You can sand PLA just fine, you just need to keep it cool. I've used a power sander on PLA without any problem as long as I kept it wet. You can get it up to a "mirror" finish if you work on it hard enough.
Interesting. I usually wet sand all plastics anyway. I have heard many people say PLA is relatively very difficult to sand and finish, but maybe they were using dry papers.
I need to experiment with ABS vs PLA in my blast cabinet and see how they both respond to it. Sanding with paper works nicely for flat surfaces, but it's tedious and sometimes impossible to get into deep grooves and recesses that way.
As for dimensional accuracy, you'll need to be more specific. It's impossible to give a good answer there without knowing what you're expecting.
I guess my question is whether the software (Cura or S3D) account for plastics shrinkage at all in order to try to make the parts more accurate to their designs. Or do most people who care about this simply apply a scaling factor?
I'm oftentimes prototyping assemblies of (usually 15mm+ in diam) holes and shafts where one needs to fit into the other. For machining, these are given the same nominal size in CAD and then tolerances are specified to the shop. However, in my limited experience getting FDM prints, oftentimes a hole and shaft given the same diameter won't fit into each other right out of the printer.
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IRobertI 521
You can sand PLA just fine, you just need to keep it cool. I've used a power sander on PLA without any problem as long as I kept it wet. You can get it up to a "mirror" finish if you work on it hard enough.
As for dimensional accuracy, you'll need to be more specific. It's impossible to give a good answer there without knowing what you're expecting.
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