SLA vs. FDM - Digital Caliper Battery Cover

New videos published every Friday, featuring a new 3D printed functional object, how I use it, and design considerations.

The design depicted in this video is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License or other non-commercial license.

functional
print
PLA
X1 Carbon
P1P
Bambu Labs
BambuLabs
SLA
Resin
Elegoo
Mars
tiny
mini

[MillenniumPC]

With the size of the print.... i figured the FDM was going to be a hot mess... Great video!

[cpayne]

Great practical demonstration. I produce a lot of functional parts at work on an array of FDM printers using PLA, PETG and ABS. The Anycubic SLA printer rarely gets used for real working parts.

[mikejackson]

I use resin printing for functional stuff but there are things you need to be aware of. Resin printers need to be calibrated for functional stuff. Inner diameters and and out contours both need to be set up. Chitubox makes it fairly easy. A 10mm cube with a 3-5mm hole in the middle would do it. Likely take 2 or 3 prints but you should be good to go.

The second thing to consider with resin is the material is soft and pliable when printing. That can cause warping at the supports. This is likely the problem you had. I saw this new trick people are doing by modeling in a flat thin surface (maybe 1mm wide with a connection to the model that's only .2mm thick) for support that can be broken away. That way you have a surface that can be warped without causing your model to warp.

Or for this model, I think you'll do just fine by just adding enough support to spread out the peel forces.

[SianaGearz]

Take it apart and put tape on the back side of the PCB where it may be touching metal pieces. You can use packing tape but i used Kapton tape. This is the fault path that drains the battery. With the fix in place, the battery lasts about 3 years until first signs of weakness.

Part of the distortion on the resin print occurs when you have pulled the supports before final cure. You can see it if you look back at the footage.

The cure also doesn't stop there, it continues over the next few weeks. You only shine cure light on the surface but the full cure needs to propagate all the way through.

I'm builting myself a small tiny SLA printer. But more for the heck of it to engineer something.

[noanyobiseniss]

Good application for a dual head with dissoluble.

[bobellison]

PLA seems to flex under sustained pressure. When you pull out this caliper in 6 months, check to see if any bowing occurred. It may need to be tried in ABS which is a little more ridged (I think). Of course, the pressure of the battery may not be significant, but it's worth checking. Also, I vote (if I have a vote) for a try on the Prusa. I have a Prusa and have no plans on buying additional printers such as the Bambu. The Prusa, along with a lack enclosure, is "good enough" for what I need to do. Thanks for a very entertaining video!

[pnt]

Impressive, and very interesting, because I mostly print functional items. I'd really like to see a version printed on your Prusa. I was shocked by how poorly the SLA print came out, warped in all three axes and apparently dimensionally inaccurate too. That "ABS-like" resin is clearly less stiff than real ABS, so I wonder how a "PLA-like" resin would do, and how much of the distortion was due to play in the motion mechanics. It wouldn't take much to show up in such a small item.

My workshop has rather similar contents to yours - in my case a Myford lathe, a few other small machine and bench tools, one-and-a-half small CNC routers, power tools, and a lot of electronics gear.

[danieljosefsson]

I did not expect the PLA to hold up with those thin details.

I have the same issue with the battery running out between use, and have idly been wondering where a switch could be installed without making it too bulky.

A custom battery cover could potentially be an option for that! Just need to find a tiny switch 😅

[danielbuck]

For science, would you mind reprinting the MSLA version please, with the layer height set to 0.047mm, the model rotated to 45 degrees on the X axis (so it's a slope) and as many supports as you can cram in there, then cure it before you remove the supports? I've also experienced warping on thin MSLA prints but I wonder if those steps would help with the dimensional accuracy.

[Spice__King]

On the topic of batteries, remove the battery if you don't think you're going to use it for a while. Mine wake up and remembers the relative position if you open or close the jaws, so it's clearly spending power to monitor the sensor. I stopped needing a new battery every time I pulled it out after not using it for months doing that. Wish these things had a proper hardware on/off switch that would fully D/C the battery.

[ivolol]

Just take the battery out of that caliper, it'll be using the same current draw whether the display is on or off (okay... display off will be like 10% less). So leaving the battery in it is essentially wasting a battery for a single measurement every time. Mitutoyo have their own chips which *actually* drop to 1/5th current when you turn them off. 90% of the other brands, the chip consumes the same current (already usually higher current), all that happens when you turn it '''off''' is it stops displaying the digits.

I saw one English guy cut a transparent flexible plastic shim that he could slide in and out of his, so it breaks the contact when slid in and he can just slide it out a cm to re-engage the battery when its time to use.

I wonder if less intense curing would help with warping?

[bwselectronic]

FDM for the win. Another reason for me to not want to get into SLA.

[Todestelzer]

Try out printing it with a 0.2mm nozzle for even finer details 👋

[Tensopiseth]

hi what is the software you use for design? l