So a number of folks have brought this up. But we wanted to make sure there was useful link. There are plugins for cura and a number of other slicers that add Mouse Ears. (Here is one: marketplace.ultimaker.com/app/cura/plugins/5axes/TabAntiWarping) The reason we did not include it in the video is that we don't think these are good solutions. Mainly because none of them add the sprue. So they are sub-optimal. And on this channel we really try to show the single most effecient way to do a thing. Since we work in mass production 3D Printing, a 1% improvement means a lot of cost savings for a client when they make 10's of thousands of an item.
When you need to fit a 3D print onto an existing item that has sharp corners like a square shaft or a metal tab on something made of sheet metal, and you don't want to have to drive the printed piece on or figure out a way to shave the inside corners - do this trick in the design. "Mouse bite" the inside corners. Cut out a small cylinder in each inside corner, the full depth of the hole. Then as the nozzle goes around the corner, the normal squeeze out will mash together to form a sharp inside corner instead of a rounded one. I got the idea from the Bell Gothic font used for printing phone books on cheap paper. All the inside corners of the characters have little notches so that the ink bleeds and flows to fill them in sharply rather than bleeding inward from sharp corners to make them rounded.
Don't forget you can usually add circles in your slicer software, this means you can easily modify other people's designs for better printing without brims.
@@timhofstetter5654 every printer is different and every slicer is tuned to one specific printer.. so why include printer tolerances and bed adhesion in the design phase? it will just make a well tuned printer make lose parts and force bad adhesion on printers that dont need it or hinder implementing an specifik preferred method. its the slicers job to take a design and make it printable the cad program is there to model parts. u will still need to model against production but bed adhesion would be handled by the slicer and lucas tip is really good
@@mitte90 I never suggested that anyone should " include printer tolerances and bed adhesion in the design phase". I'm suggesting that your design should not rely on the slicer to add anything before printing because not everyone uses the same slicer, and some people won't be using a slicer that supports these options so they cannot reasonably slice your STL to successfully print your object. Other users won't know that this STL requires these specific setting so they'll just blindly use some of their own stock settings... and again your model will fail. Never do that. Never create an STL that relies upon the user to be intuitive and read your mind and have exactly the same software running on their computer as you have. If you do, then you will fail as a designer because your file will fail more than 50% of the time. That's very bad practice, matched only by weather forecasters.
@@mitte90 Also... your statement that "every slicer is tuned to one specific printer" is very far removed from reality. For example, the slicer I use 98% of the time has different setting profiles for each of the eight different 3D printers that I own and operate. That is how every slicer should be - the slicer itself should never be tunedto one specific printer - it should support an unlimited number of printer-specific profiles for different machines. Always design in everything required to make your print successful. Write once, read many times. Do the job once so it doesn't need to be done by countless others. If you're ever going to be good at this, you'll need to learn that paradigm.
Oddly enough, I was fighting corners pealing up on an intricate design where a brim would have been a nightmare when this video popped up. Huge help, thank you so much.
This video has been a big time, material and sanity saver for me as i was having issues with a print and the only response i kept getting was "you need to wash your print bed" Followed your steps here and now problems solved!
People don't talk about washing your bed, idk why it's extremely effective but instead they're like "use rubbing alcohol" instead of a tiny bit of soap and water, which I find works a lot better
I’ve also found that a .3mm brim distance works very well. It doesn’t touch the model in most places, but it does hold on to the corners and is very easy (and satisfying) to pop off.
This is fantastic. I have been looking how to start using sharper corners in some of our designs so everything isn't so rounded. Keep up the good work.
This totally made my life easier this week. I was printing a bed full of 100 tiny objects and by adding a sprue to interconnect them and to an outer system of circles i was able to save time and not worry about failures.
I have heard from various people to just: Buy an enclosure for consistent heat... Use a glue stick for better adhesion... Make sure they're is not an AC vent blowing on it... When in reality, I won't be the only person printing the part. Each person will have a different skill set and this eliminates all of those factors. It IS proper engineering design. Thank you for taking the time to create this video. You have a new sub!
I've been experimenting this with some 3D printable buildings I've been working on for miniature wargaming, which often have large, flat floors, and are thus prone to warping at the corners. So far the results have been great! Thanks so much for sharing this technique!
In subtractive manufacturing (e.g. milling or cutting) and in injection molding, those sprues would be connected to a frame. You see these all the time with small plastic pieces for model cars and with paper punch-outs for board games. You can do the same thing for 3D printing designs. Think of it like a brim, but the brim is spaced out a little ways and its only connected to the part with a few tabs. Similar to those mouse ears with sprues, they are very easy to remove by cutting the tabs, especially if you put the tabs perpendicular to flat edges instead of sharp corners (much easier to sand or shave flat). But compared to mouse ears, you can get much more surface area using a large frame without making lots of little jagged movements, which is really helpful to avoid the kind of dragging you mentioned. Sharp corners anywhere cause a problem. Creating a sharp corner requires coming to a stop. To do this at high velocities, you need high acceleration. High acceleration means high forces on the machine and vibration. It also means large changes in flow rate, which leads to thinning and blobbing. The freshly-laid filament is still hot and only semi-solid and it has strong adhesion to itself, so the filament you are laying down is pulling on the filament that was just laid. Pulling it in a straight line isn't generally a problem, but pulling perpendicular or even back towards itself is going to tend to pull the soft filament back up off of whatever it was on. All of these factors make small, sharp features difficult to reproduce quickly and reliably. So whenever possible, try to use fillets, dog bones, or other smooth curves instead of sharp edges. The wider the radius, the better, though a few line widths is probably sufficient. This will allow you to maintain velocity, reduce strain and vibration, and avoid blobs and other surface imperfections. This is especially important when printing first layers, thin features, or mating surfaces where dimensional accuracy and consistent are important. As for designing parts that work regardless of machine, settings, or scale? Don't kid yourself. Physics doesn't work that way and neither do the suggestions in this video. What works well for PLA on an FDM printer with a 0.4mm nozzle set to 0.2mm layer height is going to be awful for UV acrylic resin in an SLA printer with 0.05mm dot pitch and layer height. A good design should be tolerant to imperfections and be easily adaptable to different machines, settings, and scales, but it's going to need adaptation. Every design is going to be subject to minimum feature sizes, tolerances, material loading (tensile, shear, bending), kerf, and plenty else. One design will not fit all. But the beauty of parametric CAD is that you can quickly make changes to the design to customize it for the machine it will be used on. Parameterize the things that will need to change, build things up in pieces, use constraints and references to ensure things shift and scale together, and leave room in the design itself to add, remove, scale, offset, or whatever else might need to be done to key features in order for them to function correctly when manufactured in your environment.
