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Note: This guide deals with the concepts in a general way and without focusing on a specific brand or model, although they may be mentioned at some point. There may be important differences in calibration or adjustment procedures between different makes and models, so it is recommended to consult the manufacturer's manual before reading this guide.
During printing, high-temperature extruded plastic undergoes volume shrinkage due to cooling. In some materials such as PLA this shrinkage is very low (between 0.3 % and 0.5 %), so it is not usually problematic, however other materials such as nylon 12 can have up to 2 % shrinkage or in the case of PVDF even up to 4 %, causing significant deformations in the parts.
Nylon 6-6
This shrinkage is a percentage of the part size, so it must be taken into account that very large parts printed in low shrinkage materials can be more problematic than small parts in high shrinkage materials. This is why a part with a 20 x 20 cm base made of PLA may have a higher risk of failure than a 5 x 5 cm part made of ABS.
When the cooling of the part is very fast and irregular, mainly due to a high difference between the ambient temperature and the printing temperature, the part shrinks unevenly, causing deformations at the ends of the part. This phenomenon is known as warping. Warping has two basic consequences:If the adhesion between layers is not good, it causes the layers to separate.If the adhesion to the base is not good, it causes the part to lift.
In any of the above situations, the consequence is that the deformation of the part will cause it to lift or detach, resulting in a collision with the printhead and causing the print to fail.
Shrinkage of parts during cooling is inevitable, however it is possible to avoid or minimise the risk of failure in several ways:
In reality, the size limit when manufacturing any part in FFF will depend on the bond strength between the first layer and the base and the cohesive forces between layers being able to compensate for the tensile, shear, tearing and peeling stresses generated as the part shrinks during cooling.
The magnitude of these stresses will depend on three factors: the volume of the part, the shrinkage coefficient of the material and the ambient printing temperature.
To reduce the risk of failure, it will be necessary to increase as far as possible the adhesion of the part to the base and between layers, and to reduce the stresses generated by the part..
The following strategies can be used to improve the adhesion of the part to the base:
The following strategies can be used to reduce the stresses on the workpiece:
The following strategies can be used to improve the bond between layers:
It is possible to determine the maximum safe volume or size when manufacturing parts with a certain material in our printer. To do this, the following steps must be followed:
Once these preliminary steps have been carried out, it will be necessary to make iterative tests until the maximum size is found. For this purpose, a cube will be used with the edges parallel to the Z axis rounded and a size of approximately half the printing base.
By following this scheme it is possible to determine the maximum safe print size for a material combination and profile on a given printer.
Once the maximum safe volume has been determined, any part contained within this volume should be able to be produced with almost no risk of failure.
To provide a safety margin, it is advisable to activate the border option in the print profile when printing parts of maximum size (this function should not be used during the iterative determination of the maximum size).
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