New Feature: 3D Printed Hole

EvanReese

I finally made time over the holidays to knock out a feature I'd been wanting to write for a while. It automates the process of converting round holes to a droplet shape so they 3D print cleanly without support material. I made a video tour here to show off all the bells and whistles. Go get the feature here. Let me know what you think!
It does this to holes:

MichaelPascoe

Yess!  Thanks @Evan_Reese

matthew_stacy

Nice work @Evan_Reese!  Can you offer any guidance on how much 'tear-dropping' is required to maintain clearance for a round pin?  I realize that there are a gazillion variables involved from printer and material characteristics to hole size and orientation. 

But if you were looking for minimal modification on a Ø1/4" hole, perpendicular to the build-direction what would you recommend?

EvanReese

I'll probably just leave the Overhang Angle at 45° pretty much always, and then not think too much about how tilted the holes are or aren't since the feature automatically adjusts the amount of tear-dropping for you based on the hole angle. You still need to design the hole with some clearance to the shaft before using this feature. I'd probably start with 0.2mm for a rigid connection or something like 0.5mm for something meant to slide, but if I wanted to dial it in I'd do a test print with lots of holes slight variations in clearance to find the best one. Did that answer the question you asked?

matthew_stacy

Evan_Reese said:

I'll probably just leave the Overhang Angle at 45° pretty much always, and then not think too much about how tilted the holes are or aren't since the feature automatically adjusts the amount of tear-dropping for you based on the hole angle. You still need to design the hole with some clearance to the shaft before using this feature. I'd probably start with 0.2mm for a rigid connection or something like 0.5mm for something meant to slide, but if I wanted to dial it in I'd do a test print with lots of holes slight variations in clearance to find the best one. Did that answer the question you asked?

Answered.  Thanks @Evan_Reese.

mahir

Nice. I've never even seen that type of hole for 3D printing. But I could have definitely made use of it and will do so in the future.

EvanReese

I like it. I'm not sure if it's the first place I learned about it, but Angus from Maker's Muse explains it well. It's not just about overhang angles, it's also about how it's hard to approximate a round hole by slicing it into layers. https://youtu.be/j6508J94VsA

sebastian_glanzner

@Evan_Reese
Thanks for the amazing Feature-Script! 
I just used it in a print 

EvanReese

sebastian_glanzner said:

@Evan_Reese
Thanks for the amazing Feature-Script! 
I just used it in a print 

Nice! glad it was useful

marshall_poland

Fantastic, I will use this a lot @Evan_Reese ! I just posted an improvement suggestion exactly for this, but will remove it since this covers it about perfectly.

EvanReese

wohoo! thanks for letting me know.

STEG

Great work! 👍

Truncate is what I was doing manually.

EvanReese

Glad to hear it

jelte_steur814

Hi @Evan_Reese

I always use the 'truncate' setting of your 3D printed holes feature but have had it fail on me a couple of times.
I've copied and changed the code to make it more robust.

Moreover in one of my cases the evDistance in getPrinterZDirection function failed and it caused the whole feature to fail. I've haven't solved the rootcause  but made it so the feature still resolves. (couldn't quite figure out why the evDistance failed)

I'd love for the community and you to benefit from my improvements rather than just forking another version off that won't benefit from future improvements.

Can i share it with you to integrate it when you find the time?

kind regards

Jelte

EvanReese

jelte_steur814 said:

Hi @Evan_Reese

I always use the 'truncate' setting of your 3D printed holes feature but have had it fail on me a couple of times.
I've copied and changed the code to make it more robust.

Moreover in one of my cases the evDistance in getPrinterZDirection function failed and it caused the whole feature to fail. I've haven't solved the rootcause  but made it so the feature still resolves. (couldn't quite figure out why the evDistance failed)

I'd love for the community and you to benefit from my improvements rather than just forking another version off that won't benefit from future improvements.

Can i share it with you to integrate it when you find the time?

kind regards

Jelte

Thanks for looking into it! I'd be happy to incorporate improvements. Go ahead and share it with me if you don't mind. The more you can do to explain what you changed an why the better too.

EvanReese

Thanks again to @jelte_steur814 for the code edits to mitigate some of the failure cases! I've got his code implemented and running in the newest version of the feature.

jelte_steur814

awesome @Evan_Reese