3D Printing

So you’ve heard about 3D printing and have something you want to print, but don’t want the high setup cost of getting your own printer? Maybe you just want to take the technology for a test run, or only have a couple items to print. Fear not, there are many ways you can use a 3D printer without ever owning one.

3D printers, like any other type of printer, has a specified resolution that indicates the level of detail that the printer can achieve. A typical 2D printer has a pretty easy to understand resolution, dots per inch or dpi, which describe how many tiny drops of ink the printer can fit in a one inch line. The resolution of a 3D printer, measured in microns or micrometers, might be a little harder to understand.

So your prints are not sticking or your 3D printer bed? Maybe one corner keeps pulling up, ruining what otherwise is a perfectly good print? This has happened to everyone at one point or another, and usually many times. It’s definitely happened to me more times than I admit, leading me to start wondering just how much warping I can tolerate before I reject the part. That is not the right response though. You don’t have to live with warping, just fix the problem. Sometimes the solution is so simple.

In the never ending quest to make my 3D printer as reliable and accurate as possible, I came across the idea of adding an enclosure to my printer. My printer did not come with an enclosure, it’s wide open to the surrounding air. It also occasionally has a warping issue, which I heard rumors saying could be fixed with an enclosure. What really is an enclosure? Does it really help improve the quality of prints? Can I add an enclosure to a printer that wasn’t designed with one? I did the research, and here’s what I found out.

At my printers at times struggle to keep certain prints secured to the print bed while it’s printing. It’s always so sad to let your printer run for hours, only to find that the print broke loose halfway through and it’s useless. I knew that this needed to stop. The software my printers use has options for adding a raft or a brim to the print. I’ve always known that they can help the print stay fixed to the print bed, but I never really known how or when to use each. I’ve done the research, and here’s what I found.

Throughout the years I’ve lost so many prints to warping. I’ll get the print started, leave it to work its magic, and come back to find things have gone horribly wrong. Sometimes certain areas of the bottom have curled up leaving a distorted but otherwise ok print. Sometimes so much has curled up that the print completely separated from the print and is now an unrecognizable mass of wasted plastic. There has to be a way to stop this, but how?