Filament Tolerance Samples

December 23, 2022
Description
I usually design 3D prints that I intend to sand, paint, add to - or otherwise post-process, so the specific colors and finishes of filaments aren't particularly important to me.
What IS important to me and my design work are the thermal and mechanical properties of the filament - both when being printed, and in-use. So I wanted to make a different type of filament sample - one focused on demonstrating the expansion/retraction tolerances of each of my filaments - so that I could configure my designs for tolerance based on the material selected!
The guiding principles for my design are based on my most common design-print-iteration step: measuring the size of an element (hole, slot, peg, outline, etc.) and determining how far off it is from the intended measurement. The key calibration elements and their intended dimensions I want to have on each sample are:
- Rectangular Hole: 10mm x 10mm
- Rectangular Peg: 10mm x 10mm
- Circular Hole: 10mm x 10mm
- Circular Peg: 10mm x 10mm
These should cover the VAST majority of my common measurement fixes while designing something to be printed, as they'll allow you to compare expansion/contraction along both x and y directions, which can also help account for tolerance differences in the printer.
The model of the samples will have no fixes to account for expansion/contraction so that measuring the samples will provide the raw data needed to account for it for the material!
Update 1:
- Rough vector design done
- Gave sufficient space so that measuring each element with calipers is easy
- Added in an area for a label, and axis indicator, layer height, and temperature
Update 2
- Modified the design to make the text more reliably printable/readable
- Prepared Blend file for upload
- Note: Model is not yet optimized for file size/poly count
Update 3:
- Improved legibility of lettering
- Simplified Blender model for customization