Z-hop in 3D printing: lifting the nozzle on travel moves

How Z-hop works

After a retraction, when the nozzle has to move to a different spot, it rises by a small amount, clears the printed surface and drops back down. On top surfaces and taller parts especially, this stops the nozzle from clipping an edge or snapping off a small detail. There is a description on the OrcaSlicer wiki.

The downsides

• Every hop takes time, so parts with lots of travel moves print noticeably slower.
• It can leave small dots on a top surface when a drop of plastic comes loose from the nozzle after the lift.
• With PETG it can make stringing worse if plastic oozes out during the lift.

When Z-hop helps

It helps most on parts that could get knocked off by the nozzle: tall thin walls, fine lattices or edges that curl upwards (see warping). On ordinary compact parts the slicer leaves it off or sets it to the minimum.

Z-hop and surface marks. On everyday parts Z-hop does not add much, and when it is switched on for no reason it lengthens the print and leaves blob marks. That is why it is only used where there is a real risk of the nozzle catching the part, mainly thin and tall shapes.

Z-hop on your order

We set Z-hop ourselves based on the shape of your part, so you do not need to set it in the calculator. If you can, keep the part compact and avoid very thin free-standing pillars, which gives a cleaner and faster print. Everything else is included in the price. You choose the material, strength, scale and quantity.