Acceptable Tolerances

[grezmel]

just wondered what tolerances people accept - ive just printed a 10 x 10 x 10mm cube at 0.1mm and it measures 9.99 x 10.09 x 10.03mm using calipers.

Would this be classed as near as dammit or do people expect better from their printer ?

[Davo]

Your measured out put in every axis shows less than 1% variance from your design - in one axis (probably the Z) less than one tenth of 1%.

I think that is within most people's tolerance for parts printed in plastic - especially if you get the same percentages on a 1x1x1cm cube at .1mm.

[curious aardvark]

yeah that'd do me.

The important thing is, that it's a consistent variation. So you can design for it.

[Marm]

Betcha if you change the temperature of the block your measurements will change too, .01mm is pretty tiny. If you're within the thermal fluctuations of the material, then there is no way any printer could make it better.

Also, you can easily affect that .1mm change with how hard you are squeezing the calipers. Yes, you're not supposed to, but you could measure that same distance a dozen times and get slight variations.

[curious aardvark]

what he said :-)

[grezmel]

Cheers for the replies

[BLKKROW]

Also remember your calipers have their own resolution, usually +/- 0.5mm if you are using cheap ones.

[richardphat]

Freaking damn near, my PLA and ABS tends to shrink 0.5mm