Understanding layer height

Hey all,

Just received my Mini 2 and love it so far. It came with some Verbatim PLA. When I choose that material in Cura the High Detail profile defaults to a layer height of 0.14mm. If I manually edit the layer height under the custom quality setting I am able to go as low as 0.04mm. Anything less than that will turn the entry field orange. I’m assuming this is an indication that I’ve gone below the recommended threshold that the printer is capable of. A couple questions:

  • I was under the impression this printer could only go as low as 0.05mm in layer height. Any idea why an entry of 0.04mm is allowed?
  • How tied are the filament brands and type to layer heights? I’m assuming a lot. Is there a reference somewhere of Mini2 + Brand + Filament Type = precision capabilities?

Thanks!

I think a layer height under .1mm is ambitious… but achievable. A more typical layer height would be .15 to .3. As for the difference between .05 and .04 will probably be print time. The layers will always be discernable on a FDM machine. You’ll need some sort of post processing to get a SLS result…

Ii don’t think there is any dependency of the brand/type of filament to the layer height. Each type/brand/color will require tweaking for optimum results.

Very low layer heights can make the first layer difficult to get down correctly (not to mention increasing print time significantly). Unless you need the fine detail, use a layer height around 25-50% of the nozzle width and you can go as high at 100% of nozzle width for quick, rough, tests.