Test Printing With Wear-Resistant Nozzle
Addressing the issue of nozzle wear using composite filaments has been a priority for us and it looks like we have found a good way to extend nozzle life! Using brass nozzles plated with a super-hard "electroless" nickel coating has increased the life of our FlashForge nozzles significantly. With the stock brass nozzles, we can only print about 500g of material before wear becomes a problem. With the new nozzles, we have run more than 4Kg without measurable wear.
How do we measure wear? Well, we have some ridiculously small drill bits :-) They go up in .002in increments and we use them like "go no-go" gauges.
![](http://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0717/9095/files/drills_large.jpg?11413131748759938228)
Currently we have both MK8 and MK10 (Newer Flash Forge) Nozzles in stock (in both .4mm and .6mm). Below is an image of the MK10 version.
![](http://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0717/9095/files/MK10_large.jpg?11413131748759938228)
We are super excited about this advancement in hardware that will help you print in exotic materials with confidence!
Here are a few images of Stainless Steel prints using our .4mm coated nozzle. They were all printed with a single nozzle with no measurable wear.
Eric Harrell (ericthepoolboy) uploaded an amazing model of a 4 cylinder Toyota engine to thingiverse, with pretty much every single part. We wanted to run a lot of material through, so I just started printing parts of it out. The Block took 20hrs at 30% infill. We asked for permission to post images because it is licensed non-commercial but have not heard back.
Other prints in the pile are a Flower, Train, and giant hex blocks that are designed basically to use up filament. They are 100% infill and and 750g of material.
![](http://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0717/9095/files/flower_large.jpg?11016975079837470575)
![](http://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0717/9095/files/train_large.jpg?11413131748759938228)
![](http://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0717/9095/files/hex_large.jpg?11413131748759938228)
We also printed a 600g T-rex with 100% infill that is 6in long :-). This is a solid guy, and I polished his nose up some just for fun.
![](http://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0717/9095/files/trex_head_large.jpg?11413131748759938228)
Thanks for reading and happy printing!
The Protopasta team.