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Caliper accuracy of finished prints  

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virgfish
(@virgfish)
New Member
Caliper accuracy of finished prints

Finished putting together and calibrating my kit. I made a few prints from PLA and ABS and everything is working very well cosmetically. I wanted to see how dimensionally accurate the actual parts would print out so I created a 10mm cube and ran it through slicer with ABS Optimal settings. When the cube cooled I measured with calipers with these results:

X = 9.94 MM
Y = 9.82 MM
Z = 10.36MM

I understand that filament materials can shrink and the quality of the materials can affect the outcome. Some questions:

1) Is the dimensional accuracy what is to be expected or can it be improved by fine tuning in calibration or slicer?
2) Is there a standard print or recommended precision print block size that is the standard for this type of calibration? 10MM may be too small.
3) Do both PLA and ABS have similar shrinking characteristics or is one material more dimensionally stable than the other?
3) Don't understand the dynamics of X,Y and why the two dimensions would differ since they both use the same two stepper motors. Belts are tight. Can't feel any backlash in the belt/gears.

Opublikowany : 14/02/2017 2:13 pm
JeffJordan
(@jeffjordan)
Member Moderator
Re: Caliper accuracy of finished prints

...
3) Do both PLA and ABS have similar shrinking characteristics or is one material more dimensionally stable than the other?
...

➡ no, the shrinking properties differ a lot. that's why abs is trickier to print and tends to warp. furthermore you'll often need to correct x/y (/z) size for the print. best example is the protector for the inductive probe.
pla, petg and abs+ show significant less shrinkage than ordinary abs. but even looking at abs, the amount of shrinking differs from brand to brand (most between 0.4 and 0.6 %).

dem inscheniör is' nix zu schwör...

Opublikowany : 14/02/2017 2:39 pm
virgfish
(@virgfish)
New Member
Topic starter answered:
Re: Caliper accuracy of finished prints

Thanks, I will get calibration more accurate for the first layer and try to shoot for .2mm to adjust things.

Opublikowany : 17/02/2017 8:19 am
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