into it. If you hold it with the etched side onto your subject, you shouldn't have much trouble reading the size.

Also i bought a cheap and spectacularly nastily made microscope attachment for a phone. It was one dollar shipped. It's just a single plastic lens, an LED, and a coin cell holder, with an automatic switch that turns the LED on when you put it on, but i have had success making nozzle photos with it, which i had done when i nickel plated the nozzle. The nozzle opening has reduced slightly but visibly from plating, but i don't remember whether i concluded it from looking at the nozzle purely from microscope photos, or from looking at it with the scale of the toy microscope. The photos are sort of ugly but you can see the nozzle surface and opening clearly.

I should take the nozzle off now and see what it looks like. I do have extra nozzles, i mean they're so cheap. But i haven't plated them yet. I don't know if i want to, i can't make up my mind whether it actually helps anything. Maybe i should paint a thin layer of HT silicone on the nozzle to try to make PETG stick to it less. I tried to season a nozzle with oil, like one may season a skillet, but it wasn't very successful.

[SolaAesir]

You can quickly wear a nozzle using glow in the dark filament. It's at least as abrasive as the GF or CF filaments but it doesn't have the bigger pieces in it that will cause clogs in smaller diameter nozzles.

[baremetaltechtv]

i was able to guess the e3d nozzle sample correctly each time, for some reason the edges of the cubes looked cleaner to me with the e3d nozzle, so take that with a grain of salt, but at least it means some people are able to notice a difference.