3D Printing – Lannix Design

Design For 3D Printing – CAD Tips

Nick — Tue, 02 May 2023 21:30:06 +0000

As 3D printing becomes more and more popular, it’s important to keep in mind some key design considerations that are specific to CAD when designing for 3D printing. In this blog post, we’ll go over some of the most important things to keep in mind when designing for 3D printing.

Wall Thickness and Material

When designing for 3D printing, it’s important to keep in mind the wall thickness and the material that you’ll be using. The wall thickness should be at least 0.8 mm in order for the object to be strong enough. The distance between walls must be between 0.4 mm and 0.8 mm, otherwise, the walls will collapse or the object will be brittle.

The filament spool storage tower was designed using the concepts described. Some out-of-the-box thinking was needed to pull it off.

Consider Orientation and Support Structures

When you design a 3D printing model, you need to think about the orientation of the model as well as the support structure for that model. The orientation or direction of printing allows for the right layer strength and adhesion. Support structures can be used to avoid issues that may arise in the printing process. This will help increase the strength and durability of the finished product, and will ensure that the print runs successfully without any issues. Well-spaced support structures can also help speed up the printing process, allowing you to create your 3D designs faster.

Use CAD Software that can Handle 3D Printing

When designing for 3D printing, it’s essential to use CAD software that can handle 3D printing. This software can help you create models that can quickly be printed with accuracy required for 3D printing. The best CAD software will allow you to create intricate designs with precision, and give you the ability to make adjustments and edits when necessary. I recommend Fusion 360 or Onshape for the hobbyist.

Choose the Right Printing Process

There are various types of 3D printing processes available, and you’ll want to choose one that is best suited to your needs. You can choose between Fused Filament Fabrication (FFF), Stereo Lithography (SLA) and Digital Light Processing (DLP). Each process has its own advantages and disadvantages, and it’s important to choose the right one based on your specific design requirements.

The plastic parts in our end table design needed to be easily 3D printed and maintain the angle and position of the timber legs.

Consider the Printing Material

The type of material you select for 3D printing is an important consideration when designing for 3D printing. The material will impact the quality of the final product, and you should choose a material that is strong and durable enough for your needs. Some materials are also more resistant to wear and tear, and those could be a better fit for certain applications.

Final Thoughts

Designing for 3D printing requires a specific set of skills and knowledge. By keeping these considerations in mind, you can ensure that your CAD designs are optimized for 3D printing, and that your finished product is of high quality and meets the desired standards. With the right software, materials, and processes, you’ll be able to create stunning 3D models that meet all of your design needs.

Gallery - CAD For 3D Printing

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3D Printer Emissions

Nick — Tue, 11 Apr 2023 21:30:20 +0000

Since the birth of my son I have been increasingly concerned about the release of toxic fumes while our 3D printers are running. Those who have read our blog posts on building our 3D printing enclosures will have seen the ducting system that was designed and 3D printed for it.

While that system works reasonably well, it is not perfect and occasionally the faint smell of the fumes can be detected. I’ve come to realise that the blast doors implemented in the system are ok for dust collection where larger particles are involved but are not ideal for extracting fumes. The lack of airtight sealing around them leads to fumes escaping.

I recently came across this document from UltiMaker that outlines the most effective ways to extract fumes from their 3D printers and it’s given me some helpful ideas on how to improve our current system.

If you’re interested in dealing with 3D printer emissions yourself follow the link below to read Ultimaker’s guide.

Link here.

The current air filtration system in our 4 printer cabinet.

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The Benchy

Nick — Tue, 28 Feb 2023 21:30:07 +0000

Even if you’re not into 3D printing you may have seen the little boat model that everyone seems to print. It is called the benchy and while it is a neat little boat, it is actually used to help calibrate a 3D printer since the design incorporates a lot of geometry that tells you if you have your print settings tuned in correctly.

There are many models available that are designed to aid printer calibration but the benchy remains the go-to for most as it looks pretty cool when done and can be displayed on your shelf after use. I have decided to use it to show customers the range of colours available since it doesn’t use a lot of filament.

