Tolerances are primarily an aspect of design. When one designs a print in place hinge (such as the test you ran) tolerances are extremely important. You will get to choose one tolerance in your design and then hopefully thousands of people will print your design, it better work well.
So, if you print the tolerance test and large tolerances are failing you have large issues, if you have problems with small tolerances only then you have small issues.
Issues could be wet filament, improperly calibrated filament or any host of mechanical issues. I would say as long as 0.2mm tolerance hinges well you are doing pretty good, if not you need to start with dry and properly calibrated filament and work from there.
Just to be clear there is nowhere in the software or on the machine that one sets ‘tolerances’ or stores them as a result of this test, one simply reacts to failures of a tolerance test that should work by tuning the settings or fixing the possible broken mechanics of the machine.
thank you for responding. I have been able to get 0.15 on the tolerance test so that sounds like my printer is printing well with the filament I am using.
So have I got this right then?
In order to change the tolerance of the hinge that I have downloaded from Makerworld, I need to download the .stl file and import it into CAD software of my choosing (there’s another steep learning curve…Suggestions anyone…btw it has to be free for the moment) and them change the tolerance in the CAD software, save as a 3mf and then import into Bambustudio and then print?
That’s all in the design process and not after. Try Fusion360, Onshape, FreeCAD and others more.
But i have to ask. You will use that model as a part for your own model or are you going to start from scratch and using that model only as a reference? Using another users model as “parts” of your own model is not a good start if you are thinking of publishing it on makerworld.
Why not start from scratch and learn cad on the way? Start by a simple tutorial and then see where it leads you
Start here and go and watch the first video so you have an idea of what your getting into. This channel has many videos, including on how to do print in place hinges
This started off as taking a hinge from makerworld and getting it to print.
It printed fused together. All I wanted to do was change the tolerances to be able to print it.
Seems like I have gone down a rabbit hole here.
Time to go back to college
I do know better than to use someone else’s parts in a model of my creation. Better to make your own parts for your own model.
Time to get learning…
I have some experience with printing moving parts. Obviously, you must leave a space between the two parts, eg between the axis and the hole. A space of 0.1 or 0.2 millimeters should be enough. Make shure of course to place the axis exactly in the middle of the hole! During design (I use Freecad 3D), I create the hole from the axis by slightly increasing its diameter.
After printing, removing support and trying the movement should be done with care! So far my 2 ct on this topic.
So the design you posted originally was a test obviously. I didn’t try this test but the person referenced a pop-up catapult design that I made for my grandson. It worked perfectly. I was impressed with the hinge, which was more like a dimples. Clever approach.
What I noticed was all the slicer setting imbedded in the 3MF file. If you downloaded the STL you would have missed that.
So I would recommend trying again and download the 3MF file to a Bambu printer. I shot it using PLA and the catapult worked fine.
What i found with cad->3dp tolerances is it’s best to use the design packages variables for this. Say, called tol, then, when you add the next object you always set it to - or + what your tol varialble is set to, 0.15 or 0.2 etc.
This means when you have a larger model and you need to shift the tolerance for whatever reason (offering people with poorer calibrated printers a better chance at printing it), you just change that one variable and bam, whole model updates.
With objects I also use variables at the start of a project for different lengths, widths and heights so, again, any changes can be quickly made if i’m making a set of different sized things. You make your model parametric.
Out the box, with flow control on, I also get around 0.15 with defaults on my A1, i’ve got 0.1 by dropping extrusion to 97% and cooling the print temp from 220 to 210.
Search for Josef Willis video on The Best Way to Add Tolerances in Fusion 360! in youtube
