How to print holes in vase mode

All you have to do is design your model to have thick enough walls to be a little thicker than your line width. In my example below the walls are 0.5mm thick and I'm printing with a 0.4mm nozzle. Then when you print it'll do an inside and outside overlapping wall to spiralize around the hole. It must be because the spiralizing sees the inside wall as an "outside surface" that it can work within those boundaries if it needs to.

The holes can be stacked vertically, but you cannot print more than one hole if there already is part of one at that height. It may take some experimenting, but it can be done! Have fun making weird prints!

Note: This does NOT work if you have just a solid object with a hole in it as the spiralize will try and make the whole closed in hole. It MUST be a through-hole in a thin wall in the original design.

Another note: You may have to experiment with the sizing of holes if that is important (especially with larger nozzles). You may also need to play with line width (don't go over 150% of your nozzle size) if your slicer preview shows lines crossing the centre. You can also experiment with line width if you notice the second pass is printing over thin air or the lines are spaced too far apart.

Side benefit: It makes a double-walled vase mode print. Extra strength in these areas... but it is literally full of holes.

Example:

Object (note: pre-hollowed and holes cut):Can be square or round.

Preview in Cura: https://gfycat.com/shallowsnappyalabamamapturtle

https://i.imgur.com/2Wsyz5j.png

Printing to prove vase mode: https://gfycat.com/obesecraftyassassinbug

Live example: Here's what my models look like.

If you want to try this yourself, here's a couple objects to try printing with a 0.4mm nozzle. Note the wall thickness of the STL is 0.5mm.

Enjoy!

Category: 3D Printing Tests