What is Layer Height and Nozzle Diameter? - 3D Printing 101 Video Lecture | What is 3D Printing: Basic Knowledge - IT & Software

today we're tackling layer Heights and
nozzle diameters two of the most
misunderstood factors in creating a high
quality 3d printed model let's get
started hello my name is Angus and
welcome to 3d printing 101 here on
makers muse so when you're shopping for
your first 3d printer often layer
Heights is a number that gets thrown
around you'll hear companies say such
things as prints down to 50 microns or
prints twice the level of detail as
there's other printer on the market but
what does that actually mean well in the
case of FDM technology that is fused
deposition modeling the layer height
refers to each step your 3d printer
moves up in the z direction as it draws
each layer of your 3d print essentially
what happens is it will draw a line by
line each layer and it'll move up by a
certain amount a minut amount again
again to create your 3d print and the
amount it moves up by is your layer
height well that's great angus that
means to get super high detailed prints
I can just print it like 10 microns
right that'll be fantastic I'll get lots
of resolution well not exactly there are
two other main factors you'd need to
take into account print time and your
nozzle diameter let's look at print time
first here I've got a simple cube within
simplify 3d and we're going to slice it
at 200 microns that is 0.2 millimeter
layer height I have infill set at 20%
and I have no raft or brin turned on to
keep things simple you can see with a
time estimate that the print will take
around 30 minutes not too bad now let's
go back and have a layer height that is
to 100 microns or 0.1 millimeters this
means there will be twice as many layers
that the printer needs to lay down for
the same sized print resulting in twice
as much resolution in the Z direction
you can see that while the material use
is almost identical to the other print
the time to complete the print has
almost doubled and here's the two cubes
side by side for a print like this it's
very difficult to actually justify a
longer print time as you can't really
see any significant difference and with
this model for example the white part is
actually printed at 350 microns which is
very coarse for FDM 3d printer but due
to the geometric
design actually looks quite good and it
prints roughly three and a half times
faster than if I printed the same model
at a hundred micron layer Heights
sometimes printing at 100 micron layer
Heights or even finer can be useful for
example when printing models with gentle
contours towards the top of the print
and you want to avoid visible stepping
you might want to use a layer height of
100 microns or even finer
similarly text on the size of 3d prints
can look a lot better if you use a finer
layer height for example here the layer
height is 300 microns on the coarse
print and 100 microns on the fine print
and you can see the text on the side
looks much better with the much lower
layer heights so how does nozzle
diameter come into play well let's look
at what nozzle diameter actually is it
is the size of the bore within your
nozzle itself now most 3d printers on
the market have a nozzle diameter of 0.4
millimeters this means that
realistically the thinnest line your 3d
printer can lay down at any one time is
around zero point four millimeters wide
you can probably start to see how
manufacture claims of up to 20 micron
accuracy don't quite add up
text is a fantastic way of demonstrating
the effect of nozzle diameters on final
print quality for example with this
demonstration I have the print setup
with a 0.8 millimeter diameter nozzle a
zero point 8 millimeter diameter nozzle
is fantastic at printing very fast
compared to a 0.4 millimeter diameter
nozzle you can see with the text here
it's essentially unreadable when you go
to slice the final print if we step back
down to zero point four millimeters you
can see the text does become readable
but it's still not very sharp now
depending on your make and brand of 3d
printer you can buy nozzles all the way
down to zero point two millimeters in
diameter and if we were to print this
model using a 0.2 millimeter diameter
nozzle the text would be extremely crisp
but do keep in mind very fine diameter
nozzles are very difficult to print with
you have increased pressures within the
hot end and also you have to make sure
your bed leveling is absolutely spot-on
also do keep in mind that the final
nozzle diameter you use the longer your
print will take even if you're not
changing your layer heights this is
because the nozzle needs to move a lot
more to fill in the same area that are
larger diameter nozzle would so a 0.2
meter diameter nozzle we need to move an
awful lot more than a 0.8 word to fill
in the same area you may also be
concerned about strength differences
when slicing at different layer Heights
the layer heights in the 3d print are
much like a wood grain will always be
the weakest part of the 3d print but at
least in my experience different layer
heights seem to have very little effect
on the overall part strength you need to
just make sure that your layer adhesion
is good regardless of what layer height
you printer you do however have to keep
in mind that you cannot have layer
heights that are coarser than your
nozzle diameter for example with a 0.2
millimeter nozzle you can't really have
a print that it has zero point four
millimeter layers it's not going to end
very well so thanks for watching now you
can begin your next 3d printing project
with a firm grasp of how nozzle
diameters and layer Heights will affect
the final 3d print and you won't be
fooled next time a 3d printing company
tries to trick you the ludicrously low
3d print layer height claims like this
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