So a number of folks have brought this up. But we wanted to make sure there was useful link. There are plugins for cura and a number of other slicers that add Mouse Ears. (Here is one: marketplace.ultimaker.com/app/cura/plugins/5axes/TabAntiWarping) The reason we did not include it in the video is that we don't think these are good solutions. Mainly because none of them add the sprue. So they are sub-optimal. And on this channel we really try to show the single most effecient way to do a thing. Since we work in mass production 3D Printing, a 1% improvement means a lot of cost savings for a client when they make 10's of thousands of an item.
When you need to fit a 3D print onto an existing item that has sharp corners like a square shaft or a metal tab on something made of sheet metal, and you don't want to have to drive the printed piece on or figure out a way to shave the inside corners - do this trick in the design. "Mouse bite" the inside corners. Cut out a small cylinder in each inside corner, the full depth of the hole. Then as the nozzle goes around the corner, the normal squeeze out will mash together to form a sharp inside corner instead of a rounded one. I got the idea from the Bell Gothic font used for printing phone books on cheap paper. All the inside corners of the characters have little notches so that the ink bleeds and flows to fill them in sharply rather than bleeding inward from sharp corners to make them rounded.
Don't forget you can usually add circles in your slicer software, this means you can easily modify other people's designs for better printing without brims.
@@timhofstetter5654 every printer is different and every slicer is tuned to one specific printer.. so why include printer tolerances and bed adhesion in the design phase? it will just make a well tuned printer make lose parts and force bad adhesion on printers that dont need it or hinder implementing an specifik preferred method. its the slicers job to take a design and make it printable the cad program is there to model parts. u will still need to model against production but bed adhesion would be handled by the slicer and lucas tip is really good
@@mitte90 I never suggested that anyone should " include printer tolerances and bed adhesion in the design phase". I'm suggesting that your design should not rely on the slicer to add anything before printing because not everyone uses the same slicer, and some people won't be using a slicer that supports these options so they cannot reasonably slice your STL to successfully print your object. Other users won't know that this STL requires these specific setting so they'll just blindly use some of their own stock settings... and again your model will fail. Never do that. Never create an STL that relies upon the user to be intuitive and read your mind and have exactly the same software running on their computer as you have. If you do, then you will fail as a designer because your file will fail more than 50% of the time. That's very bad practice, matched only by weather forecasters.
@@mitte90 Also... your statement that "every slicer is tuned to one specific printer" is very far removed from reality. For example, the slicer I use 98% of the time has different setting profiles for each of the eight different 3D printers that I own and operate. That is how every slicer should be - the slicer itself should never be tunedto one specific printer - it should support an unlimited number of printer-specific profiles for different machines. Always design in everything required to make your print successful. Write once, read many times. Do the job once so it doesn't need to be done by countless others. If you're ever going to be good at this, you'll need to learn that paradigm.
This video has been a big time, material and sanity saver for me as i was having issues with a print and the only response i kept getting was "you need to wash your print bed" Followed your steps here and now problems solved!
Oddly enough, I was fighting corners pealing up on an intricate design where a brim would have been a nightmare when this video popped up. Huge help, thank you so much.
I’ve also found that a .3mm brim distance works very well. It doesn’t touch the model in most places, but it does hold on to the corners and is very easy (and satisfying) to pop off.
I have heard from various people to just: Buy an enclosure for consistent heat... Use a glue stick for better adhesion... Make sure they're is not an AC vent blowing on it... When in reality, I won't be the only person printing the part. Each person will have a different skill set and this eliminates all of those factors. It IS proper engineering design. Thank you for taking the time to create this video. You have a new sub!
Great tip! It makes me wonder it a teardrop shape might work even better by providing a relatively large surface area but without the rapid change in nozzle direction that exists where the sprue encounters the mouse ear circle.
Yeah, a teardrop shape probably would work better, but one big advantage to this method is it's quick to implement. In most CAD software, making circles and straight lines is very quick and easy, whereas making a teardrop shape would take a little more time. A good compromise might be adding a fillet to the corners where the sprue and the circle meet.
@@Gogeta70 - In FreeCAD, I can make a square pad with one corner facing the structure I want to anchor with a teardrop pad and quickly full radius fillet the opposite corner to make the teardrop.
This totally made my life easier this week. I was printing a bed full of 100 tiny objects and by adding a sprue to interconnect them and to an outer system of circles i was able to save time and not worry about failures.
This is fantastic. I have been looking how to start using sharper corners in some of our designs so everything isn't so rounded. Keep up the good work.
In subtractive manufacturing (e.g. milling or cutting) and in injection molding, those sprues would be connected to a frame. You see these all the time with small plastic pieces for model cars and with paper punch-outs for board games. You can do the same thing for 3D printing designs. Think of it like a brim, but the brim is spaced out a little ways and its only connected to the part with a few tabs. Similar to those mouse ears with sprues, they are very easy to remove by cutting the tabs, especially if you put the tabs perpendicular to flat edges instead of sharp corners (much easier to sand or shave flat). But compared to mouse ears, you can get much more surface area using a large frame without making lots of little jagged movements, which is really helpful to avoid the kind of dragging you mentioned. Sharp corners anywhere cause a problem. Creating a sharp corner requires coming to a stop. To do this at high velocities, you need high acceleration. High acceleration means high forces on the machine and vibration. It also means large changes in flow rate, which leads to thinning and blobbing. The freshly-laid filament is still hot and only semi-solid and it has strong adhesion to itself, so the filament you are laying down is pulling on the filament that was just laid. Pulling it in a straight line isn't generally a problem, but pulling perpendicular or even back towards itself is going to tend to pull the soft filament back up off of whatever it was on. All of these factors make small, sharp features difficult to reproduce quickly and reliably. So whenever possible, try to use fillets, dog bones, or other smooth curves instead of sharp edges. The wider the radius, the better, though a few line widths is probably sufficient. This will allow you to maintain velocity, reduce strain and vibration, and avoid blobs and other surface imperfections. This is especially important when printing first layers, thin features, or mating surfaces where dimensional accuracy and consistent are important. As for designing parts that work regardless of machine, settings, or scale? Don't kid yourself. Physics doesn't work that way and neither do the suggestions in this video. What works well for PLA on an FDM printer with a 0.4mm nozzle set to 0.2mm layer height is going to be awful for UV acrylic resin in an SLA printer with 0.05mm dot pitch and layer height. A good design should be tolerant to imperfections and be easily adaptable to different machines, settings, and scales, but it's going to need adaptation. Every design is going to be subject to minimum feature sizes, tolerances, material loading (tensile, shear, bending), kerf, and plenty else. One design will not fit all. But the beauty of parametric CAD is that you can quickly make changes to the design to customize it for the machine it will be used on. Parameterize the things that will need to change, build things up in pieces, use constraints and references to ensure things shift and scale together, and leave room in the design itself to add, remove, scale, offset, or whatever else might need to be done to key features in order for them to function correctly when manufactured in your environment.
