0.05mm layer height?

Hello everyone. I was just wondering what it takes to get as low as 0.05mm layer height. Is it even possible and if so, is it much better as far as accuracy? Is it all in the hotend or are there other means to it? Thank you for any answers.

My finest smallest prints are at 0.06mm layer height with my 0.3mm nozzle.
And ive made a number of tweaks to my prusa i2 to get the accuracy ive got now.
But i cant see the point with anything but the smallest nozzle sizes.
And your printer needs to be well set up to make it work.

This is 9mm across with 0.4mm walls. Its the finest ive been able to print so far.
Its a housing for a sensor for a guy at our makerspace. No one else was able to print it.



Gordon

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/20/2015 03:29PM by gordonendersby.

I just printed some dental scans with 50 um layer height using ABS. The biggest problem is over extrusion. If you over extrude at all it produces little boogers of plastic that the nozzle keeps pushing around until they eventually end up stuck to the part and have to be cleaned off. The print I did was done with a 0.4mm nozzle- probably too wide for the detail I was trying to duplicate. I have a 0.25 mm nozzle somewhere. If I can locate it I'll see if that works better.

See [plus.google.com]

What tweaks did you make to the Prusa

Do tell!

Bump on the tweaks

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/21/2015 10:36PM by sungod3k.

Hard to remember them all as ive done little bits and pieces over several months.

I can print at 0.06mm layer heights and thin walls down to 0.4mm at up to 50mm/s.
Done some prints lately for people who couldnt get there very small designs printed by others on more mainstream machines.

Replaced the original plywood bed with a sheet of aluminium.
4 bearing mount again to make it more rigid. Better bearing blocks.
It fitted better and i could make the heated bed more rigid.
Got rid of springs on heated bed mount, now it doesnt move or vibrate as much.
4 point mounting with manual levelling.
Ikea 20cm mirror tiles either with or without kapton tape depending on material being printed.
But at £6 for 4 you can have a few as spares ready to use with or without tape.
So basicly the bed is rock solid and not wobbling around like jelly on thos springs.
Head crashes are handled by the springs in the x-ends. Havnt broken a mirror tyle yet.

Y-axis threaded rod to motor couplers, metal rather than plastic. They dont slip in the slightest.
Currently have the spiral spring type but im going to try the solid block ones to see what difference that makes.
Tried the y screws restricted and unrestricted, made no difference so now theres no bearing at the bottom.
Padded out nuts on y-axis screw so they fitted the x-ends more snuggly.
Took a while to find the right spring for anti baclash on the y-threaded rod and x-ends.

Fitted hexagon hot end with wades accesible extruder and herringbone gears.
Hexagon allows me to swap nozzles between 0.3 and 0.5mm at will. depending if i want to print very small accurate stuff or fast With the bigger nozzle.
Had to change and modify x-carriage to get it to fit with the little fan to cool the hexagon.
Changed position of print cooling fans to front and back so theyre out of the way at the extremes of the x-axis.
Soon to print a new version i found of the extruder body with an extra guide between the hobbed/pinch point and throat to guide flexible filaments as i can only get 20mm/s with ninjaflex.

Now do my own hobbing of the hobbed bolt as i found so much variation in quality and dimensions.
Now its hobbed exactly in the right place and im experimenting with different tap sizes and depth of hobbing.

Drv8834 stepper drivers at 1/32 quiter and still able to give the torque i need.
Upgraded bits of the ramps board like power connections.
Have another ramps board im trying to squeeze locking connectors onto to make the motor connections more reliable.

My main point of failure on this machine has been the connections on the ramps board.
I crimp all my own connectors properly myself but the standard pin and sockets keep riding up and causing bad connections.
And the screw in power connectors scorching. I now replace them with known good 16amp versions.
The only other failure ive had to fix is the x-axis smooth rods and bearings.
The bearing scored the smooth rod and caused extra friction that overheated the stepper motor.

Theres probably other bits and pieces ive done that may occur to me but these have been the ones where ive noticed a difference in quality or reliability.

Gordon

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/22/2015 06:05AM by gordonendersby.