The Biggest Lie in 3D Printing | 3D Printing Myths

Speed and Accuracy. The two most common misconceptions in 3D printing today. Your printer says it goes 300 mm/s but does it actually reach that speed and when/how often does it actually hit the claimed speed? Today, Rob and Cole break down what exactly these two terms mean and how you should take both speed and accuracy with a grain of salt when looking at printer specs.

Here at Vision Miner, we recommend starting by tuning for the specific material as each is going to have a different melting point, ideal bed temperature, printing speed, etc.

To tune for the material, we follow the five-step tuning process, and it starts with establishing a baseline.

Getting your material’s baseline means finding out the recommended head temperature, bed temperature, and printing speed. These can be found either online via our website, the manufacturer’s website, or even on the material roll.

1. Input your baseline settings into a slicer program of your choice.

2. Select a small test print that gives you results in a short amount of time. In the past, we’ve used simple cubes, string-tower tests, and overhang tests to see how our material is impacted by different part geometries.

3. Simply examine your part. What you will want to look for is layer adhesion, especially for higher-temperature materials. You can examine layer adhesion by close-up visual inspection, bending/flexing, and snap tests. These let you see if layers are fusing properly. Feel free to look for gaps, holes, and blobs as well to evaluate aesthetic features and as structural properties. Most of the time, you can research using online guides to address specific issues you see with your test part.

After you’ve examined what you want to change, you can move on to adjusting your settings. At Vision Miner, we like to make a change significant enough to check for major differences, but small adjustments are usually sufficient.

The final step in the tuning process is to repeat steps 1 through 4 until you’re satisfied with the quality and strength of your calibration part. This process is highly iterative and relies on your ability to make changes to each run-through until you reach a place where your machine will print the real part with ease. Part complexity and material choice will normally affect how many times you will need to adjust your calibrations.

Once you have completed the tuning process, your printer should be dialed in for the material with which you tested. Now, you can go and print almost anything.

On occasion, you will need to go more complex for more complex geometries, but the tuning process will give you the foundational settings needed for your specific printer, part, and location.

Keep in mind: if you change your material, your temperatures, or your surrounding environment, you will most likely need to re-tune.

If you’re interesting in learning more about tuning, check back on the blog for more updates and visit our YouTube channel for more videos!

At Vision Miner, we specialize in Functional 3D printing, especially high-performance plastics like PEEK, ULTEM, PPSU, PPS, CFPA, and more. We also have extensive experience with 3D scanners, and a whole array of solutions available for purchase. If you're interested in using functional 3D printing and materials in your business, feel free to reach out, and we can help you make the right choice for your application.

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[peta]

Every 3D printing enthusiast should "like" this video, as it sums up quite a few things, that we had to spent lots of rolls of filament to realize. Thumbs Up!

[zacharymarks]

I am a professional 3D Printing Technician and I have had customers complain that their parts did not arrive with the stated accuracy of the machine from the MFG of 0.01mm, with the misunderstanding that minimum feature size is not the same as accuracy.

[joepomo]

Would love to see a HT slicing settings video from you guys!

[marcusd]

1:11 "150 mm/s" is not volume per time, so you can't say "to move that much material that quickly". It's literally a distance per time. You'd need 2(!!!) more dimensions for it to be volume per time, namely line width and layer height.

[johnnymac]

Such an underrated channel. Bringing it down to reality as always. Thank You!

[johnecker]

Very rare I learn something from a 3D printer company video... thank you

[mururoa]

About accuracy, I often see people designing parts for printing the same way as if they were going to be machined from billet aluminum or tool steel, with the same tolerances. There seems to be a lack of education in the manufacturing industry around how to design specifically for printing, and how to design for inaccuracy (meaning: factoring in inherent printing inaccuracy).
Maybe that's something a channel like yours can help evangelize about.

[gold-junge]

A tut about Utem / peek printing sounds awesome

[justuskessler]

Thanks for the great content. Can you also provide some tips and techniques for printing water-tight, pressurized fluidic components?

[rippsgaragetech]

When will we see more Idex 22 vids. I am on the fence and want to see more vids in action. Thanks!

[volksbugly]

Great video again! I hope to finish up all my modifications then I'll be doing some high temp work. Exhaust shields are what I will be focusing on. When I get into the high temp stuff I'm sure I'll have lots of questions!

[taprackmiss]

A HT slicing guide would be great for seeing potential hiccups and roadblocks that you wouldn't have thought of from watching previous 'overview' style setups.

[rexxx]

do your filaments come with a gauge profile of that roll?

[coast-guard-cargo-spectio]

Are servo-driven printers, quieter than stepper-motors?
Is there some kind of curve smoothing that the dumb-bit-steps don't do?

[TheRAINMan]

Definitely interested in a high temp guide; that's not a topic covered very well in most places.

[andrewowens]

Is there a global conspiracy to keep the price of PEEK expensive?
8-)

[dPrintingMillennial]

Would absolutely love a HT video! I absolutely HATE having to restart HT materials... Waiting for the bed to reheat.... Trying to pick the boogers and strip of the previous failed print (while burning your hand on the bed and getting a wiff of fumes)... Etc...

I guess for a video worthy research, maybe do nozzle and bed expansion for different metals and bed types. I know when I switched from OBC to ASA, I forgot to account for heat expansion and gouged a deep trench into my bed 😭😭😭.

It would be nice to know if I switch from low temp material A, how much do I need to offset for high temp material B if I'm using a brass nozzle... Or stainless... Etc

[raulcalzada]

is turbulence a good or bad thing in an heated chamber?

[AndrewAHayes]

On Creality touchscreens, they will let you set the print speed to high speeds but dont have the facility to increase the acceleration so although it will say you are printing at the faster speed you have selected, in reality, you most definitely are not, some of their stock firmware was shackled also not that I kept that stock firmware for long as it was pathetic even if you sliced to that faster speed, they could not even get the X, Y offset correctly for ABL for 99% of their machines so you got the nozzle in the place were the probe should have been and ended up with a mesh that was not uniform or correct and only four-fifths of the bed actually probed

[santiagoblandon]

High temp slicing guide/tutorial please! :D