I've been experimenting this with some 3D printable buildings I've been working on for miniature wargaming, which often have large, flat floors, and are thus prone to warping at the corners. So far the results have been great! Thanks so much for sharing this technique!
It would a relatively simple thing to do. But there is a need to get more features made before the slicing stage. Otherwise the slice is compensating for bad design and not optimizing a good design
Tabs and similar are quite handy for PLA's, but my fix for this was to install a recirculating chamber heater system, works for ABS and above, no warping anymore, and better bed and layer adhesion, depending on the material I can go all the way up to 90° C inside the chamber.
Much appreciated brother. I have to print in a 0c environment so the biggest problem I suffer with printing, even with an enclosure, is first layer adhesion. I was lucky enough to find this video after only two failed prints, and I think this has saved me months of wasted filament, tweaking and troubleshooting!
Looking at your approach makes me think a tear drop shape might be even more ideal. This is great though as I have done the mouse ears, but never considered minimizing the contact patch.
Phenomenal, thanks! On some of my parts I've actually rounded the corners to prevent curling where it didn't affect the functionality or appearance. On cube corners I have chamfered the point. Saves filament too.
Nifty! Brims are such a drag, amazing that the little sprue can hold it down. One comment you made in the explanation was about internal stress and shrinkage. I have issues with parts that have a section change where, say, an internal floor stops and i get a small step on the outside. I've tried a few different chamfers and fillets but still see it even with thicker walls that have some infill. Do you see the same things? Idea for future vid?
that is a very interesting idea, and makes sense, I'll try it out. But would be also a nice addon to the slicer, as tbf, that should be a slicer setting/addon, too Does anyone know if you can do something like that with prusa slicer already ?
Interesting techniques definitely worth making a note of. Additionally If design allows, rounding vertical corners reduce print time and material. The reduction of material usage isn't just from eliminating brim and mouse ears but from the rounding it self. Also the time savings will come from the higher average speeds from the nozzle not having to slow down at the corner. Even a 0.5mm radius rounding of the corner can have a huge impact with more complex shapes.
I was thinking this when he first started. It'll smooth out the corners and eliminate the drag he mentioned, but that rounding wouldn't help with the warping on dense prints.
I avoid using bring where possible, but in some cases, especially when using bed-slinger types of printers and printing tall models, sometimes a brim help from keeping prints from disconnecting from the print bed. Brims can help in keeping prints sticking to bed.
I like this. It also brings up the question of ownership of duty. Is it the Engineer's designing the part responsibility or the Machinist's to know how the tool the part will be made on will work? There might be a point where the person running the printer has a solution that is better for the particular setup they run and these things attached to the model slows them down and causes problems. For example, dissolvable rims might be easier than having to cut off each tab in how they have their station set up and how complex the part is. Also if it already has supports that need to be dissolved anyways.
Theres definitely ways to 'Design for 3D Printing' vs 'Optimise for 3D Printing'. Designing for 3D printing is minimising supports by reducing overhangs with chamfers or maximising connected solid areas that can be filled with infill very easily. In comparison, this method of optimising for 3D printing where instead of modifying printer settings for a better output you instead add extra parts specifically for the 3D printer to produce a desirable outcome. Or as an example imagine a cube with a bottom, 2 opposite sides, and an open front, back, and top; Instead of designing a U-shaped cube that is basically a stringing torture test, you design the part in a way where one of the walls prints separately and reconnects to the cube, which would be a design decision at the very start of the project specifically to reduce the stringing between the printer moves going back and forth for the separated walls. Tough to define where the responsibility for the decision lies though, definitely an interesting question.
If you use Prusa slicer, you can insert a shape and make it a circle and do the same thing. Make it the same thickness (saw this by 3D printing nerd's reel)
Yep I have done it on occasion- the downside of it (and this) compared to a Brim is it's more difficult to remove after printing since instead of a series of perimeters that have a set distance away from the part, it's typically welded into the first layer or two requiring flush cutters to remove. I suppose a per object setting and making it like 10 perimeters would solve that but I have not needed a brim in a while with PEI and good cleaning
It's a nice theory but actual printed parts in comparison would help even more. I use brims on objects with small contact area and rather high print height. To make sure they don't get ripped off. Like on the little ski on the RC Tiny rider snowmobile. The little gears don't need brim because they are done quick enough. Warping cannot really be avoided with these brims. Warping is a fault within the cooling itself. The ambient temperature must not be too low or otherwise the part will warp on the layers that shrink too fast and strong.
I never had a problem with sharp corners, I've printed gears, simple shapes with 45-90 degree corners etc and never had any warping, so watching this video had me confused I print PLA and PETG with brims on Cr-10 v2. I also confused why removing brims somehow a lot of post processing? You just peel it off very easily like a film
@@DeathCoreGuitar It depends on the brim and where it is. Small variations in bed height or flow rate can be the difference between a brim being firmly attached (like an entire layer) or completely detached. That said, I use brims all the time and usually don't have an issue, but I have had parts where I needed every tool in the box to get bits of brim out of corners and slots where they were causing interference on a mating surface. In situations like that, I find support blockers or custom supports give me flexibility to pin things where its needed and to keep unwanted material out of critical areas. That's also why I'd rather my models not have built in supports like those mouse ears, but rather let me add my own when and where works for my machine.
What about supports for a 5 sided hollow enclosure? The entire thing has to be filled with supports and its such a pain to clean out and makes for a REALLY long print.
This seems like a pretty hot tip, thanks for sharing! I've started to incorporate beveling into my corners to help alleviate some of those issues, this definitely seems like a great trick to try!
