I don’t print any abrasive materials at all. Pretty much only normal PLA and PETG.
I noticed, that my print quality gradually went down quite a bit, especially in the last few prints. I had a lot of stringing, weird blobs, and scarred surfaces.
Now, the print quality is as good as it should be!
They are dirt cheap. You can get a set of 10-15 generic ones, in different sizes, for only a few bucks. Don’t forget that they are consumables.
And if you do print aggressive abrasive materials, remember to either get a super expensive hardox nozzle, or just throw them away after each print. Woodfiber will murder any nozzle.
Gotta say though, your nozzle mostly looks dirty, not worn out (much)
This solution to abrasive filament is a tungsten nozzle or one of the ruby tip ones. The cost is a bit expensive but with a tungsten nozzle you might be one and done
Forget about tungsten, get yourself a Diamondback nozzle They’re pretty much indestructible regardless of the hardness of the filament! Ask our boy Zack over at Voidstar Labs
Yeah, 70 bucks buys a LOT of disposable ones though. It’s probably worth it at some point, but not at my amount of abrasive filament use.
If you need to replace a cheap nozzle after each medium-sized print with abrasive filament, then I’m thinking print quality will suffer towards the end of a larger print (like >250g, but definitely >1kg). Not having to replace nozzles mid-print makes the $70 nozzle seem like a better deal. Depending on what you print and how much you print, of course.
Yeah, you could get hundreds of cheap nozzles for $70. I’ve bought packs of 10 nozzles for 74 cents. That’s almost a thousand nozzles I could get instead of one $70 tungsten one. Or maybe “only” 800 nozzles if I factor in a pessimistic shipping cost too.
EDIT: Checked the price I paid and it was even cheaper than I remember. Edited my calculations.
The time and care required to changing the nozzle (unless you’ve got a good mod or fancy system) isn’t worth it IMO.
Quality > Quantity