Much appreciated brother. I have to print in a 0c environment so the biggest problem I suffer with printing, even with an enclosure, is first layer adhesion. I was lucky enough to find this video after only two failed prints, and I think this has saved me months of wasted filament, tweaking and troubleshooting!
Tabs and similar are quite handy for PLA's, but my fix for this was to install a recirculating chamber heater system, works for ABS and above, no warping anymore, and better bed and layer adhesion, depending on the material I can go all the way up to 90° C inside the chamber.
Interesting techniques definitely worth making a note of. Additionally If design allows, rounding vertical corners reduce print time and material. The reduction of material usage isn't just from eliminating brim and mouse ears but from the rounding it self. Also the time savings will come from the higher average speeds from the nozzle not having to slow down at the corner. Even a 0.5mm radius rounding of the corner can have a huge impact with more complex shapes.
I was thinking this when he first started. It'll smooth out the corners and eliminate the drag he mentioned, but that rounding wouldn't help with the warping on dense prints.
Nifty! Brims are such a drag, amazing that the little sprue can hold it down. One comment you made in the explanation was about internal stress and shrinkage. I have issues with parts that have a section change where, say, an internal floor stops and i get a small step on the outside. I've tried a few different chamfers and fillets but still see it even with thicker walls that have some infill. Do you see the same things? Idea for future vid?
Phenomenal, thanks! On some of my parts I've actually rounded the corners to prevent curling where it didn't affect the functionality or appearance. On cube corners I have chamfered the point. Saves filament too.
Looking at your approach makes me think a tear drop shape might be even more ideal. This is great though as I have done the mouse ears, but never considered minimizing the contact patch.
This seems like a pretty hot tip, thanks for sharing! I've started to incorporate beveling into my corners to help alleviate some of those issues, this definitely seems like a great trick to try!
Interesting indeed. I've been 3D-printing for a while; This is the first time I've seen this design technique. I'll be trying this to see how this works om my printer. Thanks.
Hi - I saw your short version of this earlier today, and am currently printing a part that was very prone to lifting in one area. Apparently now fixed: Thank you!! 😚
I avoid using bring where possible, but in some cases, especially when using bed-slinger types of printers and printing tall models, sometimes a brim help from keeping prints from disconnecting from the print bed. Brims can help in keeping prints sticking to bed.
Absolutely going to try this. I suspect it's not only going to work well for corners with high internal stresses and lift/warp potential, but it will *probably* allow for relatively thin parts to be reliably printed without the bed adhesion issues (and get away from the ton of post-processing required!). Even if it doesn't help with thin parts, it's brilliant enough to warrant a sub from me. Thanks! EDIT: Yep, it works for thin parts. Easily saved me up to five minutes of finishing per piece for small stuff. SUPER!
It would a relatively simple thing to do. But there is a need to get more features made before the slicing stage. Otherwise the slice is compensating for bad design and not optimizing a good design
If you use Prusa slicer, you can insert a shape and make it a circle and do the same thing. Make it the same thickness (saw this by 3D printing nerd's reel)
Yep I have done it on occasion- the downside of it (and this) compared to a Brim is it's more difficult to remove after printing since instead of a series of perimeters that have a set distance away from the part, it's typically welded into the first layer or two requiring flush cutters to remove. I suppose a per object setting and making it like 10 perimeters would solve that but I have not needed a brim in a while with PEI and good cleaning
i've heard you say this in a couple videos, that you shouldn't rely on print settings, that a good design should work on "any printer, any time, any scale". but in regards to your print farm, where you control the hardware, wouldn't creating slicer files, be just as much work as modifying the 3d model? id love to see a video where you go more in depth about this.
Really great video. I'm not incredibly well versed in 3D modeling but I've spent enough time to appreciate a well designed model. There's no doubt this will become incredibly handy even for low-production DIY parts.
I am amazed! this is so... 👌(I almost fell off my chair here!) subscribed right away! also the story of the origin of the print farm, just beautiful! 👍 I discovered this too late!... respect! by the way, thank you for sharing your knowledge!👍👍👍 Healthy and Friendly Greetings from the Netherlands! Rob
It's a nice theory but actual printed parts in comparison would help even more. I use brims on objects with small contact area and rather high print height. To make sure they don't get ripped off. Like on the little ski on the RC Tiny rider snowmobile. The little gears don't need brim because they are done quick enough. Warping cannot really be avoided with these brims. Warping is a fault within the cooling itself. The ambient temperature must not be too low or otherwise the part will warp on the layers that shrink too fast and strong.
I never had a problem with sharp corners, I've printed gears, simple shapes with 45-90 degree corners etc and never had any warping, so watching this video had me confused I print PLA and PETG with brims on Cr-10 v2. I also confused why removing brims somehow a lot of post processing? You just peel it off very easily like a film
@@DeathCoreGuitar It depends on the brim and where it is. Small variations in bed height or flow rate can be the difference between a brim being firmly attached (like an entire layer) or completely detached. That said, I use brims all the time and usually don't have an issue, but I have had parts where I needed every tool in the box to get bits of brim out of corners and slots where they were causing interference on a mating surface. In situations like that, I find support blockers or custom supports give me flexibility to pin things where its needed and to keep unwanted material out of critical areas. That's also why I'd rather my models not have built in supports like those mouse ears, but rather let me add my own when and where works for my machine.
