MEAM.Design - 3-d Printing - Hints, Tips, and Tricks


Press fits - it's actually quite easy to design light press-fit parts using the printer. For small parts, we've found that using stubby pegs (aspect ratio no greater than 1, or they have a tendency to break off) and holes works well, with the parts being designed to a line-on-line condition (i.e. the diameter of the peg and hole are the same). The inaccuracies in the machine seem to err on the side that makes this a really nice fit.

Honeycomb - When laying interior material or honeycomb, the printer moves at a 45-degree angle to the modeling base. This could be important for structural elements.

Look at the layers - If you're trying to print embedded dynamic parts, you need to make sure that there is a layer of support material between the moving components. To verify this, you'll want to preview through the critical layers in Catalyst. You can do this from the Orientation tab once you've processed the STL.