Finding a 3D printing channel with more of an engineering focus instead of printing toys and cosplay is so refreshing. I generally make practical prints at home and have been struggling with improving my designs, I look forward to digging into your vids 👍
I have the next video well underway and I think you'll enjoy it if you liked this one. It'll be a bit of a level up bt I'm also including something I don't think has ever been done before (at least not that I've seen) I'm also including some testing to get a sense of just how strong and rigid these can be.
It's also good to consider how tight of tolerances your printer can handle as well. Something like the Bambu Lab X1C may be able to reliably handle 0.1mm tolerances, but other printers may not have that degree of accuracy without calibration or at all. It's always good to print some different tolerance tests to see how your own printer performs and if it can be improved.
This is awesome! That curved dovetail with a lock is especially sweet. Taking a concept from the woodworking world and creating something that can't practically be done with wood, but is easily done with 3D printing. Really appreciate the great ideas!
I think you could do it in woodworking, but it'd be with a router and a bit with a bearing on it to use as something to follow the curved path. it'd take a lot of fine adjusting though and probably not worth it.
@@atomictyler I first had this idea 20 years ago and I used it on my final project in College, I had 8 legs connecting into a central curved body with the dovetail connection and they were also tapered, it was incredibly difficult to pull off, unfortunately the end result wasn't as good as I had hoped, the legs were slightly undersized and the table vibrated more than I expected. I still graduated luckily! It's about 100X easier to do in Fusion than by hand! Certainly possible in wood, but like you say, it's not worth it unless you enjoy torturing yourself.
You can do the rounded part fairly easily i imagine on the router table with a dovetail blade, and a jig that translates the curve you want to the cutting blade of the router. Stop short for the female, cut the end off for the male, go back and chisel the inside of the end wall to flatten it out in order to receive the whole male part. Honestly, id make a video on this in response. I just got a 1,600sqft workshop after years of hard work(im 24) and I've been wanting to make a youtube video.
Absolutely awesome tutorial Mike! The creation of joining pieces seems to be something of an art that is often overlooked in a world where we can just buy larger printers, but I think you've really opened up a lot of opportunities for those with smaller build area printers here.
Nice, thank you! A slightly bigger printer is okay, but too big, I'm not so sure it's a good idea, they'd need to be enclosed, insulated, heated and then even after all of that, you're still going to have problems with shrinkage and warpage. I suppose it depends on the material, I think at least for now until bigger printers are perfected, it's better to connect the parts. Can you imagine making a large print and your print fails, that's an entire print and all of that $$ down the drain, at least with separate parts, you'd be able to salvage some of it. I'd be willing to test a big printer down the road, I just am not convinced that printing plastics on a large scale is a great idea. I say yes to printing Concrete for houses on a large printer though.
Larger prints also just take longer to print. Using two or three smaller printers in parallel can be a cheap way to get those large prints done in acceptable time.
@@marmelade5118 That's a great point. Having 3 smaller printers gives you a good backup plan as well, if you have one big printer, when it goes down you're not likely going to have a backup for that.
This helped me so much. Using Dovetails to join a cup portion of a cup holder with the clip portion allowed me to print the clip in the correct orientation so the layer lines were perpendicular to the bending motion. Had to replace 13 cup holders with my new design incorporating the dovetail but they are strong AF now and these joins have completely opened up my mind for designing parts now.
Love this, because as a small-time woodworker I've done a few dovetails and then abandoned them cuz they're just too time consuming. But cad and 3D printers make this far easier. But this is not just for parts that are too long to fit in your printer. An assembly that needs to be disassembled in future could benefit from this, if there's room for the joint. Screws are very fiddly and time-consuming and anytime you can replace screws with something designed into the plastic that's a win.
Really cool. One advantage of the dovetail in woodworking is that the joint stays tight as the wood expands and contracts with changes moisture content and temperature - not such an issue with plastics. I would love to see some heuristic strategies around which joints to use under which types of loads. In this video it looks like you are making longer rods which could see very different stress patterns depending on use. It would be interesting to hear which styles cope with which stress patterns best.
Ironically moisture with 3D printing is still an issue with 3D printing but it's slightly different. It messes with the initial printing stage where as with wood dovetails actually take advantage of the shrinking effect to their advantage and makes an even tighter fit as it shrinks around the joint creating a stronger joint (it's normally done with green wood, kiln dried wood is fairly stable)
@@SilvaDreams I would think the plastic has to expand if taking on water. Like a spaghetti noodle to a much smaller degree. I'm def not a materials scientist. However it experiment time soak petg part in water overnight, measure, pop it in dehydrator, measure it.
I recently designed a little desktop shelf, using dovetail joints. I mostly just winged it through trial and error. Just getting some recommendations for clearances is already incredibly helpful, but those "new" joints are amazing. I'm definitely going to try them out when another project calls for them!
It took me 5 hours to do this myself even with the tutorial but I freaking did it! This was my very first time using Fusion so I had to learn a lot of basics along the way that you covered in about 3 seconds lol. Thank you so much, I learned a ton from doing this.
Nice! I've seen a few dovetails here and there as well, some of the bigger drawer units, the last project I worked on needed a bit of a special solution so this was the result of the video. I've used something very similar back in College 20 years ago for my final project, but it was made from Wood and though it came together, there were still some flaws. I'm glad you liked it and I have many more to come!
That's great thank you! I think we're looking for ways to make bigger and bigger prints, but I'm not so sure we're ready with those massive printers so let's find some ways to put them together.
I love your scarfed and circular dovetail solutions, those look like awesome joints for different situations. I also like the idea of tapering along the length of the dovetail because they can get vaery stiff trying to put them together otherwise. I lot of very good information here, thank you. I find the classic mistake a lot of designers make is to not fillet the corners. I would say the smallest radius curve possible is around half the nozzle diameter, but I find in practice that the fillet radius shoudl be at least the nozzle diameter and it doesn't really hurt anything to go much higher, say 1mm as this eliminates any bulging at the vertices, which means you can have tight clearances everywhere else. On one of my designs (drawer units that slot together) I used a double-ended dovetail spline (sort of like a butterfly) that slides into slots on the drawer cabinets, and on that I made the fillet almost half the width of the dovetail, to it looks more like a "bone" shape, almost a figure-8 cross section but stretched in the middle. It was experimental but it worked really well in practice, easy to insert and remove yet holds the cabinbets together tightly and doesn't fall out. I wish I could post images here, I'd post a screen shot of the design, I hope my description makes sense.
Yeah, each of them really has their own benefits, they're not really an apples to apples. I wanted to strength test them, but it doesn't work, I would have had to test them each in a different direction of loading. The most basic dovetail with the taper works really well and it's pretty straight forward, it's just better than the standard dovetail. I think in Woodworking to keep things simple we only had straight cut and relied on the glue to do the rest, it's simpler that way. Here we can do whatever we want. I agree with your note about the Rads, these connections were pretty small and I kept the rads really small too, but a little larger is better. Calibrating the filament helps as well to make sure you end up with the sizes you're supposed to, the slightest change in size on these connections makes a pretty big difference. It sounds like you're doing some large-scale work, are you on MW at all? What's your background, it seems like you have a background in Woodworking and Construction. Yeah the bone shape might be better in some ways, getting away from the sharp edges, what is the best shape, I wonder... now that's something that could be tested.