Check out the video link here to learn more if you’re interested since Michael from Teaching Tech does a much better job at selling the virtues of the benchy than I could!

More next week.

Check out the link from Teaching Tech

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We Are Australian Made & Owned

Nick — Tue, 07 Feb 2023 21:30:37 +0000

If you need CAD work, 3D printed parts or both, we can help. We can supply vector graphics files for laser cutting and engineering diagrams for your project. All of our 3D printed parts are produced using Australian made filament. Let us know how we can help you today!

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Recycling 3D Printing Filament

Nick — Tue, 22 Nov 2022 21:30:06 +0000

This week we have only a small update since renovations to the new house are taking up most of our time. Something I’ve been interested in personally is recycling wasted filament from failed prints and support material. I thought I’d share some of the options available and what others have been doing.

I found this interesting video from Michael at Teaching Tech on YouTube showcasing a filament recycling machine from Australian company Polylab.

Enjoy!

Teaching Tech’s video on recycling 3D printer filament.

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The Road To 3D Printing Success

Nick — Tue, 19 Jul 2022 21:30:06 +0000

Starting out in 3D printing can be a disheartening experience for some people. The lure of the cheap 3D printer can definitely be a trap for new players. In 2016 the M3D was $500 and was one of the cheapest available. Reviews at the time were good but unfortunately it didn’t really live up to expectations.

This blog is the Lannix Design guide to 3D printing built from information I’ve acquired over time. Topics are to do with 3D printer tuning and setup which is enough for one blog post. Slicer settings are another topic which will be covered at a later date.

A cheaper Creality CR10 next to the more expensive but more reliable Prusa i3 MK3S+.

Choose wisely

Nowadays the Creality Ender 3 can be yours for about $350 and is not a bad machine for the money but does require some fine-tuning to get it working well. I acquired some of these after getting my first Prusas and I found the user-friendly experience of owning the Prusas to be very helpful when fine tuning the Ender 3s.

Moving up to a more expensive but far more reliable machine can improve your outlook on life quite a bit. Enter the Prusa MK3S. Even in kit form it is more than three times the price of the Ender 3 but in terms of quality, design and customer experience it doesn’t come close. I’d especially recommend the kit version as it is significantly cheaper in both the initial purchase and import duty (don’t forget that!) and allows you to become more familiar with the machine itself.

I bought my first Prusa in 2019 and built it in the workshop under the house. It showed decent results straight out of the box but as the weather became cooler coming up to Autumn, I noticed that I was seeing more failures. The downstairs workshop is not fully enclosed and I realised that having the printer out in the open was likely the cause of the failures.

Get an enclosure!

Out in the open is usually where people will first set up their 3D printer. This can be ok if it’s in a room with relatively stable humidity and temperature but most people will have it in the garage or a spare room that may have drafts and require you to leave a window open to deal with the fumes.

I noticed a drastic improvement in the quality and consistency of my 3D prints when I started using my custom designed and built enclosure. The advantage of an enclosure is that the humidity and temperature are able to be controlled.

All filaments benefit from a warmer environment and the small volume of air in the enclosure is able to be heated more efficiently than an entire room. Keeping temperatures in the enclosure around 40°C is optimal and also easily achievable since the 3D printer will do this while it is operating.

When using filaments like Nylon, Carbon fibre and ABS/ASA which emit toxic fumes, an enclosure is absolutely necessary. A carbon HEPA filter and supporting ducting is required to deal with these fumes.

Other add-ons like a dehumidifier and custom lighting will also make your 3D printing experience a lot better.

An enclosure doesn’t have to be a custom designed and built project like the ones we have at Lannix Design. 3D printer manufacturers such as Prusa and Creality are now starting to offer enclosures that are designed to fit their own products.

Cheaper alternatives are also available such as a converted photographic tent for around $20 or the popular Ikea Lack table conversion that is a fun and useful project when you first get your 3D printer.

Check out our enclosure blog posts here or hit the buttons below.

The prints don't stick to the plate!