Sure. But it is better to define those features in design rather than depend upon a automatic slicer to cover. Expecially in mass production where the smallest optimizations make a big difference
Excellent, Can you do a video About reducing support and deciding which orientation to print. I often get STLs but the designer has not defined the optimal orientation to print. I want to reduce suort, but also tske into account if I have screw holes which will later have to be drilled out. Ive sometimes split a part to have two flat mating surfaces which ultimately would be screwed to a mount anyway. Thanks!
Interesting indeed. I've been 3D-printing for a while; This is the first time I've seen this design technique. I'll be trying this to see how this works om my printer. Thanks.
i've heard you say this in a couple videos, that you shouldn't rely on print settings, that a good design should work on "any printer, any time, any scale". but in regards to your print farm, where you control the hardware, wouldn't creating slicer files, be just as much work as modifying the 3d model? id love to see a video where you go more in depth about this.
with glass beds, I used brims as they gave me the best adhesion, switching to PEI/magnetic bed, I've not needed anything more than a skirt to just get the PLA flowing.
Brims are essential with petg to hold parts down which have a small surface area required on the bed. For instance printing a long thin cylinder. You don't want to print that sideways.
Sure but that is dependent on your first layer height and width. But again in mass production you don't want any extra effort about a large portion of any brim has no value
Sir I know very little about 3d printing but I have a question, I understand a 3d printer likes straight lines because of axis, why would you make circle ears, would be better to make square ears , my thinking is less stress on the printer with the coding = time, if I’m wrong please help me understand, my background is welding and I understand wrapping
It looks like the point of the triangle should be on the circumference of the circle, and the sprew just a small little area on one side of the triangle. How big should that sprew be? How many perimeters?
@@slant3d - I think half the people that wrote comments didn't listen to you when you said "You want the design to not be dependent upon the printer settings...".
So this is shifting the stress over into the circle area, and even if it does deflect, it won't matter? Or should it eliminate that problem 100%? If you make it larger does it just help more or is there a limit to helpfulness / material etc. In my mind more surface area sticking to the build plate = more resistance to it pulling upwards, yeah?
I'm still pursuing comments, but I am worried. If I print a large thick rectangle, I get uplift on just one corner, the same corner, every time. If I tried to tack it down this way, the surface area of the circle is a fraction of the area that warps off the plate. Why would it not just lift off like the shrinking material?
funny, i just been stuffing with something similar and i set my brim distance to 0.16mm then it stays stuck well enough to hold stuff down and not rip off, but it removes from the part in a very easy and satisfying way, where if i add features like this then i have to cut them off and use tools to post process instead of just peeling it off and the part being good to go
What if you keep that, but give it a 0.1mm spacing to brake off easy and raise it up a few layers, but only near the contact point. I'm defiantly going to give that a try on my next design that might require that
Absolutely going to try this. I suspect it's not only going to work well for corners with high internal stresses and lift/warp potential, but it will *probably* allow for relatively thin parts to be reliably printed without the bed adhesion issues (and get away from the ton of post-processing required!). Even if it doesn't help with thin parts, it's brilliant enough to warrant a sub from me. Thanks! EDIT: Yep, it works for thin parts. Easily saved me up to five minutes of finishing per piece for small stuff. SUPER!
I have experimented with brim spacing and adding little bumps that touch the part, I thought there might be some benefit from a wavy brim or perforated to weaken the first layer, especially on bottom beveled surfaces where you always end up with a sharp blade around it and have a ton of cleanup
I'm surprised that slicing software won't give you a setting to add these kind of supports and forces you to create your own geometry and add it to the model.
This is great, need to try it, and I just so happen to have a 3d printed bracket that has started to break, so many I can modify that model to be a little taller, and add the mouse ears!
Hi - I saw your short version of this earlier today, and am currently printing a part that was very prone to lifting in one area. Apparently now fixed: Thank you!! 😚
Very cool. I have seen "tenticle" built in supports lately. Thoughts on built in supports as i can imagine this ALSO improves mass production at scale without needing to worry about "support settings" ? Interested in that one
This raises an interesting point. I'd assumed that with a print farm, the customer would supply GCode not STLs or the models. Isn't that the case? Or does it vary?
If we are talking about PLA with proper bed adhesion, like a PEI coated spring steel sheet, and proper bed heating, just wash with 1 drop of dawn dish detergent on a wet paper towel, then rinse and dry before printing. Bed adhesion will never be a problem.
Yea tell that to my hand leveled with paper before each print, CR-touch enabled-modified from 9 to 25 point-auto level, 70% isop alc cleaned, glass built plate. A flat bottomed tool rack still curved up aggressively.
