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.
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