1.80mm self drilled nozzle 😈

Had an interesting discussion with someone who was talking about how difficult it is to create profiles for these self drilled nozzles you see on the social media’s.

“Magic”

Using words like magic takes so much away from the fact a 3D printer is a just a glue gun strapped to a Printer. It’s all understanding the basic principles of material extrusion not magic.

Sure to those who are looking at this you’ve probably said to yourself that how can you print 1.75mm filament through a 1.80mm orifice. It’ll just fall out right?

Nope. Filament expands when heated and we are printing layers that compress on top of each other which causes filament to backup into the melt zone and become partially liquidy goodness. Not magic. It’s science.

But you have to extrude this and retractions are going to be impossible. All a retraction happens to be is a form of back pressure. Remember that our filament is in a near liquid form. When you retract it causes a small suction that “retracts” some filament from the point of least resistance aka the nozzle tip. Not magic. Science.

Layers won’t be able to stick to each other cause it’s not possible to heat the material fast enough. (Layer height)(layer width)(extrusion speed) = flow rate. As long as the materials flow rate doesn’t exceed your hotends max flow rate you’re “safe” for the most part. Not magic. Science.

I don’t want to squish your feelings of magic and whimsy in printing but I’d like everyone to realize that saying things are magic can keep you from understanding why something works when it seems difficult or impossible.

The magic is learning why and how and then making it happen not the actual end product. So fill yourself with all the magic you can handle and and make some cool shit.

Don’t forget to hop onto discord and chat about this craziness if you like.