Design them in multiple parts to be assembled with adhesives or fasteners. Try to make each piece have large, flat areas that can used as the bottom when printing and have the walls coming off of that bottom be as vertical as possible. Where parts meet, try to make the seams somewhere that isn't visible or that can easily be filled and smoothed. For the mating surfaces themselves, include posts, holes, or similar shapes that can be used to help line up the parts when assembling them. Also consider putting things like mortises and tenons, tongues and grooves, rabbets, and other such types of joinery between parts that have small mating surfaces or experience large forces in order to strengthen the joint, rather than relying on a simple butt or lap. As an example, think of how you might make a perfect sphere. There's no flat side and you would tons of overhangs and supports. But what if you cut it into quadrants? Or slices like an orange? Each piece has large flat areas and you can align the pieces to avoid overhangs. For more complex shapes, you can build an internal core that all of the outside pieces attach to, like how oranges, tomatoes, and peppers have that central column that the rest of the fruit is attached to. For other inspiration, try taking apart cheap electronics and other toys. They are all designed to be injection molded as cheap as possible, including using as little material as possible. Injection molding also has limitations like 3D printing does, such as draft angle, lengths and widths of the individual features, and so on. You'll find most such toys are almost entirely hollow and are made of two halves (clam shells) with a few large posts connecting them through the middle with screws. The holes where the screws go into those posts are often cleverly hidden under stickers and labels, rubber feet, or other surface features that are applied after assembly. The same kinds of ideas can be used to adapt a thin, complex outer surface to a strong and blocky inner structure while hiding the evidence. Keep in mind when printing bottom to top, you don't want to make the bottom narrower than the top. Putting posts on the bottom won't work well, but putting holes or recesses in the bottom can work. Vice versa, making a post on the top side is easy. However, it's difficult to get a narrow post to come out, especially if there's nothing else at that height (you run into minimum layer time and cooling issues). It's also difficult to make a wide hole coming up from the bed (large bridges require support). So try to find a happy medium for the sizes of your posts and holes. Also, consider modelling holes or slots in both mating surfaces and insert a dowel or biscuit between them. You can buy thin, cheap, and strong dowels and biscuits at any hardware store. Likewise, screws or bolts can be used as fasteners - your printed part just needs holes or slots through which they can pass. Try to avoid actually screwing into your printed part. Screws put a lot of tension on the printed surfaces, pulling the layers apart. Instead, use bolts. The nut and the bolt apply tension to themselves, instead applying compression to the printed parts held between them. Printed parts handle compression much better than tension and it's easier to support that compression by making the print thicker at the bolting surfaces and using washers to spread out the load. If it's impractical to put a nut somewhere and be able to hold it in order to tighten the bolt against it, then you could consider heat set inserts. They are like nuts that are meant to be heated and pressed into a hole in the print, melting into the hole and welding in place. This is similar to how a lot of flat pack wooden furniture is made, like the kind you get from IKEA. The thin chip board they use would break easily if you tried to drive a screw into it, but by mounting a large metal insert into the wood, a bolt can be screwed into the insert and the large outer diameter of the insert can grab on to the much larger surface area of wood around it. It's not nearly as strong as having a nut mounted on the other side, but it's much stronger than a thin diameter screw.
I print PLA on black textured PC, everything stays on pointy or not lol. If you don’t print a solid object like if your first layer fails, then you even have to heat that boy up to like 65C just to peel off the pla
Thanks for this video SLANT. I don't have a problem with bed or layer adhesion, but using the triangle model in your video, but making it 10 inches tall, the early layers maybe the first centimeter or so, flair out and warp compared to the rest of the model. Everywhere else is fine. I've tried higher temps, brims, and a 10mm raft. Any ideas on how to fix this? Thanks in advance!
It sounds like you may be too low on your first layer (too much squish), so it takes several layers for things to normalize. Try increasing your starting nozzle height just a bit (maybe 0.1mm) and see if that works, good luck.
Really great video. I'm not incredibly well versed in 3D modeling but I've spent enough time to appreciate a well designed model. There's no doubt this will become incredibly handy even for low-production DIY parts.
So a number of folks have brought this up. But we wanted to make sure there was useful link. There are plugins for cura and a number of other slicers that add Mouse Ears. (Here is one: marketplace.ultimaker.com/app/cura/plugins/5axes/TabAntiWarping)
The reason we did not include it in the video is that we don't think these are good solutions. Mainly because none of them add the sprue. So they are sub-optimal. And on this channel we really try to show the single most effecient way to do a thing. Since we work in mass production 3D Printing, a 1% improvement means a lot of cost savings for a client when they make 10's of thousands of an item.
Link not working
When you need to fit a 3D print onto an existing item that has sharp corners like a square shaft or a metal tab on something made of sheet metal, and you don't want to have to drive the printed piece on or figure out a way to shave the inside corners - do this trick in the design.
"Mouse bite" the inside corners. Cut out a small cylinder in each inside corner, the full depth of the hole. Then as the nozzle goes around the corner, the normal squeeze out will mash together to form a sharp inside corner instead of a rounded one.
I got the idea from the Bell Gothic font used for printing phone books on cheap paper. All the inside corners of the characters have little notches so that the ink bleeds and flows to fill them in sharply rather than bleeding inward from sharp corners to make them rounded.
But this still does the "mouse ear" not the solution purposed here.
That makes your print dependent upon the slicer.
@@ytskt - delete the closing bracket at the end of the url that's been added in error.
Please continue making more of these design optimization videos. They are incredibly helpful pointers to keep in mind when designing parts.
You got it!
I agree 👍
I use these regularly. Once the printer is above them, i pop a small neodymium magnet on (my prusa uses steel plates) to ensure adhesion to the bed
Very good idea! Gonna try it for my next print!
brilliant idear
Don't forget you can usually add circles in your slicer software, this means you can easily modify other people's designs for better printing without brims.
thx ! I will try asap :)
That makes your print dependent upon the slicer.
@@timhofstetter5654 every printer is different and every slicer is tuned to one specific printer.. so why include printer tolerances and bed adhesion in the design phase? it will just make a well tuned printer make lose parts and force bad adhesion on printers that dont need it or hinder implementing an specifik preferred method. its the slicers job to take a design and make it printable the cad program is there to model parts. u will still need to model against production but bed adhesion would be handled by the slicer and lucas tip is really good
@@mitte90 I never suggested that anyone should " include printer tolerances and bed adhesion in the design phase". I'm suggesting that your design should not rely on the slicer to add anything before printing because not everyone uses the same slicer, and some people won't be using a slicer that supports these options so they cannot reasonably slice your STL to successfully print your object. Other users won't know that this STL requires these specific setting so they'll just blindly use some of their own stock settings... and again your model will fail.
Never do that. Never create an STL that relies upon the user to be intuitive and read your mind and have exactly the same software running on their computer as you have. If you do, then you will fail as a designer because your file will fail more than 50% of the time. That's very bad practice, matched only by weather forecasters.
@@mitte90 Also... your statement that "every slicer is tuned to one specific printer" is very far removed from reality. For example, the slicer I use 98% of the time has different setting profiles for each of the eight different 3D printers that I own and operate. That is how every slicer should be - the slicer itself should never be tunedto one specific printer - it should support an unlimited number of printer-specific profiles for different machines.
Always design in everything required to make your print successful. Write once, read many times. Do the job once so it doesn't need to be done by countless others. If you're ever going to be good at this, you'll need to learn that paradigm.
This video has been a big time, material and sanity saver for me as i was having issues with a print and the only response i kept getting was "you need to wash your print bed" Followed your steps here and now problems solved!
no one told you about cheap hair spray?
Oddly enough, I was fighting corners pealing up on an intricate design where a brim would have been a nightmare when this video popped up. Huge help, thank you so much.
