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Optimization for 3D-Printing - Split up part for glueing
erol_neziri
Member Posts: 4 ✭
Hello!
I'm a mechanical design engineer and have some CAD experience under my belt. But i'm quite new to Onshape and especially in additive manufacturing design. Actually not that new, but in the past i just printed stuff externally (often SLS), so i didn't have think about in depth about 3d printing. I started now printing myself at home (FDM printer). If one googles things like "3D printing CAD" "optimizing 3D printing" or whatever, there is a ton of stuff pointing out the obvious, but i found (probably because of the amount of basic stuff there is - the needle in the haystack) nothing about my question.
- Example attached
- Having a part with holes / undercuts / ledges etc. in multiple directions
- How to split something like that the most efficient way to print with holes round & now support (so they are geometrically sound), the least amount of support, as flat as possible (faster way to print, than a high build) etc.
I have split my part by just making a line, offsetting it and cut through all. if needed having some faces offset (like the red part is 2mm reaching into the green)
is there a more efficient way to achieve clever splitting of a part? Have some of you a nice process which lends itself to all or most cases?
I'm really really exited about the Onshape possibility of programming addon-features and apps - but i can't do that unfortunately myself! (maybe i learn it, but it's intimidating)
My dream would be a clever splitting tool - for example one where you choose a face (green part main face) and which then recognizes where there could be a split, makes an offset of 0.1-0.2mm for glueing, etc. etc.. similar to the molding feature we can download for Onshape. That would be so cool!
Anyway. I'm looking forwart to a interesting discussion about modelling parts and optimizing them for 3d printing to the max.
Cheers!
Comments
No tool can guess your intent, but there are a few tools in the Feature Script section that'll help you create splits with glueing aids such as dovetails and offsets. You could search this forum or search though the published FS in the public documents or directly from the FS menu.
Yes, no tool can guess ones intent, indeed. I guess the question i'm asking is, if there could be some optimal process/method to this, which in a lot of cases would lend itself to. My way works - but maybe there are other intersting methods out there?
I'm gonna take a look if i find interesting custom features, thanks!
Oh man I enjoy this topic!
imo removing the supports from this part would be less time and effort than connecting 3 separate parts. It's also not a stretch to make this part print as one piece without supports. Here's an example:
https://cad.onshape.com/documents/6d7e50b58ed12052b0d5688f/w/b2ba3a237a24b424e83cc81e/e/46c8d3f93123a787c4b67349
If you're trying to design for a maximum overhang angle (45° is a good default), you can use the built in draft analysis tool to check on your design like this. Dark blue areas have a greater than 45° overhang, so just make sure they are intentional.
You can also use the section view tool to scrub through the part and imagine it printing layer by layer to make sure you're not asking it to do anything dumb, like print something in mid-air.
There are a number of 3D printing DFM related custom features available.
Ones I've written
Ones from other people