One of the most common and most catastrophic failures is when the part being printed doesn’t stick to the print plate. This is usually caused by a dirty bed plate. Most people will tell you to use isopropyl alcohol to clean the bed but I’ve found this to be unreliable. Washing the plate under hot water with dishwashing liquid will be far more effective.

Another cause of this problem is a variance in temperature in the print area. A sudden draft of cool air across the build plate can cause the part to contract and lose adhesion. An enclosure will eliminate this problem.

Part orientation is also a factor for taller prints. The momentum of the part when the Y-axis is thrusting back and forth can cause it to dislodge.

In extreme circumstances where the above solutions just don’t work for you, applying glue stick on the plate before heating will usually solve the problem.

BONUS – A glue stick is also helpful when printing with PETG which tends to stick too well to the plate. A barrier of glue stick can help since in some instances PETG will damage the plate surface when removing the part.

My part looks so ugly!

Strange looking parts with unexpected lumps and/or holes can be a less than desirable result. There are a few main causes that can be addressed to achieve a better looking part.

Under-extrusion may be caused by a partially blocked nozzle and will result in holes in your print as seen in the fox below. A blocked nozzle can be cleaned out using the cold-pull method. You may have received an acupuncture needle with your printer and wondered what it was for! Now’s your chance to use it.

Cold-pull

Steps to perform a cold-pull to unclog your nozzle.

Disable the stepper motors.
With the filament still in the extruder, heat it up to about 30°C more than the recommended temperature for your filament (ie. 250-260°C for PLA).
Poke your acupuncture needle up into the tiny opening of the nozzle. The idea is to dislodge any debris caught in the extruder such as dirt, crusty old filament and/or metal particles.
After 5 minutes allow the hotend to cool down to room temperature. Turn the extruder fan to full blast to speed this up.
Once the hotend has cooled, heat the extruder back up to around 105°C for PLA.
Allow the temperature to stabilize for about a minute and carefully use your pliers to pull the filament out of the extruder. If you go too hard and snap the filament you’ll need to pull the hotend assembly apart to get it out.

It may be necessary to repeat the process to fully remove the clog.

Other problems with the appearance of the print such as ‘zits’ and ringing can be cured in the slicer software and will be covered in a future blog post. Keep updated with our monthly newsletter.

Strange looking part finish caused by under-extrusion.

Filament has snapped inside the extruder. Likely caused by a clog in the nozzle.

It only printed half of the part!

If your printer says it’s finished printing your part but it’s missing some of the top layers, it may mean that the filament has snapped off in the extruder and/or that it has become stuck when entering the extruder assembly.

In the case of the Prusa MK3S it has a filament detector in the top of the extruder assembly. This works well for the most part but in the case that the filament becomes stuck in the lower extruder, it cannot detect anything wrong.

Snapped filament

Snapped filament happens when the extruder is fully clogged and won’t allow the gears to push any more material through. The gears wear away at the filament which eventually breaks it.

Performing a cold-pull may take the blockage away but it is likely necessary to pull the extruder assembly apart to get to the filament. Any filament particles will also need to be cleaned out using compressed air. In extreme cases it may be necessary to pull the PTFE tube out of the hotend to get the foreign particles out of the nozzle.

Stuck filament

It is sometimes difficult to tell if the issue is caused by a clogged nozzle or not. In rare cases it can be a case of bad filament. It is becoming a rare occurrence these days with filament quality improving across all manufacturers but defects happen. The above photo shows an impurity that caused the printer to stop extruding because the filament was too thick to pull into the extruder.

The manufacturer has generously replaced the entire reel free of charge.

Inconsistent filament cross-section caused by manufacturing defects.

What's this huge blob on the nozzle?

A large blob of filament on the nozzle is caused by either a buildup of schmutz on the underside of the extruder or a partially block nozzle.

If you have a blob formed on your nozzle DO NOT try to remove it while the hotend is cold! You will break the wires on your thermistor which means you will either have to rewire it or replace it! Ask me how I know… If you’ve already broken your thermistor, we have a guide to replacing it in a Crealtiy CR10 here.

