Print in place hinges don't swivel
I have tried printing several "print in place" hinges but the movable part fuses to the fixed part and they cannot swivel (without breaking the part). Attached are photoes of a piece I printed recently. I am printing on the MK3 and using default print settings for PLA.
Best Answer by Diem:
they cannot swivel (without breaking the part)
A bunch of small mistakes rather than anything in particular.
Never use a SPEED setting for a practical print, it will be fragile, SPEED is intended for impatient trinket production. There is nothing here that needs 0.15mm layers, I suggest you start with 0.2mm QUALITY; for a through-pin printed in this orientation use at least four perimeters. You have almost no infill and Grid will not redistribute the stresses, I suggest you use Cubic infill at 15%.
Your tolerances are very tight, you probably intended about half an extrusion width, which would be OK but because your CAD has approximated the curves when triangulating, and because the inner and outer curves are treated seperately, there are spots where there is barely 0.1mm of freedom. Either increase the tolerance - (this may still make a rough hinge) or, if your CAD allows, increase the output precision - more facets in the curves, this might be called a quality or precision setting. Actually, do both.
I would be tempted to allow a tiny bit more space at the ends of the pin - top and bottom as currently oriented, so that pressure along the length of the pin could be used to start freeing the part if it printed seized but this might not be necessary.
Cheerio,
For things like this we need to squint at the detail: save your project as a .3mf file
Files > Save Project as
Zip the .3mf and post it here. It will contain both your part and your settings for us to diagnose.
Cheerio,
RE: Print in place hinges don't swivel
Print-in-place models can be a challenge as every printer's tolerances will be different. You can try to print at a somewhat lower temperature. And/or try to scale the model up by 1 or 2 percent.
RE: Print in place hinges don't swivel
Attached here. Thank you in advance!
they cannot swivel (without breaking the part)
A bunch of small mistakes rather than anything in particular.
Never use a SPEED setting for a practical print, it will be fragile, SPEED is intended for impatient trinket production. There is nothing here that needs 0.15mm layers, I suggest you start with 0.2mm QUALITY; for a through-pin printed in this orientation use at least four perimeters. You have almost no infill and Grid will not redistribute the stresses, I suggest you use Cubic infill at 15%.
Your tolerances are very tight, you probably intended about half an extrusion width, which would be OK but because your CAD has approximated the curves when triangulating, and because the inner and outer curves are treated seperately, there are spots where there is barely 0.1mm of freedom. Either increase the tolerance - (this may still make a rough hinge) or, if your CAD allows, increase the output precision - more facets in the curves, this might be called a quality or precision setting. Actually, do both.
I would be tempted to allow a tiny bit more space at the ends of the pin - top and bottom as currently oriented, so that pressure along the length of the pin could be used to start freeing the part if it printed seized but this might not be necessary.
Cheerio,
RE: Print in place hinges don't swivel
I haven't made hinges but have made parts that need to fit fairly closely. I use FreeCAD for designs. and have a parameter I call "print_slop" which varies depending on the nozzle size but is usually something like 0.25mm. When designing parts to fit, I usually size either the inside part to something like "specification_size-print_slop" OR the outside part where it captures the inside part to something like "specification_size+print_slop". That seems to account for the bulge / elephant-foot / misalignment. Of course, it depends on whether the specification/design already includes a tolerance gap. It's not clear whether you designed this hinge and created the .stl file yourself, or grabbed a .stl file off the web. If it's from the web it should already have tolerances accounted for.
RE: Print in place hinges don't swivel
I agree with my esteemed colleagues, your clearance *may* work with the tolerances of your printer but feels highly optimistic. I don't see anything in the design that would limit you from using at least 0.2 clearance around the axle or more.
RE: Print in place hinges don't swivel
This suggestion worked! I added clearance on the file at the swivel point to prevent fusing of the filament (+0.2mm), and adjusted the print settings as you suggested. Printed the part and it swiveled easily. Thanks for your help!