Hi Mike, This was so beautiful to watch. I used to build modified timber Frame homes and fun timber frame like furniture. My body doesn’t want to do that kind of thing anymore even though my mind does. I also have worked with the blind for the past 30 years and ‘recently’, ten years, started playing, designing, exploring board games and how to accessorize, make accessible, and bling out in that hobby subculture. This video almost made me cry to see how beautiful and functional we can make things. Thanks so much for the inspiration. Can’t wait to delve deeper into your channel :)
I was originally going to do the testing for this video and I'm in the process of building a testing jig so that I can test in tension and compression. The issue I ran into is that some of these joints can be tested with loads perpendicular to the joint, but some not so much. I'd almost need a particular case and then create the connections to suit it the best and then test those. Thoughts on that?
@@NeedItMakeIt maybe I'm over simplifying it, but I would do the following: 1. Tension and compression from the ends and see where and how it breaks 2. Fix the ends and then press perpendicular on the joint from different sides. Depending on the joint type it could be more than two tests. 3. Based on results summary, see what joint is good for what scenarios Keep up the good work 👍
@@TheRealStructurer Oh, you're speaking my language, I am a fan of all types of simplification. I'll have to do a bit of research on the typical testing jigs and make sure I have the right equipment. I have Two types of load cell at the moment, I have a crane scale, and I have a load cell with Digital readout as well intended for compression up to 4K lbs. I'd need to integrate them along with a scale to measure movement along side load. I've found that even my slo-mo camera mode isn't a high enough frame rate to capture the moment of failure, so I'll need to think about that. I know Slant3D did a Kickstarter for testing equipment, I wonder if I should try something similar?
That's great! I'll definitely be diving deeper into these connections and I'll add some testing in as well to see how strong they really are in tension, compression and thanks to your comment, torsion as well.
I found these very helpful. Im looking to print templates for routing/shaping in wood working, and these joints give me some good ideas on what I might be able to use. Im a bit worried about running the pattern/template bit across the joint seam and transferring a 1mm or less "bump" into the work piece. I'm printing now, but I think some bondo, or possibly even just some blue-tape over the joint might smooth out things. Thank you.
I was just interested in improving my straight dovetail game and you went well beyond. I just finished designing my first curved dovetail and the printer is heating up. Yeehaw!
It’s nice to see people taking INSPIRATION from other making techniques and not just copying them. Metal / woodworking techniques and designs really don’t translate directly to 3d printing.
I have lots more ideas so we'll see where this ends up, maybe there is something that's simple and super strong that could work well for a lot of connections in 3D printing.
I'm starting to see a trend, and it's slowly building of people using 3D printers for making furniture and parts which need to be strong and I thought I'd start to put some ideas together about it to see if maybe it could help some people, or at least it would be interesting. Combining traditional woodworking with 3D printing to come up with something that's not limited by the way we'd machine the parts in wood is fun and it's a good challenge as well. I hope that people can find a use for them, and maybe come up with their own ideas that are better than these ones. I'll have more videos coming soon, in the same style to this one and I'll include some testing as well to see how strong they really are.
First time viewer, TH-cam finally put one of your videos in a feed for me which seems like a no brainer as I watch a lot of wordworking and 3d printing videos. The work you mention in your intro truly does come through, as the video surely does not suck.
You can also put a dovetail shaped hole through perpendicular to the joint in the elongated dovetail to put a dutchman joint in there for even more strength.
You can also make a compound dovetail, or tapered like violins and some guitars have on the arm joint, it makes so that it really locks together with the advantage of easy disassemble if needed.
It would be really cool to see these tested in their different dimensions (compression, tension, lateral movement in comparison to a full length object and worst case scenario loads).
I have a follow up video coming, I'll be running some tests on this and some others as well. It's a great idea and I think it'd be good to compare against some more typical connections used in 3d printing as well as a rail with no joint as well for benchmarking.
These are super useful joints. I only wish you would make another deep dive video spending a bit more time showing the design and modelling phase. In particular of the cylindrical rotating dovetail joint!
Very cool video, i could use a longer version to explain how to make this in fusion, but i guess that was not the purpose of the video. You are a master!
I'm working on a better way to present these so that I can convey the info better and focus on the main points. I'm shooting for a live-action and I'll cut out the bits with no action. Capturing the screen and than narrating it works fine, but it's not as good as explaining while doing. Thanks for your support!
That's a good option too! I've used both methods as well, there is another option too, and that's to do all of the work to one part and then use that as your cutting tool, I don't know that it saves anything, it's just a bit different and I've used it with success as well. I'll have to put some thought into what might be the absolute best and simplest method.
@@NeedItMakeIt the sketch with tolerances (either method) makes it more logical to use a global tolerance value. If a global tolerance doesn't apply to all distances, then the shown method is easier to understand
@@jakobhansen1396 I agree, I think it's best to get as much as possible in the sketch and set parameters as well. It depends on what you're doing and whether it's worth the investment in the extra time. I'll be doing more connection videos and I'll see about showing some different options for setup. Thanks for your thoughts on that.
Those dovetail joints are amazing! Wow!!! Maybe some will get incorporated into a slicer. I just recently discovered the dovetail in Bambu studio and it’s very easy to us and is far superior to other ways I have employed to joining parts.
You got me! That would have been nice to use there for sure. I don't like adding more features in that I need, this would have saved a couple of steps.
Dovetails are good for a lot of things because of how precisely and securely they can hold. If you are making removable or modular parts then even just a basic straight dovetail can be good because you only need a way to secure it against linear movement in the direction the dovetail is inserted since the dovetail itself prevents all other movements. Basically dovetails secure against all movements except their insertion movement, so your curved examples will be fine for all motions except rotation in that axis, which allows you to design the shape of the dovetail for the expected forces in your application. I have used dovetails for connecting the legs on a hexapod robot. The legs are made as their own removable system (to allow fast removal or replacement of legs) that can attach onto the body using dovetails. The dovetails don’t go all the way through (to help locate the parts vertically) and have a hole in them for passing wires through. I have two methods of locking them in the vertical direction, the first is just with some bolts normal to the attachment surface/plane, the second method is when the top plate of the robot is connected it prevents the dovetails from being able to lift out again so they are capped at the bottom and top and bolting the top plate down holds them tightly. I also have used dovetails for modular attachment points for cameras or sensors and hey have been held in place with the same methods I described above. An interesting idea that came to me whilst watching this was for a dovetail that works by twisting the parts together, basically a dovetail (probably better using two) that is swept along a circular path in the plane where the parts join.
Back when I did more Woodworking, we were using them non-stop, though they were always straight cut due to the limitation of our hand tools and machinery, it's nice to be able to remove those limits and have a bit more freedom. There are probably slightly better variations which work for plastics better than they would.... for wood as well. More curves and it would also depend on the plastics you're using and infill settings etc. I just finished some testing on GF filament for example and it is quite stiff and brittle, compared to PETG which is flexible and tough (With 100% infill) Would that dovetail be one set along a path on a portion of a sphere or a compound curve in order to achieve that result?
@@NeedItMakeIt It would be a circular path, although it could maybe be applied to a sphere too. My idea was that you place the two parts lined up, end to end and twist (almost like a screwing motion) to slide the dovetail in.
@@conorstewart2214 Yes, I can picture it now, that's a very interesting idea, printing orientation would be an issue with this style, I'd need to try to create one and see how it needs to be printed, I think standing up straight in the air with the faces of the connection horizonal would work. I have another video coming this weekend for a follow up, one I've finished that one I can look more closely at your idea.
This video was amazing, subscribing immediately. I only took a year of CAD in HS so actually showing your process is AMAZINGLY helpful. Thnaks again!!!
Thank you! I'll keep going with this format and I think I can do a better job of explaining during the video as well, these kinds of videos I think warrant me to use my hands a bit more to point at the screen. I'll keep them coming!
