Originally, I had chosen an impossible object that had a complex spiraling geometry. However, after printing the object, I found that the supports were very hard to remove from the print, since they filled the inside of the entire object.
Instead of continuing with this object and adjusting the settings, I decided to change my object. I was inspired by all of the articulated moving objects that I saw other people printing, so I also wanted to find an object with moving parts. I finally decided on a simple pikachu design I found on Thingiverse.
I first printed the file with a layer height of 0.15 mm, wall thickness of 1 mm, and infill density of 15% with a raft.
The print came out nicely, but it was very hard to take off the raft from the piece, so instead I tried printing the part without a raft next.
However, this print did not work either since the moving parts wouldn’t move, and bending it would break it. I think it was because the size was too small, so I resized the part a little bigger and also decreased the layer height just in case.
The moving parts finally worked without breaking with these settings! And thankfully it fit perfectly inside the gumball. So I continued to print three more pikachus.
For some reason, one of the pikachus had its foot printed a little mushed; I’m not entirely sure why that happened, but I think it could possibly have been due to some inaccuracies in the printer, since I printed three parts at the same time on one print.
After finishing the FDM prints, I then continued to print the part on the SLA printer.
It came out in a really nice transparent color, and I printed it with supports to make it easier to remove out of the printer. I then cut off all the supports with pliers and sanded the surface to make it smoother, and it was done!
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I really enjoyed this process of learning how to adjust the printer settings to ensure a quality print! I realized that the raft was really unnecessary for a small print like this, and it only made things more difficult. Also, when I experimented with different layer heights, I realized that the time difference really wasn’t too big, in this case with a small print. After this experience, I feel a lot more comfortable and confident with 3d printing for the future now. Looking forward to making more projects with 3d printing!
Cost Analysis:
Raw materials:
- PLA ~ 6*($0.05) + 2*($0.07) = 0.44
- paint ~ $0.25 =
Labor, machine, overhead:
- 3d printers: ~ 6 hr
- labor: ~ 4 hr ($7.25/hr) = $29
Total:
$29.44