I like this. It also brings up the question of ownership of duty. Is it the Engineer's designing the part responsibility or the Machinist's to know how the tool the part will be made on will work? There might be a point where the person running the printer has a solution that is better for the particular setup they run and these things attached to the model slows them down and causes problems. For example, dissolvable rims might be easier than having to cut off each tab in how they have their station set up and how complex the part is. Also if it already has supports that need to be dissolved anyways.
Theres definitely ways to 'Design for 3D Printing' vs 'Optimise for 3D Printing'. Designing for 3D printing is minimising supports by reducing overhangs with chamfers or maximising connected solid areas that can be filled with infill very easily. In comparison, this method of optimising for 3D printing where instead of modifying printer settings for a better output you instead add extra parts specifically for the 3D printer to produce a desirable outcome. Or as an example imagine a cube with a bottom, 2 opposite sides, and an open front, back, and top; Instead of designing a U-shaped cube that is basically a stringing torture test, you design the part in a way where one of the walls prints separately and reconnects to the cube, which would be a design decision at the very start of the project specifically to reduce the stringing between the printer moves going back and forth for the separated walls. Tough to define where the responsibility for the decision lies though, definitely an interesting question.
Brims are essential with petg to hold parts down which have a small surface area required on the bed. For instance printing a long thin cylinder. You don't want to print that sideways.
with glass beds, I used brims as they gave me the best adhesion, switching to PEI/magnetic bed, I've not needed anything more than a skirt to just get the PLA flowing.
If we are talking about PLA with proper bed adhesion, like a PEI coated spring steel sheet, and proper bed heating, just wash with 1 drop of dawn dish detergent on a wet paper towel, then rinse and dry before printing. Bed adhesion will never be a problem.
Yea tell that to my hand leveled with paper before each print, CR-touch enabled-modified from 9 to 25 point-auto level, 70% isop alc cleaned, glass built plate. A flat bottomed tool rack still curved up aggressively.
I put blue tape on the whole table. Then I put what I call donuts (small hole in center) on corners and other areas to hold project down. Similar to mouse ears above. I then start the print. When donuts are finished printing (about 1 mm thick) and printer starts on main object, I put Super Glue in the center of the holes! You do not have to pause printing usually. This glues the holes to the blue tape and I guarantee you that corner will not lift!!! I was tired of warping after a 10 hour print job.
Sure but that is dependent on your first layer height and width. But again in mass production you don't want any extra effort about a large portion of any brim has no value
PLA loves to warp. I once printed a long, semi-circle shaped stand and used a wide-ass brim for maximum stability, and it did work for a while, until the warping got so intense that _the whole goddamn brim lifted off the bed._ Moral of the story, sometimes even the most extreme solution can't completely a fundamental problem. I should invest in a heated enclosure, they can reduce warping by a significant amount. One thing to note here, I have a heated bed and I probably set the temperature too high. A trick that works very well is to set the bed a bit high for the first layer and then let it cool down to a more comfortable level for the rest of the print.
What about supports for a 5 sided hollow enclosure? The entire thing has to be filled with supports and its such a pain to clean out and makes for a REALLY long print.
When printing parts designed by someone else, it’s a major pain to edit their design. With this in mind, I made 2 stl files to help. One is a cube that measures 10x10x10 mm and the other is a cylinder 10 mm diameter and 10 mm long. Now on my slicer, I can position those items and scale them as necessary to add features like your additions in the slicer instead of design software. I keep the stl files in a readily accessible location so I can just drag them into my slicer when needed.
@@alejandroperez5368 The vast majority of free models are provided as stl files. Since these are the files that are used for slicing, they do not require any additional steps to start slicing. Since this is the format makers will output from their design software for their own use, this is the format they upload. Also since the objective of posting a model is to allow printing, the stl format is perfect. I’m sure if slicers could accept step files, they’d probably be offered. Until then, I expect stl to be the standard.
I'm still pursuing comments, but I am worried. If I print a large thick rectangle, I get uplift on just one corner, the same corner, every time. If I tried to tack it down this way, the surface area of the circle is a fraction of the area that warps off the plate. Why would it not just lift off like the shrinking material?
This is great, need to try it, and I just so happen to have a 3d printed bracket that has started to break, so many I can modify that model to be a little taller, and add the mouse ears!
Bending up of corners is due to air draft that cools that corner. if it happens to you best solution is to box in your printer so no air can cool parts of the print.
that is a very interesting idea, and makes sense, I'll try it out. But would be also a nice addon to the slicer, as tbf, that should be a slicer setting/addon, too Does anyone know if you can do something like that with prusa slicer already ?
Yes. It is a fairly recent addition: marketplace.ultimaker.com/app/cura/plugins/5axes/TabAntiWarping?_gl=1*1sp09v4*_ga*MTcwNjk2Mjg3Mi4xNjczNzIyOTIz*_ga_JHX8W909G8*MTY3MzcyMjkyMy4xLjAuMTY3MzcyMjkyMy4wLjAuMA..
I would say that "Your design should not need to rely on software settings" is just wrong. There are so many systems, materials, and such out there that making something that works for _every single one of them_ is physically impossible. With that, I have found plenty of success making models that exist as the model alone without hard-coded printing aids, and then made it printable via the slicer. I used to use brims a lot, but that was because I always had issues with bed adhesion. Once I learned to use gratuitous amounts of Aquanet combined with abnormally high first-layer-width (~2x nozzle diameter), then I stopped having issues. Even hard and sharp corners print flawlessly with HTPLA for me. TPU on the other hand, curls at corners using nearly the exact same setup. For me to hard-code printing aids that I only need for TPU, or only on my weird setup, into something that is either not intended for that material, or needs to be printed elsewhere on equipment that I cannot possibly know the exact details of, seems counterproductive to me. Especially given the insane variety of printers and bed size restrictions.