Love this video. I’m going to be modeling dovetail joints just because all week now. I have some ideas to use Slant3D’s 45 degree printing concept, especially for the 45 degree dovetail to get printing textures to match. I also think there’s potential to create some complimentary anisotropic strength between the two halves. I’m probably just overthinking though.
I figured that you guys could take this places that I couldn't even think of. I've seen quite a few products with standard straight dovetails and they can easily be improved with a taper or the curve... or both. I may end up making a dedicated video just to this one connection, and shoot it a little differently, some people wanted a bit more detail on that one in particular. I have a bunch more ideas for connections, some are old, but some are completely new and I'll probably start testing their strength as well. Many many more to come!
Great content. Did my part towards your 2025 goal and cheering for you! I like that you provide lots of visuals that present the topic. I am biased and just came from a year of sudden interest in woodworking YT channels, along with Damascus knife making vidoes and your channel ticks some really niche boxes for me.
Thanks, I will have more coming! I'm also thinking about doing a video comparing a completely wooden small piece of furniture vs a completely 3d printed version to see how close they are in strength.
@@NeedItMakeIt That’s rad! I once made a dovetail mounted bracket for a shelf. Routed the dovetail into the wooden shelf and bracket and printed the mating mount out of PLA. Turned out beautiful and STRONG! No visible screws or joints.
The snapping dovetail is interesting, keeps dimensionality while having a removable joint, depending on the strength of th snap. Makes me think of using a combination of a dovetail with locating dutchman inserts. Perhaps the next step of this would be a sprung detent within the interior faces, so that the dovetail itself has a tractile resistance before snapping into and out of place, without needing a compliant snap at the end of the rail.
Nice technique! What I would do is to put a hole (maybe countersunk) in the dovetail stop, and a nut/threaded hole in the dovetail itself. Then, after assembly you could lock the parts together with a screw :)
Quick note for other viewers: don’t orient dovetails in the Z axis where tension will get put across layer boundaries. Do it like this video, where the dovetail is primarily on the XY plane. In Fusion 360 it makes me nuts that there’s not a simple operation for “this part mates to that part with [x] clearance.” Instead you have to model the clearances or do a bunch of push/pull operations. I tend to do the former because it keeps the dimensions in the sketches vs. in the dialog boxes of push/pull operations. But the latter is quicker. Really excellent video-instant subscribe from me!
I'm glad you enjoyed it! I'm working on several related videos in a kind of series of different types of useful connection types. I'd also like to integrate several different methods into and then run some tests to see which ones come out on top.
@@NeedItMakeIt I was looking for some quantitative analysis on degrees of play using the best joints, and perhaps a stress map, yield, breaking point map. ‘Project Farm’ often has simple but effective ways to standardize these measurements without getting overly technical with it.
@@donlindell1994 Can do, Project farm is one of my favorite channels, he is exceptional at packing a ton of info into a short video. I'll be including some of these tests into the follow up video that I'm working on right now!
Joining smaller parts together is a best practice for functional 3d prints anyway, as even if you have a huge printer, you don't want to carry any stresses across the layer lines, making orientation super important. Just as important as grain orientation in woodworking.
Wonderful. I wonder how 2 bowties, on two non opposing faces, would look and feel. If you change filament colour for the bowties, it might actually look really cool, and you could in principle have a lot of surface area. Can't take them out though.
Very clever technique for joining 3D printed objects, got yourself another subscriber here, looking forward to seeing your other videos, good luck on the 100k goal!
@@NeedItMakeIt as someone who's new to fusion360 (modelling to 3D print) clever ideas on how to join prints (smaller more intricate pieces too) are super helpful :)
That curved dovetail with the stop in the thumbnail is a thing of beauty. You should sell prints of that photo, it’s engineering art. 🎉 Great video as well, your attention to detail and planning is demonstrated through the video quality itself let alone the content.
That's great! Yeah, I could certainly try the 0.04; my concern with that connection is that it was hard to put together, originally I had the parts much larger, but to be able to 3D print all of them and have them on camera, I shrunk them down a bit. I think it would have been possible and could have worked fine. The taper is still better, but the standard dovetail works too, it really depends on what you're using them for. Thanks for the support, I enjoy using Fusion, it can do just about everything I need, it doesn't like meshes, that's one of my main complaints, it's all good and we can find ways to work around it.
If you can believe it, I made the cured tapered sliding dovetail connection back in College for my final project, and I did it 8 times on the same piece of furniture; it was a lot of work! The colors I used were Titan Grey PETG-CF and Brick Red PETG-CF. They have to be some of the nicest looking filaments out there.
I guess it depends on what you're building, I find that holes need to have a peaked top so that they print well and don't collapse in too much on those top layers, I suppose the dowel can be whatever shape you like though, it makes sense to do a triangular dowel for 3D printing and you get an auto-peak and a flat surface. When I worked building furniture, I must have inserted thousands and thousands of dowels, they work especially well with glue.
For the first one (simple dovetail) you have shown, you can actually use the slicer. No need to design it in CAD in advance. Not sure if slicer you use supports it, but as far as I know Prusa Slicer and Bambu Studio (the one I use) have the ability to cut a part and cut it by creating a dovetail. You can do some clearance adjustments there depending on your printer, but from my experimenting it can create some pretty tight joints that might require a hammer to connect all the way through. You can also cut it using dowels in slicer, which is what I've used few times when I needed to insert a metal rod into the part and I just used dowels for alignment when gluing two printer parts together around the rod.
That's right, PrusaSlicer has the dovetail which you can also taper and add clearance. Unfortunately I have not found it to be useful, the connections cannot be reproduced, the sizes/lengths cannot be controlled well either. It's still handy to have as a last-resort. If you're creating the model, I think it's better to create the design with these connections in mind already, this also helps to make sure the orientation of the connections is best for strength related to print orientation.
@@NeedItMakeIt thanks for the insight. I've used slicer dovetail only a few times on things that weren't critical at all, so I actually don't have a ton of experience with them.
@@rand0mtv660 I've tried it a few times as well when I was making a previous video about connection types, but I had such a hard time trying to make anything predictable and consistent that I decided to go a different direction. It's still good to have in there as a fail-safe and for people with smaller printers.
Good video. There's an easier way to split a body with a dovetail cut in Fusion 360: 1) Start with a solid body 2) On a sketch, draw the squiggly line representing where a blade would cut to make the dovetail. Include fillets at any sharp edges. 3) In the top menu, switch from the SOLID tab to the SURFACE tab 4) "Extrude" the squiggly line, so that it forms a surface that divides the body you want to cut 5) Go back to the SOLID tab, choose MODIFY / Split Body 6) For "Body to Split" select your solid part. For "Splitting Tool(s)" select your surface. (Works best if you select them using the part tree on the left) 7) Click ok and it will split your part. You can then press/pull to add clearance.
Nice, thanks for subbing, I have many many more videos to come and I think people seem to really enjoy these kinds of videos so I'll make sure to have lots more like this as well.
Thank you for sharing your experiences! An excellent video, very well explained and yet not unnecessarily drawn out... perfect 👌. Another video with stress testing of the various connections would be very interesting.
Certainly, I'm sure as my channel grows, we'll be doing more collabs to test out a whole bunch of interesting ideas. In the meantime, I have been working on creating my own test setups for future videos (I am using one at this very moment).
Thank you! Lots more coming like this one as well. I'll put together a test video with some of my best connections and we can bend and break them in several directions. I might even add some wood in there to compare. I have some test rigs setup now, but I want something more professional with more accurate measurements and data feedback. Hopefully the YT gods can shine a light on the channel and allow the resources to buy some equipment and lots more filament!
