Stop Using Brims, Do This Instead
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- Опубліковано 13 січ 2023
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In this episode of Design for 3D Printing, we will cover how you can eliminate brims from your 3d printed parts using a simple design technique.
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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.
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!
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!
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.
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.
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!! 😚
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
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.
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.
Great tip! It makes me wonder it a teardrop shape might work even better by providing a relatively large surface area but without the rapid change in nozzle direction that exists where the sprue encounters the mouse ear circle.
Yeah, a teardrop shape probably would work better, but one big advantage to this method is it's quick to implement. In most CAD software, making circles and straight lines is very quick and easy, whereas making a teardrop shape would take a little more time. A good compromise might be adding a fillet to the corners where the sprue and the circle meet.
@@Gogeta70 - In FreeCAD, I can make a square pad with one corner facing the structure I want to anchor with a teardrop pad and quickly full radius fillet the opposite corner to make the teardrop.
@@Liberty4Ever Hey, that's a neat trick! Thanks for the tip :)
Literally just had this issue with a print going right now, fantastic timing, thank you
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.
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
Slowing and increasing temperature at the first layer much helpful as well.
SuperSlicer has this function for Brim > Brim Ears. Works great. Your example in CAD does offer more flexibility.
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!
Excellent.
Thank you very much for sharing your knowledge with the community!
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?
Thank you!
Another arrow in my design quiver, can’t wait to use it.
Enjoy!
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
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
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!
Thanks, I've encountered those problems and now I have a fix!
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!
Epic! Also, love the comment about designing independent of the printer settings.
Clear and right to the point, great tip!
Certainly will be trying this technique soon. I know some slicers do brim ears. But this is a nice touch.
Never thought of this, I will have to keep this in mind as I design stuff. Great video 👏
Glad it was helpful!
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.
This tip really helped me out. Thanks!
Oh nice. Helper disks are always super nice but man loving the spru idea!
Hey! Glad you like them! We love your stuff BTW.
Best 3D printing tip of 2023 so far, thank you so much!
Wow, thanks! Glad you like it.
thats a great video solving (hopefully) some of my design challenges.
That’s the most useful tip I’ve seen on UA-cam for a while. Thanks 😊
Happy to help
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
Please keep the videos like this coming! I just subscribed. ❤🔥❤🔥
Thanks for this video. A big help!
Jus the first idea worked great! Thanks for the insight
Interesting. Gotta try this. Thank you
Fantastic solution, glad I stumbled across this channel. Subscribed!
Thanks for the sub!
Good tip, I'm going to adopt this technique. Thanks! 👍
No problem!
Super helpful, I have a couple designs that will benefit from this.
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.
Great idea, thanks for the video
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
Interesting! Glad I got the tip before it becomes an issue. Thanks!
Glad to help!
Muchos gracias, senior. Great tip!
Outstanding concept I really enjoy these types of videos.
Thanks
Great apporach.
Thanks Slant 3D!
Interesting. And it sounds like a good reason to edit the mouse ears plugin.
This is brilliant. Thank you!
You're very welcome!
Wow this totally makes sense now... wish I knew about this ~5 years ago.
Thanks dude! 😁
Happy to help!
That's really neat! I hate post processing off a brim.
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...
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!
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
This is an awesome idea. Thank you.
You are so welcome!
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..
Hello, i use this tips since a long time. But it's great for share with a good support. Thx
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.
Love these design tips!
Glad you like them!
What dimensions do you recommend for these tabs, in regard to Slant 3D manufacturing? Specifically tab diameter, sprue length, and sprue width.
How didn't I think of this, this would have been so useful
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
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.
wow.. thank you for the tips!
No problem!
Thanks for sharing this!
My pleasure!
Thank you for this tip.
Glad it was helpful!
That is a very handy technique!
Thanks
Brilliant tip!
Thanks for sharing! Neat tip.
You bet!
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.
Cool! Super helpful! Keep it up! You got a new subscriber here.
Thanks for the sub!
Interesting. I would have thought I need more contact than a 1mm sprue. I'll have to try it.
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.
Loved this thank you!
Glad you enjoyed it!
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.
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
Definately going to try this on my next project 😀
Go for it!
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 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 ?
Thanks for this tip
No problem
Very cool. I have seen "tenticle" built in supports lately. Thoughts on built in supports as i can imagine this ALSO improves mass production at scale without needing to worry about "support settings" ?
Interested in that one
Designed supports rather than slicer created supports are a great option
This is going to save me days of my life not having to remove brims. Thank you 100000x!
You are welcome.
I have been doing this for years when I design models that need it. Works well.
There's actually a cura addon which can add these circles when you click it.
The longer you press the bigger the circle is.
With Orca Slicer (and I believe Pursa Slicer as well), it has mouse ear brim built in. It works great.
Nice! I just trimmed a brim this morning and it was a pain.
Great hint...
is it possible to automate this (by gcode or such) into bambu slicer or do i have to edit each file in fusion? thanks a bunch for this type of content.
I do this routinely now with great success and it is creates very little additional work or cost.
Thanks for sharing
Good tip. Thanks!
No problem!
What if you keep that, but give it a 0.1mm spacing to brake off easy and raise it up a few layers, but only near the contact point. I'm defiantly going to give that a try on my next design that might require that
Smart idea!
That's a great tip, thanks! :)
You bet!
Ingenious. Thanks for sharing this concept. Sub'd
Thanks for the sub!
Thought he was printing it standing it on the one point. XD
I was like. 'ya the solution, just lay it down' lol