I'm surprised that slicing software won't give you a setting to add these kind of supports and forces you to create your own geometry and add it to the model.
Yea no. As an engineer who uses 3d printing a lot putting in process specific features into the core model is not only dangerous from a data management perspective but also muddies design intent and reduces design flexibility. You wouldn’t model extra stock size on a machined part instance for surfacing you model the part as intended finish product at let the process operator determine the extra stuff needed to make it happen. A 3d printing example would be holding tolerances. Every material has a certain amount it expands you wouldn’t want to model that expansion in be something like nylon has much more swell then say asa or pla. Now my presets I have for those materials on my personal and work printers has horizontal and vertical expansion offsets that account for the two materials difference in this regard so if you modeled in the gap for a nylon print it would be far to lose for a asa or pc print. Another thing to consider is there are different printing processes for instance adding mouse ears to something that your getting sla/msla/SLS printed is silly.
@@slant3d - I think half the people that wrote comments didn't listen to you when you said "You want the design to not be dependent upon the printer settings...".
Sure. But it is better to define those features in design rather than depend upon a automatic slicer to cover. Expecially in mass production where the smallest optimizations make a big difference
Another disadvantage to a brim is that the lines are concentric with the perimeter of the part, and have weak adhesion to the part. I've had parts tear themselves right out of the brim. Mouse ears don't have this problem, because the perimeter of the part goes around the mouse ear instead of right past it. Also, the bottom infill extends into the mouse ear, adding more resistance to the part lifting. The mouse sprue would also have the part perimeter going around the mouse ear, but you lose the added strength of the part's bottom infill spreading into the mouse ear. Also, PrusaSlicer has a feature called "helper disc", which are discs you can add to the corners in the slicer.
funny, i just been stuffing with something similar and i set my brim distance to 0.16mm then it stays stuck well enough to hold stuff down and not rip off, but it removes from the part in a very easy and satisfying way, where if i add features like this then i have to cut them off and use tools to post process instead of just peeling it off and the part being good to go
I have experimented with brim spacing and adding little bumps that touch the part, I thought there might be some benefit from a wavy brim or perforated to weaken the first layer, especially on bottom beveled surfaces where you always end up with a sharp blade around it and have a ton of cleanup
So a number of folks have brought this up. But we wanted to make sure there was useful link. There are plugins for cura and a number of other slicers that add Mouse Ears. (Here is one: marketplace.ultimaker.com/app/cura/plugins/5axes/TabAntiWarping)
The reason we did not include it in the video is that we don't think these are good solutions. Mainly because none of them add the sprue. So they are sub-optimal. And on this channel we really try to show the single most effecient way to do a thing. Since we work in mass production 3D Printing, a 1% improvement means a lot of cost savings for a client when they make 10's of thousands of an item.
Link not working
When you need to fit a 3D print onto an existing item that has sharp corners like a square shaft or a metal tab on something made of sheet metal, and you don't want to have to drive the printed piece on or figure out a way to shave the inside corners - do this trick in the design.
"Mouse bite" the inside corners. Cut out a small cylinder in each inside corner, the full depth of the hole. Then as the nozzle goes around the corner, the normal squeeze out will mash together to form a sharp inside corner instead of a rounded one.
I got the idea from the Bell Gothic font used for printing phone books on cheap paper. All the inside corners of the characters have little notches so that the ink bleeds and flows to fill them in sharply rather than bleeding inward from sharp corners to make them rounded.
But this still does the "mouse ear" not the solution purposed here.
That makes your print dependent upon the slicer.
@@ytskt - delete the closing bracket at the end of the url that's been added in error.
Please continue making more of these design optimization videos. They are incredibly helpful pointers to keep in mind when designing parts.
You got it!
I agree 👍
Don't forget you can usually add circles in your slicer software, this means you can easily modify other people's designs for better printing without brims.
thx ! I will try asap :)
That makes your print dependent upon the slicer.
@@timhofstetter5654 every printer is different and every slicer is tuned to one specific printer.. so why include printer tolerances and bed adhesion in the design phase? it will just make a well tuned printer make lose parts and force bad adhesion on printers that dont need it or hinder implementing an specifik preferred method. its the slicers job to take a design and make it printable the cad program is there to model parts. u will still need to model against production but bed adhesion would be handled by the slicer and lucas tip is really good
@@mitte90 I never suggested that anyone should " include printer tolerances and bed adhesion in the design phase". I'm suggesting that your design should not rely on the slicer to add anything before printing because not everyone uses the same slicer, and some people won't be using a slicer that supports these options so they cannot reasonably slice your STL to successfully print your object. Other users won't know that this STL requires these specific setting so they'll just blindly use some of their own stock settings... and again your model will fail.
Never do that. Never create an STL that relies upon the user to be intuitive and read your mind and have exactly the same software running on their computer as you have. If you do, then you will fail as a designer because your file will fail more than 50% of the time. That's very bad practice, matched only by weather forecasters.
@@mitte90 Also... your statement that "every slicer is tuned to one specific printer" is very far removed from reality. For example, the slicer I use 98% of the time has different setting profiles for each of the eight different 3D printers that I own and operate. That is how every slicer should be - the slicer itself should never be tunedto one specific printer - it should support an unlimited number of printer-specific profiles for different machines.
Always design in everything required to make your print successful. Write once, read many times. Do the job once so it doesn't need to be done by countless others. If you're ever going to be good at this, you'll need to learn that paradigm.
Oddly enough, I was fighting corners pealing up on an intricate design where a brim would have been a nightmare when this video popped up. Huge help, thank you so much.
No problem
This video has been a big time, material and sanity saver for me as i was having issues with a print and the only response i kept getting was "you need to wash your print bed" Followed your steps here and now problems solved!
no one told you about cheap hair spray?