Cool video. One thing I would recommend in the video editing department is to just record some background noise while you're not talking so that when you have to pause the audio, such as when describing multiple things and waiting for the animations to complete, you can fill that with the background noise so the cuts aren't so noticible
LOL, I have a bit of a idea because I used to be a timber-framer. When working with a framing square, we'd be using essentially a ratio to create a pitch, we weren't using angles. I believe that the 7/14 degree relates to a ratio on a framing square which is how we'd always do the layout on our timbers, the dovetail router bits came much later and I'd imagine followed suit at a time when both machines and hand-tools were still being used in woodworking. I'm not sure how to fact-check this though, it seems like a natural progression over time. Let me know what you think and thanks for taking the time to write a comment!
I think all of these would be better if also *keyed,* especially scarf connection that has no compression strength. So different ways to do keying would make for a nice continuation video
One thing I'd be curious about is if or how we can combine joining methods for extremely tight fits. For instance a screw-secured dovetail, where the dovetail ensures it's a tight fit and the screw locks it in place providing additional force to hold it together. That cylindrical dovetail design for instance provides support in basically all angles, so if there was a way to screw it together and force those two mating surfaces together I imagine it'd be insanely sturdy.
@@NeedItMakeIt A little, don't do woodworking myself but I keep my eye on a lot of different hobbies passively (idea crossover can be massive) and I know pocketholes are used fairly frequently, but with 3d printing especially I feel like the ability to create and use custom geometries could open things up massively. Especially if mid-print embedding or other things were allowed for. (i.e. conceding a bit of the 'hands off' simplicity in favour for raw utility) You could have almost entirely internal screws at basically any angle and, while they might need to be tightened using some fancy flexible shaft, it'd give some insane freedom to experiment with secure and accurate joinery. For instance embedding a bolt inside of the male-end of the dove tail or something, then having screw holes on the female side that literally pull the dovetail together or something. (that one would also almost be "zeroable" on one axis becuase you could adjust the tightness of the screws in order to 'lean' one side)
Some of my better prints for sure. I used my Bambu X1C and QIDI Q1 for these prints, both of those printers are very accurate in their extrusions and retractions. The filament is PETG-CF which looks amazing, this is Brick Red and Titan Grey and I've used 0.16mm LH and a 0.4mm nozzle, which helps a bit as well. I tend to only use Orca Slicer, unless I'm switching between prints and then I'll use Bambu Studio on occasion. That's really just about it. Most of it comes down to the printers and so far, the most accurate and affordable printer is the QIDI Q1, the most full featured is the Bambu X1C.
Nice thank you so much. I have so many ideas and lots more videos to come, quite a few people seemed to really enjoy this type of video so I'll do more of this as well!
I have two more which I think will rival this one, both I believe have not been done before, at least not that I've seen. In the follow up I'll do some stiffness and strength testing to see how they compare as well.
@@NeedItMakeIt I've been brainstorming a mostly printed 3d printer with some friends, like the snappy v3, only instead of using snap fits or screws I'd like to see if I can do it with mostly keyed wood joints and zip ties; hoping to drive the cost down below 200$US as a benchmark. CoreXY geometry would be great for building on top of the base architecture (might integrate arms and wheels later down the road as part of the NASA autoreplicant robot program)
@@MrFranklitalien Perfect! If you can wait for a little less than 1 week, I will have the follow up video and I will try to think of how it could work well for your application as well. I love your idea BTW, a fully 3D printed printer... minus some non-printable stuff would be very cool and I'd love to try it on the channel when you get to a point that you're ready to share it. So far the ABSGF25 from QIDI is the most rigid filament I've tried, next would be PC and then PETG-CF and Hyper PLA are tied. I'd imagine that a rigid material is important for your application.
Finding a 3D printing channel with more of an engineering focus instead of printing toys and cosplay is so refreshing. I generally make practical prints at home and have been struggling with improving my designs, I look forward to digging into your vids 👍
Sounds like a good channel, looking foward to his content
Instantly subbed when you said all your tolerances for each feature. So useful.
I have the next video well underway and I think you'll enjoy it if you liked this one. It'll be a bit of a level up bt I'm also including something I don't think has ever been done before (at least not that I've seen) I'm also including some testing to get a sense of just how strong and rigid these can be.
It's also good to consider how tight of tolerances your printer can handle as well. Something like the Bambu Lab X1C may be able to reliably handle 0.1mm tolerances, but other printers may not have that degree of accuracy without calibration or at all. It's always good to print some different tolerance tests to see how your own printer performs and if it can be improved.
This is awesome! That curved dovetail with a lock is especially sweet. Taking a concept from the woodworking world and creating something that can't practically be done with wood, but is easily done with 3D printing. Really appreciate the great ideas!
Thanks 802, I really appreciate the support! I think I'll have to do more how-to vids, maybe with a bit of a better and more interactive setup.
I think you could do it in woodworking, but it'd be with a router and a bit with a bearing on it to use as something to follow the curved path. it'd take a lot of fine adjusting though and probably not worth it.
@@atomictyler Yep I was thinking the same in my head so I added the word practically haha. Would be a fun challenge!
@@atomictyler I first had this idea 20 years ago and I used it on my final project in College, I had 8 legs connecting into a central curved body with the dovetail connection and they were also tapered, it was incredibly difficult to pull off, unfortunately the end result wasn't as good as I had hoped, the legs were slightly undersized and the table vibrated more than I expected. I still graduated luckily!
It's about 100X easier to do in Fusion than by hand!
Certainly possible in wood, but like you say, it's not worth it unless you enjoy torturing yourself.
You can do the rounded part fairly easily i imagine on the router table with a dovetail blade, and a jig that translates the curve you want to the cutting blade of the router. Stop short for the female, cut the end off for the male, go back and chisel the inside of the end wall to flatten it out in order to receive the whole male part. Honestly, id make a video on this in response. I just got a 1,600sqft workshop after years of hard work(im 24) and I've been wanting to make a youtube video.
Releases a joint video on 4/20, lol
Haha, I didn't even realize the date! Pure coincidence
Well, he printed us some joints on 420 😂 honestly I prefer this kind of joint. I'm not allergic to this kind. 😊
Pure coincidenTHCe 😂
A robinhood ad came up that said "look at you, like you run the JOINT" like your comment is important wow
@@matthewthompson7012 😐
Fantastic idea to adopt woodworking techniques for 3D printing! My two hobbies synergistically melding together:)
Absolutely awesome tutorial Mike! The creation of joining pieces seems to be something of an art that is often overlooked in a world where we can just buy larger printers, but I think you've really opened up a lot of opportunities for those with smaller build area printers here.
Nice, thank you! A slightly bigger printer is okay, but too big, I'm not so sure it's a good idea, they'd need to be enclosed, insulated, heated and then even after all of that, you're still going to have problems with shrinkage and warpage. I suppose it depends on the material, I think at least for now until bigger printers are perfected, it's better to connect the parts. Can you imagine making a large print and your print fails, that's an entire print and all of that $$ down the drain, at least with separate parts, you'd be able to salvage some of it. I'd be willing to test a big printer down the road, I just am not convinced that printing plastics on a large scale is a great idea. I say yes to printing Concrete for houses on a large printer though.
Thank you soooooo much!!
@@mariusschmoe5514 No problem!
Larger prints also just take longer to print. Using two or three smaller printers in parallel can be a cheap way to get those large prints done in acceptable time.
@@marmelade5118 That's a great point. Having 3 smaller printers gives you a good backup plan as well, if you have one big printer, when it goes down you're not likely going to have a backup for that.