The blob of death kills your prints.

Buildup

Debris will acquire on the underside of the hotend due to slight defects in the filament material and a lack of cleaning. Once the buildup becomes significant enough, it will catch the part being printed and bring it with the extruder assembly. From that point on the extruder will keep pumping filament into the part creating the dreaded blob of death.

This can be prevented by keeping the nozzle and heat block clean by lightly scrubbing with a brass brush while the hotend is heated.

Partially clogged nozzle

A partially clogged nozzle will allow filament through the opening of the nozzle but has the characteristic of curling up on the way out. The extruded filament should always come straight down out of the nozzle.

If the curling becomes too severe, the filament will eventually stick itself up under the heat block and drag all subsequent filament along with it which is when the blob starts forming. This clogging can be fixed using the cold-pull technique mentioned above.

Conclusion

Wow, this post was meant to be a short one since I have to get the newsletter out this week!

I hope this has been helpful to you if you’ve just started out or are thinking about getting into 3D printing. I enjoy putting out content like this and if you have any questions I’m happy to answer via email or Facebook messenger.

If you’d like to see more or keep informed when future blog posts come out, please subscribe to our monthly newsletter below.

Ciao!

Gallery - 3D printing problems and solutions

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How To Build A Creality CR10 3D Printing Enclosure

Nick — Tue, 28 Jun 2022 21:30:58 +0000

Sometimes you need to 3D print something that’s just that little bit too big for the standard Prusa MK3S print bed. I thought I’d try out a Creality CR10 since they are relatively cheap and the guy I know who has one seems to believe they go alright. Check out our guide on replacing the thermistor to see what I think! This printer is to be used mainly for prototyping for the R-Spec side business we have in the works so it will do the job for now.

I was getting some inconsistent prints from it where I had it setup in a spare room so I thought an enclosure may help with that. I tried fitting it into the large enclosure we already have but it’s just that little bit too large to fit with its separate control box. A new enclosure needed to be built.

Planning

Many find it easy to go into a project without a plan but I for one prefer to have something to refer to during the build. My projects just turn out better that way so the enclosure was designed using CAD and reference drawings were printed.

The finished enclosure in its temporary home.

Thinking long term, this enclosure will end up living in the office of the new workshop so being a stand-alone design with its own base was critical. For now though, only the top half of the unit was built due to lack of space in the current workshop.

The door hinges required somewhat precise drilling for installation so I decided to make some drilling templates that could be 3D printed. They proved to be very handy and the door turned out perfectly.

Building

Material was mostly leftover from the other enclosure build which kept costs down. Some 3D printed parts gave an opportunity to inject some artistic flair. I wanted a shelf outside the cabinet to hold the control box in order to keep it away from the heat inside.

The use of clear acrylic for windows made it easier to work with compared to glass and has the benefit of being a better thermal insulator as well. installing the acrylic also gave me an opportunity to use the router which was nice.

Installing the door hinges required the use of a Forstner drill bit for a 35mm hole. I’d never used one so I was keen to try it out and it worked quite well. A spayed bit would have left a hole in the side of the cabinet which was less than desirable. The templates I 3D printed also worked very nicely.

Finishing

The shelf that holds the printer control box needed brackets and a ridge to keep the box from sliding off and smashing on the floor. Bunnings didn’t have a bracket that worked for me so I ended up designing something in CAD and 3D printing. The brackets were printed with four perimeters and 50% infill for strength. What I’ve been calling a ‘balustrade’ has been designed and 3D printed for the outside edge of the shelf. See what I mean in the gallery below!

All that’s left for the build is to acquire some insulating foam strip for the door and a suitable latch.

I hope you enjoyed the blog post. Talk to ya next week!

Gallery - CR10 3D Printing Enclosure Build - Part 1 - Design

Gallery - CR10 3D Printing Enclosure Build - Part 2 - Build

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October 2021 – We Use Australian Made Filament

Nick — Thu, 07 Oct 2021 21:30:37 +0000

I’ve been playing with 3D printers since 2016 and in that time I’ve learned that when it comes to 3D printer filament, you get what you pay for! Thankfully in that time, many new companies have come to the market with better and better products.

