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14. General Notes on 3D Printing
The print quality of 3D printers depends on a great many factors.
It is not always possible to achieve a satisfactory print result at the first attempt.
Extruder
temperature
The best extruder temperature depends on the filament material and the printer layer thickness. The manufacturer information for
the printing temperature can vary very strongly here.
Perform the first test prints at a temperature in the middle range of the manufacturer’s information.
To optimise the print quality, print the same object with the same printing layer thickness and dierent extruder temperatures in
5 °C steps and then compare the results.
This way you can approach the best extruder temperature for dierent filaments and printing layer thicknesses most easily.
If
the extruder temperature is set too hot, the material cannot cool o fast enough and will melt the layer below again.
If the extruder temperature is too low, the filament will not become liquid enough and the filament flow is not homogeneous. The
individual filament layers also cannot combine suciently.
Heating
bed temperature
The best heating bed temperature also depends on the filament material. It permits perfect adhesion of the printed object to the
heating plate.
PLA can also be printed without a heating bed, but a temperature of approx. 60 °C has turned out to be ideal.
When printing PLA (particularly at small objects with a small footprint), the heating bed should additionally be applied with clea
-
ning tape or a slightly structured crepe tape to increase surface adhesion.
ABS needs a heating bed for printing. Otherwise it will not adhere at all or only insuciently. Here, a temperature of approx.
160 °C should be tried out.
If the heating bed temperature is too high, the printed object may distort or the lower layers will cool o too slowly.
If
the heating bed temperature is too low, the printed object will not adhere suciently or the corners will come free of the heating
plate while printing.
Print layer thickness
The
print layer thickness determines the height of the individual print layers and thus the resolution and quality of the printed
objet.
The thinner the printed layers, the better the print quality and the longer the print duration.
The thinner the printed layers, the lower the print quality and the shorter the print duration.
Experiment with the above parameters to find the best printer results for you depending on the material used.
The
first print attempts should be done with PLA filament, since it is a material that can be mastered relatively easily and
that is subject to fewer problems with shrinkage, accuracy and adhesion on the heating plate.
