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Great article. Unfortunately it seems that there is a lot of information out there about DFM for 3D printing but not much about the actual print process itself:

Great article. Unfortunately it seems that there is a lot of information out there about DFM for 3D printing but not much about the actual print process itself: temperatures, bed flatness, bed adhesives, nozzle size, etc. Does anyone have any suggestions or resources on the subject?

joshvm 1y ago
Are you asking about best practices? Or the theory behind the printing process? I think there is a ton of this actually, because when 3D printing became affordable, the community did a huge amount of experimentation to figure out how to make their $250 Ender reliable. Stefan's CNC Kitchen is a good channel if you want to see experiments with things like temperatures and materials. https://www.cnckitchen.com/ https://www.cnckitchen.com/ Or you could look at the original RepRap research and how it's evolved. The MK4S+ is just a very refined version of the original bed slinging printers. There are also papers on slicer development. There has been a trend towards thicker nozzles as slicers have gotten better (eg using 0.6 by default instead of 0.4). Otherwise advances in printer technology, particularly first layer calibration, have improved massively in the last few years. So things like bed flatness and adhesives are much less of an issue with auto-levelling/probing nozzles. Bear in mind Ultimaker has been doing it this way for years, but it became mainstream (cheap) more recently. Any of the major modern enclosed printers (Prusa Core/XL, Bambu) shouldn't have adhesion problems with standard filaments. It's also highly filament specific, though the really high end machines (Markforged) are reliable in my experience because they discourage any deviation from their recommended materials and print settings. For example MarkForged - a $10000+ printer - shipped their desktop FDM machine with Elmer's purple glue. They said it worked best in their testing and it still works for me.
- owenversteeg 1y ago
  I'm looking for best practices, although any theory as it relates to higher quality finished parts is also welcome. And thank you, I've seen Stefan's work and it seems to be about as good as it gets. I'll take a look at the original RepRap research too, probably some interesting bits in there. I agree that the really high end machines from Markforged and co look dead reliable, but they remind me of that old quote, "you can make anything on a lathe but money." It took me a fair bit of scrolling through slick marketing pages to find out that they are 5-figure machines that print at half the speed of consumer printers and can't print ABS (but can print $200/kg high strength proprietary filaments!) Instead I just got a handful of the major modern enclosed printers.
owenversteeg 1y ago
Background: I am trying to produce some ABS parts in small volume (10s of kg per day) and going crazy trying to find any decent source of information about the print process. Everything seems to be based on anecdotes and if you're lucky maybe a Youtube video. Here is what I have gathered so far, in case it helps anyone: 1) print ABS enclosed in a chamber temp of a minimum 50C, ideal 60-80C. 2) use quality filament, Polymaker filament is good; issues are plastic composition and diameter variation. 3) dry the filament properly. 4) the fumes will destroy your lungs and eventually the printers themselves, so they need to be vented out, and also filtered inside the enclosure. 5) bed flatness is critical. 6) use a good bed adhesive such as Magigoo.
- joshvm 1y ago
  My gut feeling is that 10s of kg per day should be injection molded. Or SLS/resin printed so you can take advantage of layer speed. That's what 10x printers running at full tilt constantly, at least? https://www.reddit.com/r/3Dprinting/comments/7n0go2/my_first_batch_of_injection_molded_parts/ https://www.reddit.com/r/3Dprinting/comments/7n0go2/my_first... for an anecdote.
  - owenversteeg 1y ago
    Plan is definitely to injection mold at some point, but this is for several different complex parts that will be expensive to mill molds for. The breakeven point between injection molding and 3D printing is really about the cost of the molds. Let's imagine a 1kg part. If you say 10x $1000 printers at 1-2kg/day and $10-20/kg filament then you can produce 900-1800 parts in 90 days for a total of $15-30/part. Meanwhile with injection molding you have a mold cost of $5k-50k and say $3/kg for pellets, so for 1k parts it costs $8-53/part. So if you're making a thousand 1kg simple parts ($5k mold), molding will be better. Making a thousand complex parts ($50k mold), 3D printing is better. And making five complex parts (5x$50k mold), you can do a lot of 3D printing before injection molding becomes competitive. I am also in a bit of an unusual situation because of the size of the parts: voluminous enough that shipping from the manufacturer is no longer negligible. Oh, and unfortunately can't do resin because of strength reasons. 3D printed ABS is already pushing it.

