Hey guys. what im doing is trying to make a thing that slots inside another thing. when making the sizes for 3d printing so they slot together nicely should they both be the same size exactly or how much should i take off of the male end to make it fit in the female end snugly? the hole on the female side is 4mm so should the bale be 4mm or should it be like 3.8 or something? thanks in advance, Brett.
Hi @Brett_Roe there’s really no single answer to this since the dimensional accuracy of prints varies from printer to printer, print settings and even the material used. The only real way to resolve this is to do a test print of a simple (quick) design that mimics your actual model and then see how the two parts match up and make adjustments to the model to suit.
Generally speaking it’s likely you’ll want the male part to be fractionally smaller than the female, but how much smaller will need to be decided by testing.
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As cobnut says, it can depend very much on the filament used, the temperature, etc. I usually start with a .25mm difference between the two parts and check to see how they fit, and adjust from there.
First time I got a rod and tube printed in clear ABS. The models had a 0.012"gap/ diameter (which was close to 1"). I had to sand the male slightly so they would fit nicely.
Second time I printed something similar in black ABS with a 0.014"gap/diameter. Now they are too lose. So I would make the models with a small difference, female 4mm than male 3.9mm. If the process is that accurate. Adrian
