After two full redesigns, three rounds of print testing, and completely re-selecting materials, the holiday ornaments were ready. A short batch of print runs was enough to build ornaments for the handful of friends and family we want to gift them too.
The final print runs took a bit under 24 hours, but overall I’d estimate that I spent 10+ hours designing and revising the ornament model, and 35-40 hours in printing time between the drafts and final prints.
Things I learned:
- It’s hard to get repeatable, high quality PETG prints without a lot of tuning and trouble shooting. It’s far easier to select a filament like PLA, which will result in much more reliable print quality.
- For snap fit parts even small increments in layer size can have a large effect on the outcome: at 0.35mm layer size these ornaments take brute force to fit, while 0.20mm layer size results in clean, snug, snap fits.
- TinkerCad will get non-responsive really quickly when building models with multiple complex positive and negative space groupings.
- Maker: –
- Source: –
- Original License: –
- Model: –
- GCode: –
- Materials:
- P, S: Hatchbox Red PLA 1.75mm
- K, W: Inland Peak Green PLA 1.75mm
- Pillar: Hatchbox Red PLA 1.75mm
- Print Date: 2017/11/26 – 2017/12/03
- Print Time: 23 hours 4 minutes total
- P PLA x3: 2 hours 15 minutes
- K PLA x3: 2 hours 18 minutes
- S PLA x3: 2 hours 29 minutes
- W PLA x3: 2 hours 32 minutes
- Pillar PLA x8: 1 hour 58 minutes
- Estimated Print Time:
- P PLA x3: 2 hours 4 minutes
- K PLA x3: 2 hours 5 minutes
- S PLA x3: 2 hours 13 minutes
- W PLA x3: 2 hours 16 minutes
- Pillar PLA x8: 1 hour 42 minutes
- Estimated Material:
- P PLA x3: 7.7 meters
- K PLA x3: 8.1 meters
- S PLA x3: 8.6 meters
- W PLA x3: 8.9 meters
- Pillar PLA x8: 4.8 meters
- Slicer: PrusaControl
- Slicer Settings:
- 0.20mm layers
- 20% infill
- no supports
- no brim
- Printer: Prusa i3 mk2