3d printing; a few questions

[marinda 0]

Hello, I am looking for people who have experience with 3d printing. I have a few questions:

- Is there a minimum thickness needed to get a 3d printed model solid?

- Did someone happen to try to print a light fitting/lampholder in 3d? And did you succeed?

- Which sorts of files can I import in fusion without losing the ability to change and scale the object. And are there any tips on which site i can do that?  

[Smithy 295]

HI

 

the minimum thickness of a wall depends on your nozzle diameter (usually 0.4), so you can print walls with a minimum thickness of 0.4mm. (There are some options and tricks to print even thinner walls, but that's another story).

 

Or do you mean something else with your first question?

 

Regarding lampholder, no haven't done it personally, but why not? Depending on your lamp temperature you have to use the correct material, maybe something more heat resistant than normal PLA.

 

There are a lot of possibilities to import files into Fusion, but I think you mean not Fusion but Cura? In Cura you usually import STL files and these files can be scaled before printing.

[geert_2 320]

You can always make a model solid if you select 100% infill, or if you make the walls thicker than the model itself. Except that solid is not perfectly solid: there will always be tiny gaps inbetween the extruded saugages. Printing slow minimises them, but does not eliminate them.

 

To make a wall print reliably, I always make all walls minimum 0.5mm wide in the CAD-design, for my 0.4mm fixed size nozzles (old UM2). When the file is exported to STL, smooth corners are cut into straight segments. So, in some spots a 0.40mm wall might become 0.41mm, and in others it might be 0.39mm, which in older slicer versions lead to that part not being printed because it was too thin (less than 0.4mm). So now I just stay on the safe side, and 0.5mm also works well on a design grid. (I don't know how newer slicer versions handle this, I haven't tried.)

 

Yes, I did make a lamp shade, but printed it in PET for better temperature resistance, and for translucency. There is a LED lamp inside now. Do not use PLA, even not for LED-lamps, CFL- or TL-lamps: they still go higher than 50°C. And even with PET (or any other higher temp material), allow air flow and some distance. All lamps are designed with some free airflow around them in mind. And even then, some of my LED spots still get to ca. 100°C (so I wonder how long they will live, definitely not the advertised 25000...50000 hours).

 

Never use 3D-printed parts for incandescent lamps: at best the plastic leaks away, at worst it could catch fire and burn down your whole house. These need heat resistant bakelite, porcelain, or similar.

 

Edited December 12, 2018 by geert_2

[marinda 0]

Thank you all so much! This was really helpfull information! 🙂