After a lot of experimentation with filament offerings from various companies, we use Aurarum filaments. They have the best combination of quality and price that we’ve found and the best part is, they’re based in Melbourne, Australia.

They’re not only based in Australia but they manufacture their own filaments on-site in the Victorian warehouse.

The filament works well with our Prusa 3D printers and I must say that the quality is comparable to Prusa’s own high quality filament, the difference being that it is far easier to get hold of here in Australia and is more reasonably priced.

www.aurarum.com.au

Aurarum 3D printer filament

Gallery - Quality prints start with quality filament

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August 2021 – More Enclosure Upgrades

Nick — Sat, 07 Aug 2021 21:30:29 +0000

Air filtration, heat and humidity management are an important part of maintaining high quality 3D prints. All through the year the humidity in Brisbane can be quite high so it’s important to control the climate in the workshop.

An air filtration unit has been installed in the enclosure and a dehumidifier is on its way which is designed to work in tandem with the filter.

The intention is to have an Arduino controller with a touchscreen that enables the three compartments in the enclosure to be filtered independently and shut off when not in use. The touchscreen allows control of the blast gates shown in the picture gallery below to seal any section of the enclosure that isn’t in use. A temperature and humidity sensor in each compartment will assess the conditions and the Arduino will automatically route humid air through the dehumidifier/heater and filter.

Because of the unusual size of the blast gates, the ducting needed to be designed from scratch in CAD and 3D printed. The plus side of this is that everything fits perfectly and was able to be installed without issue.

One of the rear ducting pieces on the printer

Gallery - Bespoke parts for enclosure ducting

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June 2021 – Enclosure Upgrades

Nick — Tue, 01 Jun 2021 21:30:57 +0000

The 3D printing enclosure has been a work in progress for the past few months as more upgrades have been added to further improve print quality and safety.

The addition of cameras and WIFI controlled power switches mean that long prints can be monitored and stopped from anywhere in the world if something isn’t right. When trying out new filaments, it is wise to stop a test print short if it doesn’t like a certain speed or temperature setting.

Other improvements are the concrete pavers and foam blocks underneath each printer that act as a damper to prevent vibrations affecting print quality. A cheap and simple upgrade that makes quite a difference.

Lastly, an air purifier has been ordered to extract any fumes building up in the workshop. Future plans to experiment with ABS and ASA filaments require this as the fumes released by printing with them are toxic to people and the environment. I’d rather keep them out of the atmosphere!

Prusa i3 MK3S 3D printers in the 3D printing enclosure

3D Printing – Lannix Design

Design For 3D Printing – CAD Tips

Wall Thickness and Material

Consider Orientation and Support Structures

Use CAD Software that can Handle 3D Printing

Choose the Right Printing Process

Consider the Printing Material

Final Thoughts

Gallery - CAD For 3D Printing

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3D Printer Emissions

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The Benchy

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We Are Australian Made & Owned

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Recycling 3D Printing Filament

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The Road To 3D Printing Success

Choose wisely

Get an enclosure!

The prints don't stick to the plate!

My part looks so ugly!

Cold-pull

It only printed half of the part!

Snapped filament

Stuck filament

What's this huge blob on the nozzle?

Buildup

Partially clogged nozzle

Conclusion

Gallery - 3D printing problems and solutions

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How To Build A Creality CR10 3D Printing Enclosure

Planning

Building

Finishing

Gallery - CR10 3D Printing Enclosure Build - Part 1 - Design

Gallery - CR10 3D Printing Enclosure Build - Part 2 - Build

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October 2021 – We Use Australian Made Filament

Gallery - Quality prints start with quality filament

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August 2021 – More Enclosure Upgrades

Gallery - Bespoke parts for enclosure ducting

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June 2021 – Enclosure Upgrades

Gallery - 3D Printing Enclosure Upgrades

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