Increasing Resolution on the Prusa I3. "Going beyond 0.2"

Do I need to upgrade my hot end to a E3D V6 in order to print finer detail than 0.2?

I've tried 0.1, and nothing actually sticks.

People go down to the micron level with their Prusa I3's, and I would love to know how it's being done.

I have a .40 nozzle using 1.75 ABS filament with a hot bed.

Thanks!

I guess you're talking about layer thickness. You should precise because you can find 0.2mm nozzles too. Well, there's no absolute awnsers to your questions.Maybe your extrusion temperature is too low. Maybe your printing speed is too high. You may adjust some parameters. Maybe you own a low quality hotend and you can't lower the speed or raise the temperature without clogging, especialy with ABS. In this case only, ungrading your hotend will solve the problem, and the E3D V6 is actualy one of the best hotends money can buy.

Important : keep in mind that printing thinner layers will bring more details on one axis only (Z). If you print a gear shape or a face, the tooth and the noze won't be more detailed because of the limits of your nozzle diameter. Only the horizontal stripes will look half time smaller. But if you print a ramp, thinner layers will help a lot. So, appreciate that details comes from 3 linked factors : layer thickeness, nozzle diameter, and printing speed.

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Collective intelligence emerges when a group of people work together effectively. Prusa i3 Folger (A lot of the parts are wrong, boring !)

The problem could be calibration as it needs to be more accurate for thinner layers - I would suggest getting a dial gauge and calibrating with that.
There is a .25 nozzle available for the E3D which prints well at 0.1
I have only tried it with PLA though.

I forget to say that thinner nozzles needs a good hotend with a precise extruder too. I had headaches with my kit extruder and never managed to print properly with a .3 nozzle.

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Collective intelligence emerges when a group of people work together effectively. Prusa i3 Folger (A lot of the parts are wrong, boring !)

So a .4 nozzle is too big to print anything less than .2...safe to say?

Once again you make no difference between the nozzle and the layer. It's two different things. Well, imagine the nozzle diameter is like a pencil. The thinner the pencil tip is, the more detail you can draw. The layer eight, ils like the paper. One draw per paper. Layer thickness gives some resolution on the Z axis (the height). Nozzle gives some resolution on X and Y axis (length and width). It's 3 dimentional and both don't works on the same dimentions.

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Collective intelligence emerges when a group of people work together effectively. Prusa i3 Folger (A lot of the parts are wrong, boring !)

And for the nozzle size, resolution isn't quite the right word.

Like a rounded, dull pencil, you can still draw exactly where you want, but maybe not as fine a line as you want. This isn't like an old low-res printer (Like back in the dark ages of dat matrix) which can only print at certain intervals. The 3D printer can place a line of your nozzle thickness to within the resolution allowed by the stepper motors, therefore the X/Y curves are very smooth. Curves or diagonals in the Z axis, however will have the kind of jaggies that those older printers had, because the Z axis will be limited to what you set the layer height to be.

Instead of comparing to a pencil, compare the nozzle to a sharpie. A really small nozzle is like the ultra-fine 0.5mm sharpie, and a thick nozzle is like the big thick one. Either can draw nice smooth curves on a single sheet, but you can't fill in a lot of fine detail with the large tip.

Layer height is like paper thickness. Cut out shapes on onionskin paper, and you can get very smooth detail. Regular 20lb printer paper, not so much, and boxboard even less, but making your model will take a lot fewer sheets.

To answer your question, NO. I regularly print at 0.07mm with my E3D v6 0.4mm. A narrower nozzle will help but it's totally possible.

Can you explain where commes your 0.07mm value epicepee ? I dunno what you mean. Is it extrusion diameter ? Layer height ?

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Collective intelligence emerges when a group of people work together effectively. Prusa i3 Folger (A lot of the parts are wrong, boring !)