I’m new to 3D printing, and I was wondering about the minimum dimensions for typical 3D printers: if I made something that has several rigid 50mmx50mm panels which are 0.5mm thick, do you think that would be possible?
You mean can you print 50x50x5mm? Easily, with pretty much any printer. I have a Printrbot Simple, which is about as small as they get, and I can easily do about 95x95x80mm or so.
Oh, hold on, 0.5 mm? Probably tough keeping something that thin really rigid over 50mm. PLA is reasonably rigid, more so than nylon or ABS, but it’ll all come down to how much load you need it to support.
Oh, I meant minimum resolution. As in, can I print something half a mm thick? And will it stay rigid across an area on the order of 50x50mm?
You can reliably print at 0.5mm thickness, but strength might be an issue. If you want to send me a model, or some geometry, I’d be happy to print it and show you the result.
It only needs to be rigid enough to self-support.
Link to some geometry - you can build something on http://www.tinkercad.com and share it from there or upload it to Thingiverse.
Or if you just mean a featureless flat panel at 50x50x0.5, I can do that…?
Here is the model I’m looking at: https://github.com/eddotman/hxma-shield/blob/master/new_shield.stl
I’ll print it when my printer frees up in a couple of hours and post the results.
It seems that most 3d printers have issues creating relatively planar objects. They tend to warp over time. I didn’t have time to review the part you want.
Thanks so much for the help!
Dude, that thing is huge! Way bigger than 50mm on a side! I dunno what material you expect to print that it, but I can’t see it having any strength at all. That kind of thing is better laser cut from flat stock and assembled.
Hmmm good point – I hadn’t thought about doing it that way. Thanks for the advice! I’ll look into it.
With a .35mm nozzle you can get .5mm extrusion widths. And one wall thick boxes are totally possible at that size. I’d say yes.