From the course: Additive Manufacturing: Tips, Tricks, and Techniques

Unlock this course with a free trial

Join today to access over 22,600 courses taught by industry experts.

Tips for print surface quality

Tips for print surface quality

From the course: Additive Manufacturing: Tips, Tricks, and Techniques

Start my 1-month free trial Buy for my team

Tips for print surface quality

“

- [Joan] 3D prints are made in layers. These layers give a smoother appearance when they're thinner, but printing thin layers takes longer because there are more layers to print. The Layer Thickness setting isn't the only one that'll affect the quality of your print, though. Simply cutting the layer height in half to get a smoother surface will roughly double your print time. Slicers offer several options that allow you to speed up the process of printing with these thin layers. First, you can alter the print speed. Printing slowly reduces the appearance of several types of surface artifacts, again at the cost of print speed. Slicers provide options for printing different parts of each layer at different speeds, so you can try and keep the surface quality high on the external surfaces, while printing the interior more quickly. The colors here show different print speeds. Most slicers also have options to skip printing…

Contents