0.1mm Layer Height Tips & Tricks

I guess I want to start this as a bit of a survey. I've been semi-successful printing at .1 but have occasionally had jams late in the print. I was hoping to hear about your successes and failures. What settings are working for you and what aren't. I've found having the plastic a little hotter (& thinner) helps. Minimizing the number retractions helps. Never lifting Z on retraction helps as well.

This was a nozzle jam 8 1/2 hours into the print. .1 Naked Lady has become my white whale.

 

Simplify3D is one I haven't tried yet. Ideally, printing at .1 and 200% feedrate would be where I'd like to end up.

 

To be able to print at that small a resolution, shouldn't the extrude need to be also at .1 instead of .4 which I think is the stock version currently.


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Peter - You can print at 0.1mm layer height just fine with the stock hot end even though it's got a 0.4 nozzle. It just puts out less plastic so it lays down thinner layers. The 0.4 nozzle limits your resolution on the X/Y axes but is variable on the Z axis.

donhuevo - I'm confused about the 200% feed rate. When I've gone thinner and thinner layers (I've printed things successfully at 0.05mm layer height quite frequently), I've had to turn the feed rate down, not up. Is this ABS or PLA? As you've found, reducing retractions can help a lot - I think my current settings are for a 1mm retraction at 33 mm/s (the fastest the extruder motor can handle without getting grumpy about it). I can't tell from your pic but... are you using the stock hot end or...? I had jams on larger prints using the E3D and certain filament - changing filament was the only thing that resolved it, in the end.

 

I'm using an E3D Bowden feed. The 200% feed rate is just a goal. To be able to get .1 resolution in the time it takes to print a .2 object (give or take). In that pic, the federate was at 125% for the entire print. I've enabled the 'avoid crossing perimeters' and 'only retract when crossing perimeters' in Slic3r and re-sliced. As soon as the new bed is installed, I'm going to try again.

 

Next important tip: If you're using a Bowden feed, don't be an idiot like me and tie the Bowden tube to the x-carriage wiring harness. As the print got taller, the harness bent the tube more and more and I think that's what ultimately cause the hob to dig into the filament.