This helped me so much. Using Dovetails to join a cup portion of a cup holder with the clip portion allowed me to print the clip in the correct orientation so the layer lines were perpendicular to the bending motion. Had to replace 13 cup holders with my new design incorporating the dovetail but they are strong AF now and these joins have completely opened up my mind for designing parts now.
Love this, because as a small-time woodworker I've done a few dovetails and then abandoned them cuz they're just too time consuming. But cad and 3D printers make this far easier. But this is not just for parts that are too long to fit in your printer. An assembly that needs to be disassembled in future could benefit from this, if there's room for the joint. Screws are very fiddly and time-consuming and anytime you can replace screws with something designed into the plastic that's a win.
Really cool. One advantage of the dovetail in woodworking is that the joint stays tight as the wood expands and contracts with changes moisture content and temperature - not such an issue with plastics.
I would love to see some heuristic strategies around which joints to use under which types of loads. In this video it looks like you are making longer rods which could see very different stress patterns depending on use. It would be interesting to hear which styles cope with which stress patterns best.
Ironically moisture with 3D printing is still an issue with 3D printing but it's slightly different. It messes with the initial printing stage where as with wood dovetails actually take advantage of the shrinking effect to their advantage and makes an even tighter fit as it shrinks around the joint creating a stronger joint (it's normally done with green wood, kiln dried wood is fairly stable)
@@SilvaDreams I would think the plastic has to expand if taking on water. Like a spaghetti noodle to a much smaller degree. I'm def not a materials scientist. However it experiment time soak petg part in water overnight, measure, pop it in dehydrator, measure it.
That's CAD was *chef's kiss*
Nice! I can certainly do more like this and even better with some more practice.
I recently designed a little desktop shelf, using dovetail joints. I mostly just winged it through trial and error. Just getting some recommendations for clearances is already incredibly helpful, but those "new" joints are amazing. I'm definitely going to try them out when another project calls for them!
Those are not only really strong, but also very attractive joints. The beauty of dovetails, and even more so when you make them with sweeping edges!
It took me 5 hours to do this myself even with the tutorial but I freaking did it! This was my very first time using Fusion so I had to learn a lot of basics along the way that you covered in about 3 seconds lol. Thank you so much, I learned a ton from doing this.
Great video.
Love the hidden sliding tapered dovetails
Thanks for that, I'm glad you thought so. A bit of a new take on a very old idea.
I've been using dove tails in my designs for a while but that one along a curve is pretty sick. Thanks for sharing it!
Nice! I've seen a few dovetails here and there as well, some of the bigger drawer units, the last project I worked on needed a bit of a special solution so this was the result of the video. I've used something very similar back in College 20 years ago for my final project, but it was made from Wood and though it came together, there were still some flaws. I'm glad you liked it and I have many more to come!
Makes so much sense for 3D printed parts. I'm now kicking myself for not doing it on countless projects. Amazing work.
This was very cool! I'm still learning Fusion so I'm not 100% sure how to do everything you did, but I'll be referring back here for sure.
First time seeing one of your videos in my feed. Instant sub! I think the 3D printing community can learn a lot from the woodworking community.
That's great thank you! I think we're looking for ways to make bigger and bigger prints, but I'm not so sure we're ready with those massive printers so let's find some ways to put them together.
I love your scarfed and circular dovetail solutions, those look like awesome joints for different situations. I also like the idea of tapering along the length of the dovetail because they can get vaery stiff trying to put them together otherwise. I lot of very good information here, thank you. I find the classic mistake a lot of designers make is to not fillet the corners. I would say the smallest radius curve possible is around half the nozzle diameter, but I find in practice that the fillet radius shoudl be at least the nozzle diameter and it doesn't really hurt anything to go much higher, say 1mm as this eliminates any bulging at the vertices, which means you can have tight clearances everywhere else. On one of my designs (drawer units that slot together) I used a double-ended dovetail spline (sort of like a butterfly) that slides into slots on the drawer cabinets, and on that I made the fillet almost half the width of the dovetail, to it looks more like a "bone" shape, almost a figure-8 cross section but stretched in the middle. It was experimental but it worked really well in practice, easy to insert and remove yet holds the cabinbets together tightly and doesn't fall out. I wish I could post images here, I'd post a screen shot of the design, I hope my description makes sense.
Yeah, each of them really has their own benefits, they're not really an apples to apples. I wanted to strength test them, but it doesn't work, I would have had to test them each in a different direction of loading. The most basic dovetail with the taper works really well and it's pretty straight forward, it's just better than the standard dovetail. I think in Woodworking to keep things simple we only had straight cut and relied on the glue to do the rest, it's simpler that way. Here we can do whatever we want.
I agree with your note about the Rads, these connections were pretty small and I kept the rads really small too, but a little larger is better. Calibrating the filament helps as well to make sure you end up with the sizes you're supposed to, the slightest change in size on these connections makes a pretty big difference.
It sounds like you're doing some large-scale work, are you on MW at all? What's your background, it seems like you have a background in Woodworking and Construction.
Yeah the bone shape might be better in some ways, getting away from the sharp edges, what is the best shape, I wonder... now that's something that could be tested.
Hi Mike,
This was so beautiful to watch. I used to build modified timber Frame homes and fun timber frame like furniture. My body doesn’t want to do that kind of thing anymore even though my mind does. I also have worked with the blind for the past 30 years and ‘recently’, ten years, started playing, designing, exploring board games and how to accessorize, make accessible, and bling out in that hobby subculture. This video almost made me cry to see how beautiful and functional we can make things. Thanks so much for the inspiration. Can’t wait to delve deeper into your channel :)
This video might be the most useful video i have ever watched on 3D printing and ive been obsessed with this hobby for 6 or so years. Good shit bro
Thank you. Tolerances worked great on the tapered dovetail. Just what I needed to complete a project without glue.
Wow! I've been looking for good joining mechanisms, especially ones that can be reversed rather than glued. I love the details and tips.
Good topic and well explained. Would be nice with a follow up video where you test the strengths of the joints.
Thanks for sharing 👍🏼
I was originally going to do the testing for this video and I'm in the process of building a testing jig so that I can test in tension and compression. The issue I ran into is that some of these joints can be tested with loads perpendicular to the joint, but some not so much. I'd almost need a particular case and then create the connections to suit it the best and then test those. Thoughts on that?
@@NeedItMakeIt maybe I'm over simplifying it, but I would do the following:
1. Tension and compression from the ends and see where and how it breaks
2. Fix the ends and then press perpendicular on the joint from different sides. Depending on the joint type it could be more than two tests.
3. Based on results summary, see what joint is good for what scenarios
Keep up the good work 👍
@@TheRealStructurer Oh, you're speaking my language, I am a fan of all types of simplification. I'll have to do a bit of research on the typical testing jigs and make sure I have the right equipment. I have Two types of load cell at the moment, I have a crane scale, and I have a load cell with Digital readout as well intended for compression up to 4K lbs. I'd need to integrate them along with a scale to measure movement along side load. I've found that even my slo-mo camera mode isn't a high enough frame rate to capture the moment of failure, so I'll need to think about that. I know Slant3D did a Kickstarter for testing equipment, I wonder if I should try something similar?
Your content is AMAZING, Mike!
Great Video, and very generous of you to share the Fusion files.
Thank you.
Loved it! very valuable content for who makes a lot of split parts prints! My fav is the second, it looks strong against even torsions.
That's great! I'll definitely be diving deeper into these connections and I'll add some testing in as well to see how strong they really are in tension, compression and thanks to your comment, torsion as well.
Wow thanks for including the files. Really helps from someone learning 360!
No problem!