joshvm 1y ago

Are you asking about best practices? Or the theory behind the printing process? I think there is a ton of this actually, because when 3D printing became affordable, the community did a huge amount of experimentation to figure out how to make their $250 Ender reliable. Stefan's CNC Kitchen is a good channel if you want to see experiments with things like temperatures and materials. https://www.cnckitchen.com/ https://www.cnckitchen.com/ Or you could look at the original RepRap research and how it's evolved. The MK4S+ is just a very refined version of the original bed slinging printers. There are also papers on slicer development. There has been a trend towards thicker nozzles as slicers have gotten better (eg using 0.6 by default instead of 0.4). Otherwise advances in printer technology, particularly first layer calibration, have improved massively in the last few years. So things like bed flatness and adhesives are much less of an issue with auto-levelling/probing nozzles. Bear in mind Ultimaker has been doing it this way for years, but it became mainstream (cheap) more recently. Any of the major modern enclosed printers (Prusa Core/XL, Bambu) shouldn't have adhesion problems with standard filaments. It's also highly filament specific, though the really high end machines (Markforged) are reliable in my experience because they discourage any deviation from their recommended materials and print settings. For example MarkForged - a $10000+ printer - shipped their desktop FDM machine with Elmer's purple glue. They said it worked best in their testing and it still works for me.

owenversteeg 1y ago
I'm looking for best practices, although any theory as it relates to higher quality finished parts is also welcome. And thank you, I've seen Stefan's work and it seems to be about as good as it gets. I'll take a look at the original RepRap research too, probably some interesting bits in there. I agree that the really high end machines from Markforged and co look dead reliable, but they remind me of that old quote, "you can make anything on a lathe but money." It took me a fair bit of scrolling through slick marketing pages to find out that they are 5-figure machines that print at half the speed of consumer printers and can't print ABS (but can print $200/kg high strength proprietary filaments!) Instead I just got a handful of the major modern enclosed printers.

owenversteeg 1y ago

Background: I am trying to produce some ABS parts in small volume (10s of kg per day) and going crazy trying to find any decent source of information about the print process. Everything seems to be based on anecdotes and if you're lucky maybe a Youtube video. Here is what I have gathered so far, in case it helps anyone: 1) print ABS enclosed in a chamber temp of a minimum 50C, ideal 60-80C. 2) use quality filament, Polymaker filament is good; issues are plastic composition and diameter variation. 3) dry the filament properly. 4) the fumes will destroy your lungs and eventually the printers themselves, so they need to be vented out, and also filtered inside the enclosure. 5) bed flatness is critical. 6) use a good bed adhesive such as Magigoo.

joshvm 1y ago
My gut feeling is that 10s of kg per day should be injection molded. Or SLS/resin printed so you can take advantage of layer speed. That's what 10x printers running at full tilt constantly, at least? https://www.reddit.com/r/3Dprinting/comments/7n0go2/my_first_batch_of_injection_molded_parts/ https://www.reddit.com/r/3Dprinting/comments/7n0go2/my_first... for an anecdote.
- owenversteeg 1y ago
  Plan is definitely to injection mold at some point, but this is for several different complex parts that will be expensive to mill molds for. The breakeven point between injection molding and 3D printing is really about the cost of the molds. Let's imagine a 1kg part. If you say 10x $1000 printers at 1-2kg/day and $10-20/kg filament then you can produce 900-1800 parts in 90 days for a total of $15-30/part. Meanwhile with injection molding you have a mold cost of $5k-50k and say $3/kg for pellets, so for 1k parts it costs $8-53/part. So if you're making a thousand 1kg simple parts ($5k mold), molding will be better. Making a thousand complex parts ($50k mold), 3D printing is better. And making five complex parts (5x$50k mold), you can do a lot of 3D printing before injection molding becomes competitive. I am also in a bit of an unusual situation because of the size of the parts: voluminous enough that shipping from the manufacturer is no longer negligible. Oh, and unfortunately can't do resin because of strength reasons. 3D printed ABS is already pushing it.