Tag Archives: 3d printing

articles, printing problems

NOT MANIFOLD…HOW TO TAKE REMEDY IN A SIMPLE WAY

not manifold, we understand what it means and how to remedy it

When we design and then draw a three-dimensional model to then be able to make it printed in 3d, we must take into account many factors, for example that the slicer will have to “slice” it to obtain all the coordinates to be used to carry out the physical construction by layering our three-dimensional object.

Once the drawing is finished and our file is fed to the slicer, we can find ourselves in front of a warning message that tells us “attention, the object is not manifold”.

What does it mean? In the case of 3d printing, a non-manifold object is an “non-closed” object, that is, it has imperfections that do not allow continuity during the printing phase. For example, it may be a wall that we apparently designed perpendicular to another but which actually has a minimal, practically invisible, deviation from the contact one.

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articles, printing problems

SUPPORTS …. a great help

What is the purpose of enabling supports in 3d printing? If you are reading this article you already know what an FDM 3d printer is and how it works and that is that it is able to “build” a shape by depositing plastic material layer upon layer.

Yeah but what if I have to print a house with a balcony? a shape with a cantilevered part? coming out of the print base of the object?

Slicers software are our friends…
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tutorials

stepper motors

stepper motors

Why stepper motors are used in 3d printers?

motori passo passo
One of the main characteristics of stepper motors is that of being able to perform a complete rotation divided into small sections. A complete rotation means a movement of 360° from a starting point on a circumference.

To simplify the concept, let’s imagine that we can turn the shaft of our stepper motor by 1° at a time, to make a complete rotation we will have to “tell” the motor to operate 360 times always in the same direction.

motori passo passo

These small movements are the “steps” and we can easily understand that the level of precision that we’re going to get is defintely high. The stepper motors that are used for 3d printers generally have steps of 1.8° which means that to make a complete rotation we will have to operate our motor 200 times (200×1.8° = 360°), therefore we have an excellent level of accuracy.

This precision is used to make really small movements with the moving parts of the 3d printer, this allows a remarkable level of accuracy and detail in our prints.

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software

free stl

free stl, where to find them? 

In this page we report a list of sites from which it is possible to download free stl files ready to be printed in 3d both free and paid.

Thingiverse

thingiverse stl
thingiverse

Thingiverse is a community created by Makerbot, one of the largest manufacturers of 3D printers. Born with the rapid spread of 3d printers, it has become one of the largest 3D design communities in the world, allowing you to share and download over a million files for free.

 

grabcad

grabcad stl
grabcad

GrabCad belongs to  Stratasys, America’s leading professional 3D printer manufacturer. Made up of a community of mechanical engineers, it contains everything, over 1,000,000 free files ranging from various genres, from mechanics to household items to costume jewelery.

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articles, printing problems

retraction what it is and how it works

retraction, what it is, what it is for and how it is regulated.


The retraction is the consequence of a series of precautions that we can adopt to avoid the phenomenon of “stringing” or … a spider web that forms especially in the case of small prints with cantilevered parts close together. This problem ruins the aesthetic aspect of our prints and produces an impressive amount of very small filaments that can also naturally detach from the piece and then fall into our 3d printer risking to end up on mechanical and / or electronic parts creating the related problems of the case.

Why are these little “hairs” created?


Suppose we have to print on a base two small solid cylinders at a short distance from each other. Our hotend, after having printed the base, will begin to create the two cylinders layer by layer, thus passing from a phase of extrusion of material to one of non-extrusion and again to one of extrusion. All in a relatively short time.

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printing problems

Difficulty sticking to the bed

warping

Today we’re going to talk about warping or difficulty of adhesion to the plate or, if you prefer, to the bed.

We point up that the suggestions that we describe are the results of our personal experiences and we’re just trying to give you a guideline for those who come across this problem.

Difficulty adhering to the plate with PLA

We usually print with PLA on a mirror or a glass which is fixed on the heated bed with four clips, like clamps, and we usually spray some hair spray a few minutes before the print, to let it dry a little bit.

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