Volumetric flow limitations with PLA

[Rusty105]

Prior to building my Switchwire I was printing with my Prusa MK3S+. Printing speeds were slow by today's standards, and as I am trying to do some 3D printing as a side hustle. At one point I had multiple orders stacked up waiting to print, one of the reasons for the Switchwire.

Anyway.... with the MK3S max flow rate was never an issue, the print speed was too slow for max flow to be an issue. Switching to the Switchwire I am now having this issue. I am using a Stealthburner tool head with a Clockwork 2 and Revo-Voron hot end, using a 0.4 STD flow nozzle. Using a 0.2mm layer height I am topping out around 7-8 mm^3/s, which is around a 100mm/s print speed. Better than the MK3S, but I thought it would be faster. I swapped in a 0.4 High Flow nozzle, and maybe gained 1 mm^3/s in flow. I am still using the 40W heater, but the heater graph shows the heater is not on all the time, so I am not sure a larger heater will help.

The filament I am using is Polymaker PolyTerra PLA, and extruding at 215°C. I know the switchwire probably wont print at, or above, 250mm/s, but 150mm/s ? I do have a 60W heater coming, but I have my doubts it will get me 12+ mm^3/s flow. Should I be looking for a better hotends, different filament brand (still PLA) or optimize somewhere else?

Thanks!

 

[Spice_King]

Temperature, if you want to print faster, you need to melt it faster. and a higher temperature will let you melt more. Try bumping up 10°C to 225°C. The 60w heater core will not help you unless you are seeing spikes to 100% and high averages (like 85%+) during extrusions, which are signs that the heater core is unable to keep up. Outside temperature, a differing PLA blend will help, there are high flow variants of PLA out there, which flow better. PLA is just not a high flow filament, which is why lots of speed benchies are printed in ABS/ASA.

 

[Rusty105]

I'll try the hotter extruder first. I do haver some ASA I can try out as well.....