I found these very helpful. Im looking to print templates for routing/shaping in wood working, and these joints give me some good ideas on what I might be able to use. Im a bit worried about running the pattern/template bit across the joint seam and transferring a 1mm or less "bump" into the work piece. I'm printing now, but I think some bondo, or possibly even just some blue-tape over the joint might smooth out things.
Thank you.
I was just interested in improving my straight dovetail game and you went well beyond. I just finished designing my first curved dovetail and the printer is heating up. Yeehaw!
It’s nice to see people taking INSPIRATION from other making techniques and not just copying them. Metal / woodworking techniques and designs really don’t translate directly to 3d printing.
I have lots more ideas so we'll see where this ends up, maybe there is something that's simple and super strong that could work well for a lot of connections in 3D printing.
Okay I'm impressed, I didn't see the point due to having a large printer but these actually look incredible on top of being useful
I'm starting to see a trend, and it's slowly building of people using 3D printers for making furniture and parts which need to be strong and I thought I'd start to put some ideas together about it to see if maybe it could help some people, or at least it would be interesting. Combining traditional woodworking with 3D printing to come up with something that's not limited by the way we'd machine the parts in wood is fun and it's a good challenge as well. I hope that people can find a use for them, and maybe come up with their own ideas that are better than these ones. I'll have more videos coming soon, in the same style to this one and I'll include some testing as well to see how strong they really are.
First time viewer, TH-cam finally put one of your videos in a feed for me which seems like a no brainer as I watch a lot of wordworking and 3d printing videos. The work you mention in your intro truly does come through, as the video surely does not suck.
You can also put a dovetail shaped hole through perpendicular to the joint in the elongated dovetail to put a dutchman joint in there for even more strength.
This was really great! Thank you for the video, I found it very helpful, specifically showing the modeling technique and explaining your approach
You can also make a compound dovetail, or tapered like violins and some guitars have on the arm joint, it makes so that it really locks together with the advantage of easy disassemble if needed.
I'll check it out. I love the construction of a violin, I'll have a closer look at that part. Very nice, thanks!
Thanks!
Thank you very much!
It would be really cool to see these tested in their different dimensions (compression, tension, lateral movement in comparison to a full length object and worst case scenario loads).
I have a follow up video coming, I'll be running some tests on this and some others as well. It's a great idea and I think it'd be good to compare against some more typical connections used in 3d printing as well as a rail with no joint as well for benchmarking.
These are super useful joints. I only wish you would make another deep dive video spending a bit more time showing the design and modelling phase. In particular of the cylindrical rotating dovetail joint!
100% I was trying to follow along while he was in fusion but it was so fast
Very cool video, i could use a longer version to explain how to make this in fusion, but i guess that was not the purpose of the video. You are a master!
Personally I prefer drawing a sketch with a closed polygon with the total tolerance and extruding/sweeping that. But it's a fidgety process
I'm working on a better way to present these so that I can convey the info better and focus on the main points. I'm shooting for a live-action and I'll cut out the bits with no action. Capturing the screen and than narrating it works fine, but it's not as good as explaining while doing. Thanks for your support!
That's a good option too! I've used both methods as well, there is another option too, and that's to do all of the work to one part and then use that as your cutting tool, I don't know that it saves anything, it's just a bit different and I've used it with success as well. I'll have to put some thought into what might be the absolute best and simplest method.
@@NeedItMakeIt the sketch with tolerances (either method) makes it more logical to use a global tolerance value. If a global tolerance doesn't apply to all distances, then the shown method is easier to understand
@@jakobhansen1396 I agree, I think it's best to get as much as possible in the sketch and set parameters as well. It depends on what you're doing and whether it's worth the investment in the extra time. I'll be doing more connection videos and I'll see about showing some different options for setup. Thanks for your thoughts on that.
Those dovetail joints are amazing! Wow!!! Maybe some will get incorporated into a slicer. I just recently discovered the dovetail in Bambu studio and it’s very easy to us and is far superior to other ways I have employed to joining parts.
that is very nice! i would love to see a video where you show a few use cases of these for some designs!
at 4:48 is the perfect opportunity to use the Intersect mode of the extrude command. it removes the need to create additional sketch profiles.
You got me! That would have been nice to use there for sure. I don't like adding more features in that I need, this would have saved a couple of steps.
Dovetails are good for a lot of things because of how precisely and securely they can hold. If you are making removable or modular parts then even just a basic straight dovetail can be good because you only need a way to secure it against linear movement in the direction the dovetail is inserted since the dovetail itself prevents all other movements. Basically dovetails secure against all movements except their insertion movement, so your curved examples will be fine for all motions except rotation in that axis, which allows you to design the shape of the dovetail for the expected forces in your application.
I have used dovetails for connecting the legs on a hexapod robot. The legs are made as their own removable system (to allow fast removal or replacement of legs) that can attach onto the body using dovetails. The dovetails don’t go all the way through (to help locate the parts vertically) and have a hole in them for passing wires through. I have two methods of locking them in the vertical direction, the first is just with some bolts normal to the attachment surface/plane, the second method is when the top plate of the robot is connected it prevents the dovetails from being able to lift out again so they are capped at the bottom and top and bolting the top plate down holds them tightly.
I also have used dovetails for modular attachment points for cameras or sensors and hey have been held in place with the same methods I described above.
An interesting idea that came to me whilst watching this was for a dovetail that works by twisting the parts together, basically a dovetail (probably better using two) that is swept along a circular path in the plane where the parts join.
Back when I did more Woodworking, we were using them non-stop, though they were always straight cut due to the limitation of our hand tools and machinery, it's nice to be able to remove those limits and have a bit more freedom.
There are probably slightly better variations which work for plastics better than they would.... for wood as well.
More curves and it would also depend on the plastics you're using and infill settings etc. I just finished some testing on GF filament for example and it is quite stiff and brittle, compared to PETG which is flexible and tough (With 100% infill)
Would that dovetail be one set along a path on a portion of a sphere or a compound curve in order to achieve that result?
@@NeedItMakeIt It would be a circular path, although it could maybe be applied to a sphere too. My idea was that you place the two parts lined up, end to end and twist (almost like a screwing motion) to slide the dovetail in.
@@conorstewart2214 Yes, I can picture it now, that's a very interesting idea, printing orientation would be an issue with this style, I'd need to try to create one and see how it needs to be printed, I think standing up straight in the air with the faces of the connection horizonal would work. I have another video coming this weekend for a follow up, one I've finished that one I can look more closely at your idea.
This video was amazing, subscribing immediately. I only took a year of CAD in HS so actually showing your process is AMAZINGLY helpful. Thnaks again!!!
Thank you! I'll keep going with this format and I think I can do a better job of explaining during the video as well, these kinds of videos I think warrant me to use my hands a bit more to point at the screen. I'll keep them coming!
Love this video. I’m going to be modeling dovetail joints just because all week now. I have some ideas to use Slant3D’s 45 degree printing concept, especially for the 45 degree dovetail to get printing textures to match. I also think there’s potential to create some complimentary anisotropic strength between the two halves. I’m probably just overthinking though.
I figured that you guys could take this places that I couldn't even think of. I've seen quite a few products with standard straight dovetails and they can easily be improved with a taper or the curve... or both. I may end up making a dedicated video just to this one connection, and shoot it a little differently, some people wanted a bit more detail on that one in particular. I have a bunch more ideas for connections, some are old, but some are completely new and I'll probably start testing their strength as well. Many many more to come!
Great content. Did my part towards your 2025 goal and cheering for you!
I like that you provide lots of visuals that present the topic. I am biased and just came from a year of sudden interest in woodworking YT channels, along with Damascus knife making vidoes and your channel ticks some really niche boxes for me.