People don't talk about washing your bed, idk why it's extremely effective but instead they're like "use rubbing alcohol" instead of a tiny bit of soap and water, which I find works a lot better
I use these regularly. Once the printer is above them, i pop a small neodymium magnet on (my prusa uses steel plates) to ensure adhesion to the bed
Very good idea! Gonna try it for my next print!
brilliant idear
I’ve also found that a .3mm brim distance works very well. It doesn’t touch the model in most places, but it does hold on to the corners and is very easy (and satisfying) to pop off.
I have found that brim distance can vary from filament to filament due to shrinkage. But a brim distance is key
I am printing a topography puzzle right now and the warping/brim is killing me. I am gonna try some pieces with your recommendation.
That's what I do too, it works well :)
I use 0.2mm and it comes off super easy.
Why are 4 comments hidden? But I do the same.
This is fantastic. I have been looking how to start using sharper corners in some of our designs so everything isn't so rounded. Keep up the good work.
Thanks. You're welcome!
This totally made my life easier this week. I was printing a bed full of 100 tiny objects and by adding a sprue to interconnect them and to an outer system of circles i was able to save time and not worry about failures.
Glad we could help
I have heard from various people to just:
Buy an enclosure for consistent heat...
Use a glue stick for better adhesion...
Make sure they're is not an AC vent blowing on it...
When in reality, I won't be the only person printing the part. Each person will have a different skill set and this eliminates all of those factors. It IS proper engineering design. Thank you for taking the time to create this video. You have a new sub!
I have been 3D printing for more than 12 years now, but this was new for me.
Still learning :)
Thanks!
I've been experimenting this with some 3D printable buildings I've been working on for miniature wargaming, which often have large, flat floors, and are thus prone to warping at the corners. So far the results have been great! Thanks so much for sharing this technique!
Just make the floor boards look like wood and call it a realistic feature. Problem solved.
@@jerbear7952 Unless your creating cobble stone walkways... :)
In subtractive manufacturing (e.g. milling or cutting) and in injection molding, those sprues would be connected to a frame. You see these all the time with small plastic pieces for model cars and with paper punch-outs for board games. You can do the same thing for 3D printing designs. Think of it like a brim, but the brim is spaced out a little ways and its only connected to the part with a few tabs. Similar to those mouse ears with sprues, they are very easy to remove by cutting the tabs, especially if you put the tabs perpendicular to flat edges instead of sharp corners (much easier to sand or shave flat). But compared to mouse ears, you can get much more surface area using a large frame without making lots of little jagged movements, which is really helpful to avoid the kind of dragging you mentioned.
Sharp corners anywhere cause a problem. Creating a sharp corner requires coming to a stop. To do this at high velocities, you need high acceleration. High acceleration means high forces on the machine and vibration. It also means large changes in flow rate, which leads to thinning and blobbing. The freshly-laid filament is still hot and only semi-solid and it has strong adhesion to itself, so the filament you are laying down is pulling on the filament that was just laid. Pulling it in a straight line isn't generally a problem, but pulling perpendicular or even back towards itself is going to tend to pull the soft filament back up off of whatever it was on. All of these factors make small, sharp features difficult to reproduce quickly and reliably.
So whenever possible, try to use fillets, dog bones, or other smooth curves instead of sharp edges. The wider the radius, the better, though a few line widths is probably sufficient. This will allow you to maintain velocity, reduce strain and vibration, and avoid blobs and other surface imperfections. This is especially important when printing first layers, thin features, or mating surfaces where dimensional accuracy and consistent are important.
As for designing parts that work regardless of machine, settings, or scale? Don't kid yourself. Physics doesn't work that way and neither do the suggestions in this video. What works well for PLA on an FDM printer with a 0.4mm nozzle set to 0.2mm layer height is going to be awful for UV acrylic resin in an SLA printer with 0.05mm dot pitch and layer height. A good design should be tolerant to imperfections and be easily adaptable to different machines, settings, and scales, but it's going to need adaptation. Every design is going to be subject to minimum feature sizes, tolerances, material loading (tensile, shear, bending), kerf, and plenty else. One design will not fit all. But the beauty of parametric CAD is that you can quickly make changes to the design to customize it for the machine it will be used on. Parameterize the things that will need to change, build things up in pieces, use constraints and references to ensure things shift and scale together, and leave room in the design itself to add, remove, scale, offset, or whatever else might need to be done to key features in order for them to function correctly when manufactured in your environment.
SuperSlicer has this function for Brim > Brim Ears. Works great. Your example in CAD does offer more flexibility.
Much appreciated brother. I have to print in a 0c environment so the biggest problem I suffer with printing, even with an enclosure, is first layer adhesion. I was lucky enough to find this video after only two failed prints, and I think this has saved me months of wasted filament, tweaking and troubleshooting!
why are you printing in a freezer?
because i would rather take two seconds to cut mouse ears off a print than listen to a 3d printer inside of my house 24/7 @@bettycocker2226
Tabs and similar are quite handy for PLA's, but my fix for this was to install a recirculating chamber heater system, works for ABS and above, no warping anymore, and better bed and layer adhesion, depending on the material I can go all the way up to 90° C inside the chamber.
Always had issues with these and love your points about not relying on printer settings and instead focusing on quality designs
Thanks. Yes, there is a lot that can be fixed earlier in the workflow.
Interesting techniques definitely worth making a note of. Additionally If design allows, rounding vertical corners reduce print time and material. The reduction of material usage isn't just from eliminating brim and mouse ears but from the rounding it self. Also the time savings will come from the higher average speeds from the nozzle not having to slow down at the corner. Even a 0.5mm radius rounding of the corner can have a huge impact with more complex shapes.
I was thinking this when he first started. It'll smooth out the corners and eliminate the drag he mentioned, but that rounding wouldn't help with the warping on dense prints.
Nifty! Brims are such a drag, amazing that the little sprue can hold it down.
One comment you made in the explanation was about internal stress and shrinkage. I have issues with parts that have a section change where, say, an internal floor stops and i get a small step on the outside. I've tried a few different chamfers and fillets but still see it even with thicker walls that have some infill. Do you see the same things? Idea for future vid?
