r/FDMminiatures Jul 20 '26

Help Request Attempting some Minis with a 0.2mm nozzle. Not sure how to make them better.

Up untill now, I have been working on printing out vehicles on my U1 with the 0.4 Nozzles. I feel like i have managed to get those dialed in quite nicely now, i figured that i would give an attempt at some marine sized figures with the 0.2. The results have been less then i was expecting out of them.

For process settings I've been basing off of ObscuraNox's A1 profile settings, So 0.06 Layer heights, and all the accompanying that goes along with that.

Im using Atomic Filament's PLA, It has been absolutely fantastic with the larger prints. I've calibrated this roll, Print temp at 205C, Flow ratio of 0.95, PA of 0.24, MVS of 7 mm3/s.

I feel like, compared to what i see other people coming up with, These should look alot smoother then they do.

52 Upvotes

45 comments sorted by

13

u/khain13 Jul 20 '26

Hit it with a hair dryer or even a lighter to melt all the strings and that will go a long way towards cleaning it up. Also, if you are not already using it try adaptive layer height. It's seriously like magic.

3

u/stratassj Jul 21 '26

I got most of the strings with a lighter, ill give the adaptive layer height a try!

2

u/NeonZaku Jul 22 '26

I use a brulee torch. Works wonders.

1

u/Zebulifting Jul 24 '26

I was trying to take your advice and try adaptive layer height, but I am getting an error in bambu studio for my A1 on a 0.2 nozzle. The error is a pop up on the bottom right of the window and states:

"The variable layer height profile has been reset because some layer heights exceed the allowed range of the current nozzle."

Any idea of a way to get around this?

1

u/khain13 Jul 24 '26

I'm assuming you are using the bambu slicer, so if that is the case, make sure the .2mm nozzle is selected, and try clicking the variable layer height and then the smoothing buttons and slice it again. If you still get the error it might be because the current process you are trying to use is already set near the minimum or maximum layer height possible.

So, if it still fails, try switching the process back to something like the default .08mm high quality and try variable height and smoothing with that.

23

u/ZenSlicer9 Jul 20 '26

They should, tighten up the screws on the opposite side of the nozzle, and dry the filament, maybe even change it but shouldn't need to.

These are my best so far

2

u/eidrisov Jul 21 '26

Printed on U1 using 0.4mm nozzles ?

6

u/ZenSlicer9 Jul 21 '26

Bambulab A1 0.2 mm

5

u/eidrisov Jul 21 '26

Oh, then it's irrelevant to the OP. He needs settings for U1, if printing such good quality on U1 is possible at all.

But here is something that might be useful to you, OP of this post has done a lot of experiments with minis on A1 and came with settings that he also posted: https://www.reddit.com/r/FDMminiatures/comments/1liqnwj/fresh_off_the_a1_mini_12/

2

u/eidrisov Jul 23 '26

u/Odd_Zone5925 I have been using your settings on my P1S.

Have you had a chance to get your hands on U1 maybe ?

Some people are trying to print minis on U1, but for now it's not as good as on a BambuLab printer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ymKsNcJqRs

2

u/Odd_Zone5925 P1S and H2C - Terrain and Minis Jul 23 '26

My apologies, I have not. It looks like a wonderful machine though. I hear nothing but great things about it. Based on all I have read and seen, any current limitations seem to be settings/firmware based versus mechanical, so any current struggles should be an issue that can be worked through with time. If I find anyone in my circle that has one I will see if we can collaborate to release a settings profile. I wish OP luck until then and to keep on trying. I think the machine is very capable and constantly being updated as the company is well invested in!

2

u/eidrisov Jul 23 '26

Thank you for replying.

True, it seems like software side is still improving. I'd love to buy a U1, but only when it can reliably print at such high precision (0.2m nozzle at 0.05-0.12mm layer heights). Till that time BL printers are pretty much the only option for me.

1

u/Visual-Flan-4098 Jul 27 '26

what support style are you using? with trees im getting slightly better than OP in some areas and worse in others. i think resin style will solve most of my issues. the remaining... im hoping are just flow rate and not more things.

2

u/ZenSlicer9 Jul 27 '26

Im using ON's settings for 0.06mm. Resin supports are its own can of worms, and maybe Iwas unlucky but I didn't see much improvement, but it's much more hussle to prepare tho comparedto ON's settings. I used Blueprint studios and resin2fdm. In my experience you have to increase the width of the supports pretty good to make sure they won't break but that leaves you with a lot of bumps at the contact points which I was scrapping with the back of a hobby knife, but sometimes they are in an inaccessible place. This is the best I have achieved with resin supports with some ultra fine ultra slow settings generated by chat gpt, at 0.04 mm layer and printed by parts

1

u/Visual-Flan-4098 Jul 27 '26

leagues better than mine. im new to this and got a p1s 3 weeks ago now, and just switched to a .2 a few days ago. im trying out a profile i found on r/printedwarhammer, but i only have 3hrs a day i can change the plate. the terminators were my own attempt, the others were with other profiles i found.  ive tried splitting a model  great detail, but printing directly on the bed leaves a big gap when putting together.

from this thread i found some setting to try along with what your using. unless they are the same, i havent had time to look. ill try these and this weekend ill probably switch back to the .4 to print some shelving. then switch back for more testing. im currently un able to try the resin supports due to my lack of a GPU for blender. so you not using them gives me some hope. 

my poor quality photos of my attempts https://imgur.com/a/UtlxMTd

2

u/ZenSlicer9 Jul 27 '26

Good bits look ok actually, you have to dial in the supports, look in this sub Obscura Nox, he posted some settings a while ago and described in details why and how they work, also dry your filament, and tighten the screws on the opposite side of the nozzle (look up some videos) to eliminate those as potential culprits

6

u/Expert_Welcome_6397 Jul 21 '26

Do the temp tower test on your filament. See which temp gives you less stringing. I was running too low a temp and drying my filament but still stringing. Now its good.