No problem
I’ve also found that a .3mm brim distance works very well. It doesn’t touch the model in most places, but it does hold on to the corners and is very easy (and satisfying) to pop off.
I have found that brim distance can vary from filament to filament due to shrinkage. But a brim distance is key
I am printing a topography puzzle right now and the warping/brim is killing me. I am gonna try some pieces with your recommendation.
That's what I do too, it works well :)
I use 0.2mm and it comes off super easy.
Why are 4 comments hidden? But I do the same.
I have heard from various people to just:
Buy an enclosure for consistent heat...
Use a glue stick for better adhesion...
Make sure they're is not an AC vent blowing on it...
When in reality, I won't be the only person printing the part. Each person will have a different skill set and this eliminates all of those factors. It IS proper engineering design. Thank you for taking the time to create this video. You have a new sub!
Great tip! It makes me wonder it a teardrop shape might work even better by providing a relatively large surface area but without the rapid change in nozzle direction that exists where the sprue encounters the mouse ear circle.
Yeah, a teardrop shape probably would work better, but one big advantage to this method is it's quick to implement. In most CAD software, making circles and straight lines is very quick and easy, whereas making a teardrop shape would take a little more time. A good compromise might be adding a fillet to the corners where the sprue and the circle meet.
@@Gogeta70 - In FreeCAD, I can make a square pad with one corner facing the structure I want to anchor with a teardrop pad and quickly full radius fillet the opposite corner to make the teardrop.
@@Liberty4Ever Hey, that's a neat trick! Thanks for the tip :)
This totally made my life easier this week. I was printing a bed full of 100 tiny objects and by adding a sprue to interconnect them and to an outer system of circles i was able to save time and not worry about failures.
Glad we could help
This is fantastic. I have been looking how to start using sharper corners in some of our designs so everything isn't so rounded. Keep up the good work.
Thanks. You're welcome!
I have been 3D printing for more than 12 years now, but this was new for me.
Still learning :)
Thanks!
SuperSlicer has this function for Brim > Brim Ears. Works great. Your example in CAD does offer more flexibility.
In subtractive manufacturing (e.g. milling or cutting) and in injection molding, those sprues would be connected to a frame. You see these all the time with small plastic pieces for model cars and with paper punch-outs for board games. You can do the same thing for 3D printing designs. Think of it like a brim, but the brim is spaced out a little ways and its only connected to the part with a few tabs. Similar to those mouse ears with sprues, they are very easy to remove by cutting the tabs, especially if you put the tabs perpendicular to flat edges instead of sharp corners (much easier to sand or shave flat). But compared to mouse ears, you can get much more surface area using a large frame without making lots of little jagged movements, which is really helpful to avoid the kind of dragging you mentioned.
Sharp corners anywhere cause a problem. Creating a sharp corner requires coming to a stop. To do this at high velocities, you need high acceleration. High acceleration means high forces on the machine and vibration. It also means large changes in flow rate, which leads to thinning and blobbing. The freshly-laid filament is still hot and only semi-solid and it has strong adhesion to itself, so the filament you are laying down is pulling on the filament that was just laid. Pulling it in a straight line isn't generally a problem, but pulling perpendicular or even back towards itself is going to tend to pull the soft filament back up off of whatever it was on. All of these factors make small, sharp features difficult to reproduce quickly and reliably.
So whenever possible, try to use fillets, dog bones, or other smooth curves instead of sharp edges. The wider the radius, the better, though a few line widths is probably sufficient. This will allow you to maintain velocity, reduce strain and vibration, and avoid blobs and other surface imperfections. This is especially important when printing first layers, thin features, or mating surfaces where dimensional accuracy and consistent are important.
As for designing parts that work regardless of machine, settings, or scale? Don't kid yourself. Physics doesn't work that way and neither do the suggestions in this video. What works well for PLA on an FDM printer with a 0.4mm nozzle set to 0.2mm layer height is going to be awful for UV acrylic resin in an SLA printer with 0.05mm dot pitch and layer height. A good design should be tolerant to imperfections and be easily adaptable to different machines, settings, and scales, but it's going to need adaptation. Every design is going to be subject to minimum feature sizes, tolerances, material loading (tensile, shear, bending), kerf, and plenty else. One design will not fit all. But the beauty of parametric CAD is that you can quickly make changes to the design to customize it for the machine it will be used on. Parameterize the things that will need to change, build things up in pieces, use constraints and references to ensure things shift and scale together, and leave room in the design itself to add, remove, scale, offset, or whatever else might need to be done to key features in order for them to function correctly when manufactured in your environment.
I've been experimenting this with some 3D printable buildings I've been working on for miniature wargaming, which often have large, flat floors, and are thus prone to warping at the corners. So far the results have been great! Thanks so much for sharing this technique!
Just make the floor boards look like wood and call it a realistic feature. Problem solved.
@@jerbear7952 Unless your creating cobble stone walkways... :)
that's such an interesting idea, i wonder if that can be integrated into the slicer the same way they implement supports for resin
It would a relatively simple thing to do. But there is a need to get more features made before the slicing stage. Otherwise the slice is compensating for bad design and not optimizing a good design
marketplace.ultimaker.com/app/cura/plugins/5axes/TabAntiWarping?_gl=1*1sp09v4*_ga*MTcwNjk2Mjg3Mi4xNjczNzIyOTIz*_ga_JHX8W909G8*MTY3MzcyMjkyMy4xLjAuMTY3MzcyMjkyMy4wLjAuMA..
Oh nice. Helper disks are always super nice but man loving the spru idea!
Hey! Glad you like them! We love your stuff BTW.
Tabs and similar are quite handy for PLA's, but my fix for this was to install a recirculating chamber heater system, works for ABS and above, no warping anymore, and better bed and layer adhesion, depending on the material I can go all the way up to 90° C inside the chamber.
Much appreciated brother. I have to print in a 0c environment so the biggest problem I suffer with printing, even with an enclosure, is first layer adhesion. I was lucky enough to find this video after only two failed prints, and I think this has saved me months of wasted filament, tweaking and troubleshooting!
why are you printing in a freezer?
because i would rather take two seconds to cut mouse ears off a print than listen to a 3d printer inside of my house 24/7 @@bettycocker2226
Always had issues with these and love your points about not relying on printer settings and instead focusing on quality designs
Thanks. Yes, there is a lot that can be fixed earlier in the workflow.