Oh nice. Helper disks are always super nice but man loving the spru idea!
Hey! Glad you like them! We love your stuff BTW.
Phenomenal, thanks! On some of my parts I've actually rounded the corners to prevent curling where it didn't affect the functionality or appearance. On cube corners I have chamfered the point. Saves filament too.
That is a better solution when it can be used.
Looking at your approach makes me think a tear drop shape might be even more ideal. This is great though as I have done the mouse ears, but never considered minimizing the contact patch.
A Teardrop is the optimum. But it gets harder and slower to model than a symetric circle with a straight line out the side.
@@slant3d true, but now I'm thinking I could just model up this shape before hand and add it as a derivative when needed...
One addition I would do is put the Sprue perpendicular only to the one face of the corner. Makes it even easier to trim off.
This seems like a pretty hot tip, thanks for sharing! I've started to incorporate beveling into my corners to help alleviate some of those issues, this definitely seems like a great trick to try!
Literally just had this issue with a print going right now, fantastic timing, thank you
Interesting indeed. I've been 3D-printing for a while; This is the first time I've seen this design technique. I'll be trying this to see how this works om my printer. Thanks.
You're Welcome
Hi - I saw your short version of this earlier today, and am currently printing a part that was very prone to lifting in one area. Apparently now fixed: Thank you!! 😚
Very interesting! Slicers could actually implement this sort of a corner only brim to help with all the things you said.
SuperSlicer does this with Brim Ears.
Cura has a Plugin for that called "TabAntiWarping", just simple mouse ears like shown in the vid but normally they do the trick.
Hey thanks forbthe heads up. Didnt kmow
@@DrN4b0 thanks. Didn't know.
Super slicer let's you do it to corners under a certain angle that you set.
Epic! Also, love the comment about designing independent of the printer settings.
I avoid using bring where possible, but in some cases, especially when using bed-slinger types of printers and printing tall models, sometimes a brim help from keeping prints from disconnecting from the print bed. Brims can help in keeping prints sticking to bed.
Absolutely going to try this. I suspect it's not only going to work well for corners with high internal stresses and lift/warp potential, but it will *probably* allow for relatively thin parts to be reliably printed without the bed adhesion issues (and get away from the ton of post-processing required!). Even if it doesn't help with thin parts, it's brilliant enough to warrant a sub from me. Thanks!
EDIT: Yep, it works for thin parts. Easily saved me up to five minutes of finishing per piece for small stuff. SUPER!
Thank you!
Another arrow in my design quiver, can’t wait to use it.
Enjoy!
Best 3D printing tip of 2023 so far, thank you so much!
Wow, thanks! Glad you like it.
that's such an interesting idea, i wonder if that can be integrated into the slicer the same way they implement supports for resin
It would a relatively simple thing to do. But there is a need to get more features made before the slicing stage. Otherwise the slice is compensating for bad design and not optimizing a good design
marketplace.ultimaker.com/app/cura/plugins/5axes/TabAntiWarping?_gl=1*1sp09v4*_ga*MTcwNjk2Mjg3Mi4xNjczNzIyOTIz*_ga_JHX8W909G8*MTY3MzcyMjkyMy4xLjAuMTY3MzcyMjkyMy4wLjAuMA..
If you use Prusa slicer, you can insert a shape and make it a circle and do the same thing. Make it the same thickness (saw this by 3D printing nerd's reel)
Yep I have done it on occasion- the downside of it (and this) compared to a Brim is it's more difficult to remove after printing since instead of a series of perimeters that have a set distance away from the part, it's typically welded into the first layer or two requiring flush cutters to remove. I suppose a per object setting and making it like 10 perimeters would solve that but I have not needed a brim in a while with PEI and good cleaning
i've heard you say this in a couple videos, that you shouldn't rely on print settings, that a good design should work on "any printer, any time, any scale". but in regards to your print farm, where you control the hardware, wouldn't creating slicer files, be just as much work as modifying the 3d model? id love to see a video where you go more in depth about this.
Orca Slicer has these options built in. They are awesome. No need for CAD at all.
Slowing and increasing temperature at the first layer much helpful as well.
Certainly will be trying this technique soon. I know some slicers do brim ears. But this is a nice touch.
Really great video.
I'm not incredibly well versed in 3D modeling but I've spent enough time to appreciate a well designed model.
There's no doubt this will become incredibly handy even for low-production DIY parts.
Absolutely
I am amazed!
this is so... 👌(I almost fell off my chair here!) subscribed right away!
also the story of the origin of the print farm, just beautiful!
👍
I discovered this too late!... respect!
by the way, thank you for sharing your knowledge!👍👍👍
Healthy and Friendly Greetings from the Netherlands!
Rob
Thanks for subbing
Excellent.
Thank you very much for sharing your knowledge with the community!
It's a nice theory but actual printed parts in comparison would help even more.
I use brims on objects with small contact area and rather high print height. To make sure they don't get ripped off. Like on the little ski on the RC Tiny rider snowmobile. The little gears don't need brim because they are done quick enough.
Warping cannot really be avoided with these brims. Warping is a fault within the cooling itself. The ambient temperature must not be too low or otherwise the part will warp on the layers that shrink too fast and strong.
Cold area probably makes this worse I would guess?
I never had a problem with sharp corners, I've printed gears, simple shapes with 45-90 degree corners etc and never had any warping, so watching this video had me confused
I print PLA and PETG with brims on Cr-10 v2. I also confused why removing brims somehow a lot of post processing? You just peel it off very easily like a film
@@DeathCoreGuitar It depends on the brim and where it is. Small variations in bed height or flow rate can be the difference between a brim being firmly attached (like an entire layer) or completely detached. That said, I use brims all the time and usually don't have an issue, but I have had parts where I needed every tool in the box to get bits of brim out of corners and slots where they were causing interference on a mating surface. In situations like that, I find support blockers or custom supports give me flexibility to pin things where its needed and to keep unwanted material out of critical areas. That's also why I'd rather my models not have built in supports like those mouse ears, but rather let me add my own when and where works for my machine.
