Materium started out compatible with V6 nozzles from E3D.
Forcing compatibility killed what pellet extruders need to extrude smoothly : backpressure.
Specifically, immediate backpressure with the shortest distance to exit.
E3D Nozzles have 2mm inner opening or ‘land’ before the final orifice.
Zenflow has 1mm land, and a tapered entry that matches the taper of the screw tip.
This gives us more direct correlation between the screw movement to the output.
The goal is to minimize the melt volume present right before it exits the nozzle.
Zenflow nozzles come in standard FDM Sizes : 0.4 – 0.6 – 0.8 – 1.0 – 1.2 – 1.5 – 2.0
Why not give the pellet extruder a bigger nozzle?
Here we hit the limits of size. In order to extrude smoothly, polymers need two pressures : Compression Pressure and Backpressure
See :
Compression Pressure is whatever action required to melt the pellets. Here we hit the first stone : at such a small size, Materium cannot generate this fast enough to fulfill the print speeds normally associated with nozzles >2mm.
Backpressure is the resistance to exit a small hole, as a liquid. Without backpressure, the melt would just drip down and boils and looks ugly. With enough resistance, the melt exits as a smooth continuous strand. A 4mm nozzle on Materium is a really big hole, not enough resistance. We found 2mm to be the biggest orifice that still gives effective backpressure.