Looking at your approach makes me think a tear drop shape might be even more ideal. This is great though as I have done the mouse ears, but never considered minimizing the contact patch.
A Teardrop is the optimum. But it gets harder and slower to model than a symetric circle with a straight line out the side.
@@slant3d true, but now I'm thinking I could just model up this shape before hand and add it as a derivative when needed...
Phenomenal, thanks! On some of my parts I've actually rounded the corners to prevent curling where it didn't affect the functionality or appearance. On cube corners I have chamfered the point. Saves filament too.
That is a better solution when it can be used.
Nifty! Brims are such a drag, amazing that the little sprue can hold it down.
One comment you made in the explanation was about internal stress and shrinkage. I have issues with parts that have a section change where, say, an internal floor stops and i get a small step on the outside. I've tried a few different chamfers and fillets but still see it even with thicker walls that have some infill. Do you see the same things? Idea for future vid?
How thick do you make your sprews?
One addition I would do is put the Sprue perpendicular only to the one face of the corner. Makes it even easier to trim off.
that is a very interesting idea, and makes sense, I'll try it out.
But would be also a nice addon to the slicer, as tbf, that should be a slicer setting/addon, too
Does anyone know if you can do something like that with prusa slicer already ?
Interesting techniques definitely worth making a note of. Additionally If design allows, rounding vertical corners reduce print time and material. The reduction of material usage isn't just from eliminating brim and mouse ears but from the rounding it self. Also the time savings will come from the higher average speeds from the nozzle not having to slow down at the corner. Even a 0.5mm radius rounding of the corner can have a huge impact with more complex shapes.
I was thinking this when he first started. It'll smooth out the corners and eliminate the drag he mentioned, but that rounding wouldn't help with the warping on dense prints.
Slowing and increasing temperature at the first layer much helpful as well.
I avoid using bring where possible, but in some cases, especially when using bed-slinger types of printers and printing tall models, sometimes a brim help from keeping prints from disconnecting from the print bed. Brims can help in keeping prints sticking to bed.
I like this. It also brings up the question of ownership of duty. Is it the Engineer's designing the part responsibility or the Machinist's to know how the tool the part will be made on will work?
There might be a point where the person running the printer has a solution that is better for the particular setup they run and these things attached to the model slows them down and causes problems. For example, dissolvable rims might be easier than having to cut off each tab in how they have their station set up and how complex the part is. Also if it already has supports that need to be dissolved anyways.
Interesting Point
Theres definitely ways to 'Design for 3D Printing' vs 'Optimise for 3D Printing'. Designing for 3D printing is minimising supports by reducing overhangs with chamfers or maximising connected solid areas that can be filled with infill very easily. In comparison, this method of optimising for 3D printing where instead of modifying printer settings for a better output you instead add extra parts specifically for the 3D printer to produce a desirable outcome. Or as an example imagine a cube with a bottom, 2 opposite sides, and an open front, back, and top; Instead of designing a U-shaped cube that is basically a stringing torture test, you design the part in a way where one of the walls prints separately and reconnects to the cube, which would be a design decision at the very start of the project specifically to reduce the stringing between the printer moves going back and forth for the separated walls. Tough to define where the responsibility for the decision lies though, definitely an interesting question.
Best 3D printing tip of 2023 so far, thank you so much!
Wow, thanks! Glad you like it.
If you use Prusa slicer, you can insert a shape and make it a circle and do the same thing. Make it the same thickness (saw this by 3D printing nerd's reel)
Yep I have done it on occasion- the downside of it (and this) compared to a Brim is it's more difficult to remove after printing since instead of a series of perimeters that have a set distance away from the part, it's typically welded into the first layer or two requiring flush cutters to remove. I suppose a per object setting and making it like 10 perimeters would solve that but I have not needed a brim in a while with PEI and good cleaning
It's a nice theory but actual printed parts in comparison would help even more.
I use brims on objects with small contact area and rather high print height. To make sure they don't get ripped off. Like on the little ski on the RC Tiny rider snowmobile. The little gears don't need brim because they are done quick enough.
Warping cannot really be avoided with these brims. Warping is a fault within the cooling itself. The ambient temperature must not be too low or otherwise the part will warp on the layers that shrink too fast and strong.
Cold area probably makes this worse I would guess?
I never had a problem with sharp corners, I've printed gears, simple shapes with 45-90 degree corners etc and never had any warping, so watching this video had me confused
I print PLA and PETG with brims on Cr-10 v2. I also confused why removing brims somehow a lot of post processing? You just peel it off very easily like a film
@@DeathCoreGuitar It depends on the brim and where it is. Small variations in bed height or flow rate can be the difference between a brim being firmly attached (like an entire layer) or completely detached. That said, I use brims all the time and usually don't have an issue, but I have had parts where I needed every tool in the box to get bits of brim out of corners and slots where they were causing interference on a mating surface. In situations like that, I find support blockers or custom supports give me flexibility to pin things where its needed and to keep unwanted material out of critical areas. That's also why I'd rather my models not have built in supports like those mouse ears, but rather let me add my own when and where works for my machine.
You dont need to make this adjustment in the CAD software, just download a circle as a stl. file and merge them in the slices.
Very interesting! Slicers could actually implement this sort of a corner only brim to help with all the things you said.
SuperSlicer does this with Brim Ears.
Cura has a Plugin for that called "TabAntiWarping", just simple mouse ears like shown in the vid but normally they do the trick.
Hey thanks forbthe heads up. Didnt kmow
@@DrN4b0 thanks. Didn't know.
Super slicer let's you do it to corners under a certain angle that you set.
Epic! Also, love the comment about designing independent of the printer settings.
What about supports for a 5 sided hollow enclosure? The entire thing has to be filled with supports and its such a pain to clean out and makes for a REALLY long print.
There's actually a cura addon which can add these circles when you click it.
The longer you press the bigger the circle is.
This seems like a pretty hot tip, thanks for sharing! I've started to incorporate beveling into my corners to help alleviate some of those issues, this definitely seems like a great trick to try!
I had to do this with a lot of the Voron parts printed in ABS. Think superslicer has mouse ears built in.
