Hints and tips for 3D printing

3D Printer Store — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 12:10:56 +0000

Products should have a minimal wall thickness of 1mm Take care when scaling models that the wall thickness is not reduced to below 1mm
Circular shapes acquire ‘flats’. This is may be useful where holes are required in which things must fit
Make sure you select the correct printer type when outputting
The selection of an appropriate chord length when exporting from Pro/DESKTOP to STL effects facet or step details. In Pro/ENGINEER set 0.00 in the dialogue box and the software will select the most suitable chord length
Grain direction (the way the product is printed) will effect whether it is stiff, or more springy
Just because Pro/DESKTOP can create a 3D model does not mean CatalystEX can create the correct slices – sometimes exporting as a STEP file and re-importing to Pro/DESKTOP corrects the model
Rounding of features cannot be done where material changes direction and has a radius of 0.5mm.
You cannot send whole assemblies to the 3D printer - send separate parts or it will create one fused product.
Wear on the platen effects adhesion of builds. The plastic gets shiny during the removal of parts.
Clearing out support material is very hard or impossible in complex parts, for example internal threads.
The build orientation effects the amount of support material and the build time.
Hollow objects may be better built with the hollow upwards, otherwise it will be filled with support material

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