Please do more on joints. Dowel, maybe biscuit joints. Can you test them with weight? Glue strength difference? Love to see it. Great video.
Thanks, I will have more coming! I'm also thinking about doing a video comparing a completely wooden small piece of furniture vs a completely 3d printed version to see how close they are in strength.
@@NeedItMakeIt That’s rad! I once made a dovetail mounted bracket for a shelf. Routed the dovetail into the wooden shelf and bracket and printed the mating mount out of PLA.
Turned out beautiful and STRONG! No visible screws or joints.
That elongated one is fantastic. Put those pieces in a box for a product sold with some assembly required and you wouldn't need assembly instructions.
That's a really fresh idea! Thank you for sharing so much in depth!
id love to try this and melt/solder the gaps together
The snapping dovetail is interesting, keeps dimensionality while having a removable joint, depending on the strength of th snap. Makes me think of using a combination of a dovetail with locating dutchman inserts. Perhaps the next step of this would be a sprung detent within the interior faces, so that the dovetail itself has a tractile resistance before snapping into and out of place, without needing a compliant snap at the end of the rail.
Nice technique! What I would do is to put a hole (maybe countersunk) in the dovetail stop, and a nut/threaded hole in the dovetail itself. Then, after assembly you could lock the parts together with a screw :)
Quick note for other viewers: don’t orient dovetails in the Z axis where tension will get put across layer boundaries. Do it like this video, where the dovetail is primarily on the XY plane.
In Fusion 360 it makes me nuts that there’s not a simple operation for “this part mates to that part with [x] clearance.” Instead you have to model the clearances or do a bunch of push/pull operations. I tend to do the former because it keeps the dimensions in the sketches vs. in the dialog boxes of push/pull operations. But the latter is quicker.
Really excellent video-instant subscribe from me!
Great design work and video presentation. As an engineer, I loved this
I'm glad you enjoyed it! I'm working on several related videos in a kind of series of different types of useful connection types. I'd also like to integrate several different methods into and then run some tests to see which ones come out on top.
@@NeedItMakeIt I was looking for some quantitative analysis on degrees of play using the best joints, and perhaps a stress map, yield, breaking point map. ‘Project Farm’ often has simple but effective ways to standardize these measurements without getting overly technical with it.
@@donlindell1994 Can do, Project farm is one of my favorite channels, he is exceptional at packing a ton of info into a short video. I'll be including some of these tests into the follow up video that I'm working on right now!
Awesome your patience to study and apply the knowledge achieved. Beautiful and professional results. Great! ❤
Joining smaller parts together is a best practice for functional 3d prints anyway, as even if you have a huge printer, you don't want to carry any stresses across the layer lines, making orientation super important. Just as important as grain orientation in woodworking.
Wonderful. I wonder how 2 bowties, on two non opposing faces, would look and feel. If you change filament colour for the bowties, it might actually look really cool, and you could in principle have a lot of surface area. Can't take them out though.
Very clever technique for joining 3D printed objects, got yourself another subscriber here, looking forward to seeing your other videos, good luck on the 100k goal!
Thank you, everyone seemed to enjoy this type of video, I will keep going with this format so there will be and many more videos like this.
@@NeedItMakeIt as someone who's new to fusion360 (modelling to 3D print) clever ideas on how to join prints (smaller more intricate pieces too) are super helpful :)
That curved dovetail with the stop in the thumbnail is a thing of beauty. You should sell prints of that photo, it’s engineering art. 🎉
Great video as well, your attention to detail and planning is demonstrated through the video quality itself let alone the content.
That's such a nice thing to say, thank you very much! Maybe I will have to put it up on the wall. And now you just gave me an idea for a video!
Great video especially when sizing up prints. Truly appreciate the work.
👍
Thanks! I have many more to come. I have one that's pretty cool coming this Saturday
Experience, creativity and technical knowledge. I'm onboard!
Your channel always manages to teach me something that I didn't realize I needed to know. 👍
What a fantastic compliment! That's one of the goals of my videos. Thank you!
Great video, love the different joints. Would be good to see the basic dovetail at 0.04 offset.
Your fusion 360 skills are awesome
That's great! Yeah, I could certainly try the 0.04; my concern with that connection is that it was hard to put together, originally I had the parts much larger, but to be able to 3D print all of them and have them on camera, I shrunk them down a bit. I think it would have been possible and could have worked fine. The taper is still better, but the standard dovetail works too, it really depends on what you're using them for.
Thanks for the support, I enjoy using Fusion, it can do just about everything I need, it doesn't like meshes, that's one of my main complaints, it's all good and we can find ways to work around it.
I get ya 👍
I need to learn fusion 360 more im mainly on tinkercad and it's not nearly as good as fusion.
8:20 this joint made me audibly go "oooo" when it clicked into place.
Very cool concepts explained here that cannot be easily made in wood!
If you can believe it, I made the cured tapered sliding dovetail connection back in College for my final project, and I did it 8 times on the same piece of furniture; it was a lot of work! The colors I used were Titan Grey PETG-CF and Brick Red PETG-CF. They have to be some of the nicest looking filaments out there.
I've been using a dowel pin system just to keep things lined up where they need to be. This seems a more elegant solution.
I guess it depends on what you're building, I find that holes need to have a peaked top so that they print well and don't collapse in too much on those top layers, I suppose the dowel can be whatever shape you like though, it makes sense to do a triangular dowel for 3D printing and you get an auto-peak and a flat surface. When I worked building furniture, I must have inserted thousands and thousands of dowels, they work especially well with glue.
For the first one (simple dovetail) you have shown, you can actually use the slicer. No need to design it in CAD in advance. Not sure if slicer you use supports it, but as far as I know Prusa Slicer and Bambu Studio (the one I use) have the ability to cut a part and cut it by creating a dovetail. You can do some clearance adjustments there depending on your printer, but from my experimenting it can create some pretty tight joints that might require a hammer to connect all the way through.
You can also cut it using dowels in slicer, which is what I've used few times when I needed to insert a metal rod into the part and I just used dowels for alignment when gluing two printer parts together around the rod.
That's right, PrusaSlicer has the dovetail which you can also taper and add clearance. Unfortunately I have not found it to be useful, the connections cannot be reproduced, the sizes/lengths cannot be controlled well either. It's still handy to have as a last-resort. If you're creating the model, I think it's better to create the design with these connections in mind already, this also helps to make sure the orientation of the connections is best for strength related to print orientation.
@@NeedItMakeIt thanks for the insight. I've used slicer dovetail only a few times on things that weren't critical at all, so I actually don't have a ton of experience with them.
@@rand0mtv660 I've tried it a few times as well when I was making a previous video about connection types, but I had such a hard time trying to make anything predictable and consistent that I decided to go a different direction. It's still good to have in there as a fail-safe and for people with smaller printers.
This is really great, thanks. I don't understand the taper but maybe I just need to visualize it.
Awesome video, Mike! I'l definitely use the tricks you shared. Long time no see. So glad your channel is growing. 🙏
Good video. There's an easier way to split a body with a dovetail cut in Fusion 360:
1) Start with a solid body
2) On a sketch, draw the squiggly line representing where a blade would cut to make the dovetail. Include fillets at any sharp edges.
3) In the top menu, switch from the SOLID tab to the SURFACE tab
4) "Extrude" the squiggly line, so that it forms a surface that divides the body you want to cut
5) Go back to the SOLID tab, choose MODIFY / Split Body
6) For "Body to Split" select your solid part. For "Splitting Tool(s)" select your surface. (Works best if you select them using the part tree on the left)
7) Click ok and it will split your part. You can then press/pull to add clearance.
That’s awesome, very creative, love your process!!