Sure. But it is better to define those features in design rather than depend upon a automatic slicer to cover. Expecially in mass production where the smallest optimizations make a big difference
Excellent, Can you do a video About reducing support and deciding which orientation to print. I often get STLs but the designer has not defined the optimal orientation to print. I want to reduce suort, but also tske into account if I have screw holes which will later have to be drilled out. Ive sometimes split a part to have two flat mating surfaces which ultimately would be screwed to a mount anyway. Thanks!
Maybe. But there are not really universal rules to orientation. It is really part specific.
Literally just had this issue with a print going right now, fantastic timing, thank you
Interesting. I would have thought I need more contact than a 1mm sprue. I'll have to try it.
Thank you!
Another arrow in my design quiver, can’t wait to use it.
Enjoy!
Interesting indeed. I've been 3D-printing for a while; This is the first time I've seen this design technique. I'll be trying this to see how this works om my printer. Thanks.
You're Welcome
i've heard you say this in a couple videos, that you shouldn't rely on print settings, that a good design should work on "any printer, any time, any scale". but in regards to your print farm, where you control the hardware, wouldn't creating slicer files, be just as much work as modifying the 3d model? id love to see a video where you go more in depth about this.
I do this routinely now with great success and it is creates very little additional work or cost.
Thanks for sharing
In Cura there is a plugin called anti warp Tabs, makes it easy to add these in stl files. Just click the area and define the size of the Tab.
with glass beds, I used brims as they gave me the best adhesion, switching to PEI/magnetic bed, I've not needed anything more than a skirt to just get the PLA flowing.
Brims are essential with petg to hold parts down which have a small surface area required on the bed. For instance printing a long thin cylinder. You don't want to print that sideways.
I have found that spacing a brim out a bit (say 0.3 mm) still solves problems while making it easy to remove.
Sure but that is dependent on your first layer height and width. But again in mass production you don't want any extra effort about a large portion of any brim has no value
With Orca Slicer (and I believe Pursa Slicer as well), it has mouse ear brim built in. It works great.
Sir I know very little about 3d printing but I have a question, I understand a 3d printer likes straight lines because of axis, why would you make circle ears, would be better to make square ears , my thinking is less stress on the printer with the coding = time, if I’m wrong please help me understand, my background is welding and I understand wrapping
Certainly will be trying this technique soon. I know some slicers do brim ears. But this is a nice touch.
Between this and making custom supports when I need them it cuts post processing by 90% depending on the product!
Absolutely true.
It looks like the point of the triangle should be on the circumference of the circle, and the sprew just a small little area on one side of the triangle. How big should that sprew be? How many perimeters?
What dimensions do you recommend for these tabs, in regard to Slant 3D manufacturing? Specifically tab diameter, sprue length, and sprue width.
❗ Those are brim-ears and can be used in the slicer instead of the normal-brim. At least in PrusaSlicer and SuperSlicer, in Cura I'm not sure.
Sure. But you want to avoid dependence on the slicer. This about optimizing for mass production.
@@slant3d - I think half the people that wrote comments didn't listen to you when you said "You want the design to not be dependent upon the printer settings...".
Excellent.
Thank you very much for sharing your knowledge with the community!
Hello, I’m very new to 3D printing. What software are you using in this video?
Would also like to know.
So this is shifting the stress over into the circle area, and even if it does deflect, it won't matter? Or should it eliminate that problem 100%? If you make it larger does it just help more or is there a limit to helpfulness / material etc. In my mind more surface area sticking to the build plate = more resistance to it pulling upwards, yeah?
My curling up problems went away when I started using PETG which (mostly) doesn't shrink as it cools.
How wide do you make the sprou and radius of disc?
Interesting. And it sounds like a good reason to edit the mouse ears plugin.
I'm still pursuing comments, but I am worried. If I print a large thick rectangle, I get uplift on just one corner, the same corner, every time. If I tried to tack it down this way, the surface area of the circle is a fraction of the area that warps off the plate. Why would it not just lift off like the shrinking material?
funny, i just been stuffing with something similar and i set my brim distance to 0.16mm then it stays stuck well enough to hold stuff down and not rip off, but it removes from the part in a very easy and satisfying way, where if i add features like this then i have to cut them off and use tools to post process instead of just peeling it off and the part being good to go
What if you keep that, but give it a 0.1mm spacing to brake off easy and raise it up a few layers, but only near the contact point. I'm defiantly going to give that a try on my next design that might require that
You can also lower corner stress by printing with concentric instead of cross hatch.
Absolutely going to try this. I suspect it's not only going to work well for corners with high internal stresses and lift/warp potential, but it will *probably* allow for relatively thin parts to be reliably printed without the bed adhesion issues (and get away from the ton of post-processing required!). Even if it doesn't help with thin parts, it's brilliant enough to warrant a sub from me. Thanks!
EDIT: Yep, it works for thin parts. Easily saved me up to five minutes of finishing per piece for small stuff. SUPER!
I have experimented with brim spacing and adding little bumps that touch the part, I thought there might be some benefit from a wavy brim or perforated to weaken the first layer, especially on bottom beveled surfaces where you always end up with a sharp blade around it and have a ton of cleanup
I'm surprised that slicing software won't give you a setting to add these kind of supports and forces you to create your own geometry and add it to the model.
Super Slicer has these as a setting.
That’s the most useful tip I’ve seen on TH-cam for a while. Thanks 😊
Happy to help
A good design is one that works in the actual application.
This is going to save me days of my life not having to remove brims. Thank you 100000x!
You are welcome.
This is great, need to try it, and I just so happen to have a 3d printed bracket that has started to break, so many I can modify that model to be a little taller, and add the mouse ears!
Hi - I saw your short version of this earlier today, and am currently printing a part that was very prone to lifting in one area. Apparently now fixed: Thank you!! 😚
Cura has this, called Anti-Warping Tab which is a plugin that can be installed easily.
Very cool. I have seen "tenticle" built in supports lately. Thoughts on built in supports as i can imagine this ALSO improves mass production at scale without needing to worry about "support settings" ?
Interested in that one
Designed supports rather than slicer created supports are a great option
Thanks, I've encountered those problems and now I have a fix!
"Adds a lot of post processing" sounds like you don't have your brim gap set up properly.