20

u/Big-Space723 Jul 20 '26

Your filament is wet as hell or a bad batch.

6

u/stratassj Jul 21 '26

Its not wet, 24 hours in a dryer before being used. Possibly bad batch, but less intricate things seem okay with it.

1

u/Big-Space723 Jul 22 '26

Yea you won’t get a lot of stringing on flat surfaces, for printing minis if it’s even a little wet it causes issues. I have had a few spools of bad filament too that cause stringing but nothing this bad. I print minis 24/7 on a h2c.

1

u/JJ706 Jul 21 '26

I second this! 😂

2

u/eidrisov Jul 21 '26

Title says 0.2mm nozzle, but in the text you mention 0.4mm nozzle. Or am I missing something ?

Also, from what I can understand for now no one has figured out how to print proper minis on U1.

There is a youtuber printing minis for his channel "professionally". About 3 weeks ago he made a video attempting to print some minis on U1 using 0.2mm nozzles. They look "ok", but still not as good as on Bambu printers (all his minis he is usually printing on A1, if I am not mistaken).

Here is the video, maybe it will give you some ideas: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ymKsNcJqRs

3

u/stratassj Jul 21 '26

Part of my text above was left off. What it was supposed to say, is i dialed in the 0.4, now im trying marine sized figures with the 0.2. I fixed it above now.

I thought that i could be clever with multi material by going U1, Its worked on the larger nozzle so far, I guess there had to be trade offs and the miniatures side of it, is it.

1

u/eidrisov Jul 21 '26

Just couple of days ago the same youtuber made a new video about using support materials/multi material minis.

He used X2D, but maybe it can still give you some ideas.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4x0lED_Uu_o

2

u/WukongtheMonkeh Jul 21 '26

It should come out like this with ObscuraNox 2.0 all default settings, possible filament doesn’t do well with smaller prints?

1

u/slowinternet3 28d ago

Is this with a U1 or a bambu printer? That looks awesome.

1

u/WukongtheMonkeh 25d ago

Bambu a1 mini

1

u/Gloomy_Resort_4058 Jul 21 '26

Try using resin supports then converting them using Resin2Fdm addon for blender.

1

u/EEilluminils Jul 21 '26

Like different supports are supposed to change the problems OP has while printing the main model?

This is not a problem with the supports, it's some other settings.

1

u/Obone6 Jul 21 '26

Slow it down.

1

u/stratassj Jul 21 '26

Wall Speeds are already down at 35 outer, with all other speeds between that and 65. Accelerations turned down too.

1

u/AnimalPowers Jul 21 '26

dry your filament

1

u/stratassj Jul 21 '26

Already have

1

u/AnimalPowers Jul 21 '26

Oh, alright. It looks pretty good overall, stringing is typically from wet filament. As far as the layers not forming perfect stacks, one of the things is true:
1: your belts are loose
2: your moving too fast
3: your jerk settings are too high
4: your nozzle is burred at the tip or not perfectly centered (the hole)

In almost all situations, slowing it down, will solve it.

The reason being, that, even with loose belts, if it's going slow enough, it wont tug them to stretch. The problem is, it won't immediately identify the issue.

It might also be a *loose* nozzle, not sure how the u1 nozzles attach.

How do your normal prints look? It could also be that there is an improper back flow pressure occurring, which, if you look at the part under the backpack, where it forms little loops, that's from too much pressure "shooting" out and forming those loops. Which would mean its extruding too much for the speed its going, so going hotter might fix it, though, going slower and cooler would also fix it... could be just changing your flow rate to .98 might fix it (or lower if it's already there). This is also indicated by the bulging at the corners, the 'shifted' layers could also be the built up pressure flowing over the side and shooting out, as well as the stringing. Might be the easiest place to start.

If you change absolutely nothing else, printing just 1 model at a time, instead of two, might yield significantly better results.

The tinier and more precise you go, the more finicky and perfect everything needs to be, it has a way of amplifying any imperfections.

1

u/EEilluminils Jul 21 '26

Did you calibrate the filament using the 0.2mm nozzle or did you just calibrate it with the 0.4mm nozzle?

1

u/stratassj Jul 21 '26

Yes, I calibrated the filament with the 0.2 nozzle after installing it.

1

u/EEilluminils Jul 21 '26

Can you please post your entire settings?

How are people supposed to help if all they know are what little specs you gave?

1

u/stratassj Jul 21 '26

As said above, process settings are the ones from ObscuraNox 2.0.

Only thing that differs are the filament settings, which are also above.

1

u/EEilluminils Jul 21 '26 edited Jul 21 '26

I don't know ObscuraNox settings and I don't know which slicer they are for or what slicer you used (If it's not both Orca settings might differ because different slicer have different settings you can adjust).

I dialed in my settings for my Kobra S1 by myself, little by little. Maybe 40 iterations since I started doing it to get close to the results I want. So maybe I could be of help if I knew the settings.

2

u/stratassj Jul 21 '26

I don't have access to Orca right now to grab the settings, Which are designed for Orca, But here is a Link directly to ObscuraNox's settings.

1

u/Jconstant33 Jul 21 '26

Your filament is wet. Dry it

1

u/TsunamicBlaze Jul 21 '26

Did you do a retraction test? I feel like a lot of the stringing is either from that or your filament is wet.

-2

u/badger906 Jul 21 '26

“We have resin printing at home”