Why Not Always Use Volcano Hotend?

I recently ordered an E3D V6 as well as the Volcano upgrade. Then I got to thinking since I have a .4 nozzle that I am running now and the Volcano has a .4 nozzle. Why dont I just always run the Volcano hotend and then simply swap out the nozzle size since I never need anything below a .4 nozzle? Has anyone else pondered this and can you give me the pros and cons? Also can the Volcano run flexible filament?

Thanks!

I heard that if you run a small nozzle on a volcano. the filament cooks for too long. and this isnt good. But i dont know why its not good.

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... plastic degrades/decomposes and loose strength when remelted and/or heated for too long - common comparing numbers between injection molded parts and remolded/remelted gives 30 percent loss in stability per remelting cyclus ...

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Viktor
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...plus the large melt chamber will likely cause more ooze problems than a standard block.

I guess one way around the "no small nozzle" limitation is to fit a smaller heater cartridge. Then calibrate it an M303 command and recompile the code with the optimal P, I, D settings.

It's worth doing when you change hotends anyway. The electronics are built to 3% or 1% tolerances, a tune up gets the right figures for that particular hotend, sensor, cartridge, and cooling system.

I have a volcano and it's great for big nozzles even though I can't really go faster than 50mm/s with 0.8mm nozzles so although I can make much stronger parts its not really much quicker. But with a 0.4 mm nozzle the filament comes out a bit over-cooked, it's slightly faded in colour and more brittle. I'm mainly using ABS.

Maybe with smaller nozzles at high speed it might spend less time in the hot end. You certainly can print faster with a 0.4mm nozzle and a volcano than you can with a v6.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/29/2016 04:53AM by DjDemonD.

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Simon Khoury

Co-founder of [www.precisionpiezo.co.uk] Accurate, repeatable, versatile Z-Probes
Published:Inventions

I dont think the heat degradation is a big issue, at least I never had noticeable problems. The advantage of course is that you get a better heat throughput and therefore you print volume should increase but since thats not an issue for normal printers that run at 60mms there is no reason to do that and there is also almost no data or tests that are concerned with that above average print volume, so establish a good baseline before going all volcano.