A corner is less than a perimeter
This raises an interesting point. I'd assumed that with a print farm, the customer would supply GCode not STLs or the models. Isn't that the case? Or does it vary?
For mass production you should attempt to design the part as effiecently as possible in CAD.
What is the CAD you are using ?
Thank you! I've been adding mouse ears that I designed for a while now. I'm going to try this on my next print! This looks great!
Nice! I just trimmed a brim this morning and it was a pain.
If we are talking about PLA with proper bed adhesion, like a PEI coated spring steel sheet, and proper bed heating, just wash with 1 drop of dawn dish detergent on a wet paper towel, then rinse and dry before printing. Bed adhesion will never be a problem.
Yea tell that to my hand leveled with paper before each print, CR-touch enabled-modified from 9 to 25 point-auto level, 70% isop alc cleaned, glass built plate. A flat bottomed tool rack still curved up aggressively.
Do you have tips for printing cosplay helmets? They usually need plenty of supports and aren't always flat on the bottom.
Design them in multiple parts to be assembled with adhesives or fasteners. Try to make each piece have large, flat areas that can used as the bottom when printing and have the walls coming off of that bottom be as vertical as possible. Where parts meet, try to make the seams somewhere that isn't visible or that can easily be filled and smoothed. For the mating surfaces themselves, include posts, holes, or similar shapes that can be used to help line up the parts when assembling them. Also consider putting things like mortises and tenons, tongues and grooves, rabbets, and other such types of joinery between parts that have small mating surfaces or experience large forces in order to strengthen the joint, rather than relying on a simple butt or lap.
As an example, think of how you might make a perfect sphere. There's no flat side and you would tons of overhangs and supports. But what if you cut it into quadrants? Or slices like an orange? Each piece has large flat areas and you can align the pieces to avoid overhangs. For more complex shapes, you can build an internal core that all of the outside pieces attach to, like how oranges, tomatoes, and peppers have that central column that the rest of the fruit is attached to.
For other inspiration, try taking apart cheap electronics and other toys. They are all designed to be injection molded as cheap as possible, including using as little material as possible. Injection molding also has limitations like 3D printing does, such as draft angle, lengths and widths of the individual features, and so on. You'll find most such toys are almost entirely hollow and are made of two halves (clam shells) with a few large posts connecting them through the middle with screws. The holes where the screws go into those posts are often cleverly hidden under stickers and labels, rubber feet, or other surface features that are applied after assembly. The same kinds of ideas can be used to adapt a thin, complex outer surface to a strong and blocky inner structure while hiding the evidence.
Keep in mind when printing bottom to top, you don't want to make the bottom narrower than the top. Putting posts on the bottom won't work well, but putting holes or recesses in the bottom can work. Vice versa, making a post on the top side is easy. However, it's difficult to get a narrow post to come out, especially if there's nothing else at that height (you run into minimum layer time and cooling issues). It's also difficult to make a wide hole coming up from the bed (large bridges require support). So try to find a happy medium for the sizes of your posts and holes.
Also, consider modelling holes or slots in both mating surfaces and insert a dowel or biscuit between them. You can buy thin, cheap, and strong dowels and biscuits at any hardware store. Likewise, screws or bolts can be used as fasteners - your printed part just needs holes or slots through which they can pass.
Try to avoid actually screwing into your printed part. Screws put a lot of tension on the printed surfaces, pulling the layers apart. Instead, use bolts. The nut and the bolt apply tension to themselves, instead applying compression to the printed parts held between them. Printed parts handle compression much better than tension and it's easier to support that compression by making the print thicker at the bolting surfaces and using washers to spread out the load.
If it's impractical to put a nut somewhere and be able to hold it in order to tighten the bolt against it, then you could consider heat set inserts. They are like nuts that are meant to be heated and pressed into a hole in the print, melting into the hole and welding in place. This is similar to how a lot of flat pack wooden furniture is made, like the kind you get from IKEA. The thin chip board they use would break easily if you tried to drive a screw into it, but by mounting a large metal insert into the wood, a bolt can be screwed into the insert and the large outer diameter of the insert can grab on to the much larger surface area of wood around it. It's not nearly as strong as having a nut mounted on the other side, but it's much stronger than a thin diameter screw.
Can you tell us which Cad program you are using
I print PLA on black textured PC, everything stays on pointy or not lol. If you don’t print a solid object like if your first layer fails, then you even have to heat that boy up to like 65C just to peel off the pla
Hi, nice video, but I dont see with which command you can add the mouse ear and the sprue
Cad
What you mean with Cad? Is there a special command in Fusion or it must be designed using sketch and extruded ?
@@gerhardneumann9503 You'll have to draw it yourself in CAD.
Thanks for this video SLANT. I don't have a problem with bed or layer adhesion, but using the triangle model in your video, but making it 10 inches tall, the early layers maybe the first centimeter or so, flair out and warp compared to the rest of the model. Everywhere else is fine. I've tried higher temps, brims, and a 10mm raft. Any ideas on how to fix this?
Thanks in advance!
It sounds like you may be too low on your first layer (too much squish), so it takes several layers for things to normalize. Try increasing your starting nozzle height just a bit (maybe 0.1mm) and see if that works, good luck.
@@brianref36 I will try that.Thank you!
Does PLA have limited lifespan? I use 3-4y old PLA and I can't make any print with them.
You need a dryer for your old PLA. Also print the first layer at 220C and the bed set to 70C.
Im gonna continue to use brims. I have done this circle thingy before, but its awkward to model it in to everything I make that need a brim
Never thought of this, I will have to keep this in mind as I design stuff. Great video 👏
Glad it was helpful!
What software are you using in that video?
For Videos we often use an old version of cura because it looks good on screen. Simple, clean, with high contrast and fast response.
Really great video.
I'm not incredibly well versed in 3D modeling but I've spent enough time to appreciate a well designed model.
There's no doubt this will become incredibly handy even for low-production DIY parts.
Absolutely
Fantastic solution, glad I stumbled across this channel. Subscribed!
Thanks for the sub!
I'm new to 3d printing, what cad program do you use?
Orca Slicer has this function included
Please keep the videos like this coming! I just subscribed. ❤🔥❤🔥
Good tip, I'm going to adopt this technique. Thanks! 👍
No problem!