I do this routinely now with great success and it is creates very little additional work or cost.
Thanks for sharing
Thank you! I've been adding mouse ears that I designed for a while now. I'm going to try this on my next print! This looks great!
You dont need to make this adjustment in the CAD software, just download a circle as a stl. file and merge them in the slices.
That’s the most useful tip I’ve seen on RUclips for a while. Thanks 😊
Happy to help
There's actually a cura addon which can add these circles when you click it.
The longer you press the bigger the circle is.
I like this. It also brings up the question of ownership of duty. Is it the Engineer's designing the part responsibility or the Machinist's to know how the tool the part will be made on will work?
There might be a point where the person running the printer has a solution that is better for the particular setup they run and these things attached to the model slows them down and causes problems. For example, dissolvable rims might be easier than having to cut off each tab in how they have their station set up and how complex the part is. Also if it already has supports that need to be dissolved anyways.
Interesting Point
Theres definitely ways to 'Design for 3D Printing' vs 'Optimise for 3D Printing'. Designing for 3D printing is minimising supports by reducing overhangs with chamfers or maximising connected solid areas that can be filled with infill very easily. In comparison, this method of optimising for 3D printing where instead of modifying printer settings for a better output you instead add extra parts specifically for the 3D printer to produce a desirable outcome. Or as an example imagine a cube with a bottom, 2 opposite sides, and an open front, back, and top; Instead of designing a U-shaped cube that is basically a stringing torture test, you design the part in a way where one of the walls prints separately and reconnects to the cube, which would be a design decision at the very start of the project specifically to reduce the stringing between the printer moves going back and forth for the separated walls. Tough to define where the responsibility for the decision lies though, definitely an interesting question.
Brims are essential with petg to hold parts down which have a small surface area required on the bed. For instance printing a long thin cylinder. You don't want to print that sideways.
Never thought of this, I will have to keep this in mind as I design stuff. Great video 👏
Glad it was helpful!
You can also lower corner stress by printing with concentric instead of cross hatch.
Nice! I just trimmed a brim this morning and it was a pain.
This is going to save me days of my life not having to remove brims. Thank you 100000x!
You are welcome.
Fantastic solution, glad I stumbled across this channel. Subscribed!
Thanks for the sub!
with glass beds, I used brims as they gave me the best adhesion, switching to PEI/magnetic bed, I've not needed anything more than a skirt to just get the PLA flowing.
How thick do you make your sprews?
Interesting. And it sounds like a good reason to edit the mouse ears plugin.
In Cura there is a plugin called anti warp Tabs, makes it easy to add these in stl files. Just click the area and define the size of the Tab.
A good design is one that works in the actual application.
If we are talking about PLA with proper bed adhesion, like a PEI coated spring steel sheet, and proper bed heating, just wash with 1 drop of dawn dish detergent on a wet paper towel, then rinse and dry before printing. Bed adhesion will never be a problem.
Yea tell that to my hand leveled with paper before each print, CR-touch enabled-modified from 9 to 25 point-auto level, 70% isop alc cleaned, glass built plate. A flat bottomed tool rack still curved up aggressively.
With Orca Slicer (and I believe Pursa Slicer as well), it has mouse ear brim built in. It works great.
I've been using them for a while now very usefull, now I hadn't thought of the screw one I'll give it a shot
Yep. The Sprues can help a lot to reduce processing
Please keep the videos like this coming! I just subscribed. ❤🔥❤🔥
Wow this totally makes sense now... wish I knew about this ~5 years ago.
Thanks dude! 😁
Happy to help!
I put blue tape on the whole table. Then I put what I call donuts (small hole in center) on corners and other areas to hold project down. Similar to mouse ears above. I then start the print. When donuts are finished printing (about 1 mm thick) and printer starts on main object, I put Super Glue in the center of the holes! You do not have to pause printing usually. This glues the holes to the blue tape and I guarantee you that corner will not lift!!! I was tired of warping after a 10 hour print job.
I have found that spacing a brim out a bit (say 0.3 mm) still solves problems while making it easy to remove.
Sure but that is dependent on your first layer height and width. But again in mass production you don't want any extra effort about a large portion of any brim has no value
PLA loves to warp. I once printed a long, semi-circle shaped stand and used a wide-ass brim for maximum stability, and it did work for a while, until the warping got so intense that _the whole goddamn brim lifted off the bed._ Moral of the story, sometimes even the most extreme solution can't completely a fundamental problem. I should invest in a heated enclosure, they can reduce warping by a significant amount. One thing to note here, I have a heated bed and I probably set the temperature too high. A trick that works very well is to set the bed a bit high for the first layer and then let it cool down to a more comfortable level for the rest of the print.
What about supports for a 5 sided hollow enclosure? The entire thing has to be filled with supports and its such a pain to clean out and makes for a REALLY long print.
When printing parts designed by someone else, it’s a major pain to edit their design. With this in mind, I made 2 stl files to help. One is a cube that measures 10x10x10 mm and the other is a cylinder 10 mm diameter and 10 mm long. Now on my slicer, I can position those items and scale them as necessary to add features like your additions in the slicer instead of design software. I keep the stl files in a readily accessible location so I can just drag them into my slicer when needed.
It is when the designer is bad. They must provide a STEP file, not an STL.
@@alejandroperez5368 The vast majority of free models are provided as stl files. Since these are the files that are used for slicing, they do not require any additional steps to start slicing. Since this is the format makers will output from their design software for their own use, this is the format they upload. Also since the objective of posting a model is to allow printing, the stl format is perfect. I’m sure if slicers could accept step files, they’d probably be offered. Until then, I expect stl to be the standard.
Thought he was printing it standing it on the one point. XD
I was like. 'ya the solution, just lay it down' lol
I've Only Owned and Been 3D Printing For a Few Months, But In 40 Seconds, Your Video Has Me Rolling On The Floor.
