Week 5: 3D Scanning and Printing¶
group assignment: • test the design rules for your 3D printer(s)
For our group assignment, we each chose found an online design to test each of our printers’ capabilities.
FAB Lab NODA’s Printers: We have 3 different Prusa brand printers. 2 Prusa MINIs (equipped with 0.4mm and 0.6mm nozzles) and 1 Prusa i3 MK3S+ (equipped with 0.4mm, 0.6mm, and 0.8mm nozzles)
Micro All-in-One (Castor)¶
…coming soon!
Clearance Tolerance Test (angela)¶
All three prints of the tolerance test design.
For my part in the group assignment, I ran three tests of the same model using this online clearance tolerance test design by 3DMakerNoob on printables.com. This is a helpful tool for creating designs with moving parts (i.e. they have some type of small gap) so they don’t fuse together. This website allows you to open the file directly into the PrusaSlicer software.
Each of these prints had 15% infill settings and used Generic PETG as the filament. The printer settings for the 0.8mm Prusa i3 MK3S+ (printed in blue) was 0.4 mm QUALITY; for the 0.6mm Prusa MINI was 0.25mm STRUCTURAL; for the 0.4mm Prusa MINI was 0.15mm QUALITY. Within the software, it was useful to experiment with slicing at different print settings to see if higher quality would be worth the additional time or to see if it made much of a difference in time at all.
| Test | Blue (0.8mm) | Green (0.6mm) | Pink (0.4mm) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Print Speed | Fastest | Medium | Slowest |
| Stringing Test | lots of stringiness | less | even less |
| Numbering Test | unreadable | slightly defined, practically unreadable | all numbers readable |
| Clearance Test | Failed at 0.10mm | Passed | Failed at 0.10mm |
Lessons Learned and Troubleshooting
- Nozzle Size: The 0.4mm nozzle provided the highest detail, whereas the 0.8mm nozzle provided the fastest speed
- Clearance Tolerance: The sweet spot for the blue print was within the 0.20mm to 0.25 mm clearance range (of course, depends on function of print). Any bigger, the embedded balls would too easily fall out and any smaller they were either fused or take too much effort to move. The sweet spot for the green was right at 0.15mm - 0.20 mm. The sweet spot for the pink was also at 0.15mm - 0.20 mm. But overall the balls did much better with not falling out when you shake the object even at the larger clearnances.
- Quick Tips: Use Shift+A in Prusa Slicer to center objects on the bed. Keep the default G-code file names provided by PrusaSlicer as they keep useful data about print settings used. The print bed can get up to 100 degrees Celcius! It’s important to be careful.
As a final note on these test prints, we did have to tend to a couple issues with the printer “gooping” and thus making our prints unworkable. When this started happening with one of my prints, I cancelled the job and Will showed me how to use the Live Adjust Z feature while re-running the print to ensure the nozzle is set at good distance from the bed so it doesn’t goop.
It dried up a bit but you can see where the print started to goop and mess with the design