Thank you very much, I had no idea people would enjoy this type of video so much. I can definitely make many more like this!
Your videos do not suck. Good stuff
Thank you, I'm working on keeping it that way!
Damn, I’m definitely stealing this for my future designs. Awesome video!
It's yours to take! I'm glad you thought it was worthy.
@@NeedItMakeIt Mike, everything you make is worthy, thanks for sharing ❤️
I have the links in the description for the files if you need them.
@@TomatePasFraiche Thanks! Love your logo BTW!
thanks for your tutorial and the Fusion Files:, that helps me a lot!!!
Excellent video. It will take me some time to properly implement, but this is exactly the information I've been looking for. Thank you
Thank you! And no problem, I'm glad it could help you.
This is a fascinating experiment, and I really appreciate the technical detail. Convinced me to subscribe. Cheers!
Nice, thanks for subbing, I have many many more videos to come and I think people seem to really enjoy these kinds of videos so I'll make sure to have lots more like this as well.
Thank you for sharing your experiences! An excellent video, very well explained and yet not unnecessarily drawn out... perfect 👌. Another video with stress testing of the various connections would be very interesting.
Very inspiring. I really gotta learn CAD.
Many more to come! If there is some interest I can do some simple and quick walkthroughs to cover the main points.
I would love to see a collaboration with @CNCKitchen to test the strength of the printed joints in different load scenarios and print orientations.
Certainly, I'm sure as my channel grows, we'll be doing more collabs to test out a whole bunch of interesting ideas. In the meantime, I have been working on creating my own test setups for future videos (I am using one at this very moment).
this is a great video. would be nice if we could get some real world data on the performance of each joints performance. defo need more subs
Thank you! Lots more coming like this one as well. I'll put together a test video with some of my best connections and we can bend and break them in several directions. I might even add some wood in there to compare. I have some test rigs setup now, but I want something more professional with more accurate measurements and data feedback. Hopefully the YT gods can shine a light on the channel and allow the resources to buy some equipment and lots more filament!
thats so cool combining woodworking know how with 3d printing
I'm glad you enjoyed it! Hopefully people can find a good use for some of these ideas in their own projects.
Cool video. One thing I would recommend in the video editing department is to just record some background noise while you're not talking so that when you have to pause the audio, such as when describing multiple things and waiting for the animations to complete, you can fill that with the background noise so the cuts aren't so noticible
Very nicely done. Clear, good explanations, nice level of detail. You just gained another subscriber. 😀
Thanks so much! Lots more of these types of videos to come!
Cool video.. would love to see some ideas for flat / curved surfaces joints
I have some more in the works right now!
Lots of great info packed into this video! Subbed!
Thanks so much! More videos like this to come!
I was wondering what is the historical reason behind the 7mm and 14mm angles in woodworking please? This is so satisfying, great work!
LOL, I have a bit of a idea because I used to be a timber-framer. When working with a framing square, we'd be using essentially a ratio to create a pitch, we weren't using angles. I believe that the 7/14 degree relates to a ratio on a framing square which is how we'd always do the layout on our timbers, the dovetail router bits came much later and I'd imagine followed suit at a time when both machines and hand-tools were still being used in woodworking. I'm not sure how to fact-check this though, it seems like a natural progression over time. Let me know what you think and thanks for taking the time to write a comment!
This was informative and short, a very good production. Well done!
That's great, I'll work towards trying to do more videos which are packed with info and keep them short and sweet.
Excellent video! Very informative.
wow! great video.
I'll be building some of my own this morning.
Nice! I'm glad you thought so!
Cool, this is exactly what I needed to find today.
I think all of these would be better if also *keyed,* especially scarf connection that has no compression strength. So different ways to do keying would make for a nice continuation video
Awesome video and great presentation and demonstration. New subscriber!
Appreciate the support!
I almost never subscribe (I'm more of a lurker) but this was great and I'll follow you :)
Thanks so much! Lots more of this style of video to come!
Great tips on these joints
Keep up with the quality videos!
Thanks! Many many more to come, I hope I can continue to improve with each video as well.
One thing I'd be curious about is if or how we can combine joining methods for extremely tight fits. For instance a screw-secured dovetail, where the dovetail ensures it's a tight fit and the screw locks it in place providing additional force to hold it together. That cylindrical dovetail design for instance provides support in basically all angles, so if there was a way to screw it together and force those two mating surfaces together I imagine it'd be insanely sturdy.
It's a great idea, and I have a few ideas to do this. Are you familiar with the KREG jig?
@@NeedItMakeIt A little, don't do woodworking myself but I keep my eye on a lot of different hobbies passively (idea crossover can be massive) and I know pocketholes are used fairly frequently, but with 3d printing especially I feel like the ability to create and use custom geometries could open things up massively.
Especially if mid-print embedding or other things were allowed for. (i.e. conceding a bit of the 'hands off' simplicity in favour for raw utility) You could have almost entirely internal screws at basically any angle and, while they might need to be tightened using some fancy flexible shaft, it'd give some insane freedom to experiment with secure and accurate joinery. For instance embedding a bolt inside of the male-end of the dove tail or something, then having screw holes on the female side that literally pull the dovetail together or something. (that one would also almost be "zeroable" on one axis becuase you could adjust the tightness of the screws in order to 'lean' one side)
i need your printer settings haha those look way too good
Some of my better prints for sure. I used my Bambu X1C and QIDI Q1 for these prints, both of those printers are very accurate in their extrusions and retractions. The filament is PETG-CF which looks amazing, this is Brick Red and Titan Grey and I've used 0.16mm LH and a 0.4mm nozzle, which helps a bit as well. I tend to only use Orca Slicer, unless I'm switching between prints and then I'll use Bambu Studio on occasion. That's really just about it. Most of it comes down to the printers and so far, the most accurate and affordable printer is the QIDI Q1, the most full featured is the Bambu X1C.
I expected much worse quality for the amount of subscribers you have, very impressive
Ps you got one more now ❤
Nice thank you so much. I have so many ideas and lots more videos to come, quite a few people seemed to really enjoy this type of video so I'll do more of this as well!
@@NeedItMakeIt Looking forward to watch them 👍
@@milanpeeters6305 I'll include some stress testing in the next ones too.
@@NeedItMakeIt perfect I personally was more interested in the different strengths then looks.
@@milanpeeters6305 Well then, what if I could give you looks and strength?
that is a damn good joint indeed
I have two more which I think will rival this one, both I believe have not been done before, at least not that I've seen. In the follow up I'll do some stiffness and strength testing to see how they compare as well.
@@NeedItMakeIt would love to hear your opinion on the best solution for fitting beams end to end for making larger printers, cheers :)
@@MrFranklitalien That'd be a great use case for these connections, is there a material you have in mind for this already?
@@NeedItMakeIt I've been brainstorming a mostly printed 3d printer with some friends, like the snappy v3, only instead of using snap fits or screws I'd like to see if I can do it with mostly keyed wood joints and zip ties;
hoping to drive the cost down below 200$US as a benchmark.
CoreXY geometry would be great for building on top of the base architecture (might integrate arms and wheels later down the road as part of the NASA autoreplicant robot program)
@@MrFranklitalien Perfect! If you can wait for a little less than 1 week, I will have the follow up video and I will try to think of how it could work well for your application as well. I love your idea BTW, a fully 3D printed printer... minus some non-printable stuff would be very cool and I'd love to try it on the channel when you get to a point that you're ready to share it. So far the ABSGF25 from QIDI is the most rigid filament I've tried, next would be PC and then PETG-CF and Hyper PLA are tied. I'd imagine that a rigid material is important for your application.