Cura has this, called Anti-Warping Tab which is a plugin that can be installed easily.
Thanks, I've encountered those problems and now I have a fix!
Hello, I’m very new to 3D printing. What software are you using in this video?
Would also like to know.
I'm still pursuing comments, but I am worried. If I print a large thick rectangle, I get uplift on just one corner, the same corner, every time. If I tried to tack it down this way, the surface area of the circle is a fraction of the area that warps off the plate. Why would it not just lift off like the shrinking material?
This is great, need to try it, and I just so happen to have a 3d printed bracket that has started to break, so many I can modify that model to be a little taller, and add the mouse ears!
Bending up of corners is due to air draft that cools that corner. if it happens to you best solution is to box in your printer so no air can cool parts of the print.
Good tip, I'm going to adopt this technique. Thanks! 👍
No problem!
I have been doing this for years when I design models that need it. Works well.
Interesting. I would have thought I need more contact than a 1mm sprue. I'll have to try it.
that is a very interesting idea, and makes sense, I'll try it out.
But would be also a nice addon to the slicer, as tbf, that should be a slicer setting/addon, too
Does anyone know if you can do something like that with prusa slicer already ?
Cura had an addon that allows you to do the same😉
Yes. It is a fairly recent addition: marketplace.ultimaker.com/app/cura/plugins/5axes/TabAntiWarping?_gl=1*1sp09v4*_ga*MTcwNjk2Mjg3Mi4xNjczNzIyOTIz*_ga_JHX8W909G8*MTY3MzcyMjkyMy4xLjAuMTY3MzcyMjkyMy4wLjAuMA..
But every software generated option is generally just a bit short of creating an optimized solution for mass production.
I would say that "Your design should not need to rely on software settings" is just wrong. There are so many systems, materials, and such out there that making something that works for _every single one of them_ is physically impossible. With that, I have found plenty of success making models that exist as the model alone without hard-coded printing aids, and then made it printable via the slicer.
I used to use brims a lot, but that was because I always had issues with bed adhesion. Once I learned to use gratuitous amounts of Aquanet combined with abnormally high first-layer-width (~2x nozzle diameter), then I stopped having issues. Even hard and sharp corners print flawlessly with HTPLA for me. TPU on the other hand, curls at corners using nearly the exact same setup. For me to hard-code printing aids that I only need for TPU, or only on my weird setup, into something that is either not intended for that material, or needs to be printed elsewhere on equipment that I cannot possibly know the exact details of, seems counterproductive to me. Especially given the insane variety of printers and bed size restrictions.
I'm surprised that slicing software won't give you a setting to add these kind of supports and forces you to create your own geometry and add it to the model.
Super Slicer has these as a setting.
How didn't I think of this, this would have been so useful
My curling up problems went away when I started using PETG which (mostly) doesn't shrink as it cools.
Interesting! Glad I got the tip before it becomes an issue. Thanks!
Glad to help!
Yea no. As an engineer who uses 3d printing a lot putting in process specific features into the core model is not only dangerous from a data management perspective but also muddies design intent and reduces design flexibility.
You wouldn’t model extra stock size on a machined part instance for surfacing you model the part as intended finish product at let the process operator determine the extra stuff needed to make it happen.
A 3d printing example would be holding tolerances. Every material has a certain amount it expands you wouldn’t want to model that expansion in be something like nylon has much more swell then say asa or pla. Now my presets I have for those materials on my personal and work printers has horizontal and vertical expansion offsets that account for the two materials difference in this regard so if you modeled in the gap for a nylon print it would be far to lose for a asa or pc print.
Another thing to consider is there are different printing processes for instance adding mouse ears to something that your getting sla/msla/SLS printed is silly.
❗ Those are brim-ears and can be used in the slicer instead of the normal-brim. At least in PrusaSlicer and SuperSlicer, in Cura I'm not sure.
Sure. But you want to avoid dependence on the slicer. This about optimizing for mass production.
@@slant3d - I think half the people that wrote comments didn't listen to you when you said "You want the design to not be dependent upon the printer settings...".
Between this and making custom supports when I need them it cuts post processing by 90% depending on the product!
Absolutely true.
That is a very handy technique!
Thanks
Outstanding concept I really enjoy these types of videos.
Thanks
I had to do this with a lot of the Voron parts printed in ABS. Think superslicer has mouse ears built in.
Sure. But it is better to define those features in design rather than depend upon a automatic slicer to cover. Expecially in mass production where the smallest optimizations make a big difference
Hello, i use this tips since a long time. But it's great for share with a good support. Thx
Using a modest brim brim with a 0.2mm gap comes off super easy and keeps prints more stable. I don't see any reason to not use them when needed.
Brims are essential with petg to hold parts down which have a small surface area required on the bed.
Another disadvantage to a brim is that the lines are concentric with the perimeter of the part, and have weak adhesion to the part. I've had parts tear themselves right out of the brim. Mouse ears don't have this problem, because the perimeter of the part goes around the mouse ear instead of right past it. Also, the bottom infill extends into the mouse ear, adding more resistance to the part lifting. The mouse sprue would also have the part perimeter going around the mouse ear, but you lose the added strength of the part's bottom infill spreading into the mouse ear.
Also, PrusaSlicer has a feature called "helper disc", which are discs you can add to the corners in the slicer.
funny, i just been stuffing with something similar and i set my brim distance to 0.16mm then it stays stuck well enough to hold stuff down and not rip off, but it removes from the part in a very easy and satisfying way, where if i add features like this then i have to cut them off and use tools to post process instead of just peeling it off and the part being good to go
I have experimented with brim spacing and adding little bumps that touch the part, I thought there might be some benefit from a wavy brim or perforated to weaken the first layer, especially on bottom beveled surfaces where you always end up with a sharp blade around it and have a ton of cleanup
That's really neat! I hate post processing off a brim.