Learning Through Educational Tools: Overhangs

Salutations everyone, Ben is back! About a month ago, I discovered a collection of 3D printing terminology visual displays on Thingiverse. This set of amazing educational tools was created by user okayauco. They provide visual examples of terminology that is challenging to describe. Like overhangs, bridging, layer height, supports, shells, infill percentages, and styles. Printing these items has taught me quite a bit about 3D printing that I hadn't fully realized.

Salutations everyone, Ben is back! About a month ago, I discovered a collection of 3D printing terminology visual displays on Thingiverse. This set of amazing educational tools was created by user okayauco. They provide visual examples of terminology that is challenging to describe. Like overhangs, bridging, layer height, supports, shells, infill percentages, and styles. Printing these items has taught me quite a bit about 3D printing that I hadn't fully realized.

Of course, I am quite familiar with these terms, and how the affect printed objects. Even so, they taught me a bit more about printing. The overhangs object taught me the most about how print speed, temperature, and flow rates affect overhangs.

I printed it on my Robo 3D R1+, which was fairly recently upgraded with an LCD smart controller. I can attest that it is a worthwhile investment, and critical feature for any 3D printer. Since it allow you to run, and control the printer on the fly, without connecting it to a PC. #Workhorse

Anyways, I bring this up, since I used the smart controller to fiddle with these settings while the printer was printing. Around 30-50 degrees, there was some drooping and oozing along the overhang.

I found that by lowering the temperature of the hot end, and slowing the print speed, I was able to resolve the issue. The oozing and drooping was caused because the plastic wasn't cooling quick enough. Printing slower allowed the parts printed previously to cool down, and lower temperatures helped the plastic cool sooner after exiting the nozzle.

I also fiddled with the flow rates, but it didn't seem to make too much of a difference. It did help a little with oozing near the top. Mostly, lowering the temperature, and speed seemed to help the most. Even altering these settings didn't help too much near the 80 degree angle. It started to droop, or skip steps, no matter how much I changed the settings. Though this is to be expected, since overhangs typically have issues past 45 degrees.

I hope you enjoyed my insights into the Overhangs 3D Visual Display educational tool. I will cover the others in a future blog post, since this blog post turned out quite long. Please tune in again, for more exciting adventures in 3D printing!