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Printing M4 bolt?

Posted: Thu Apr 14, 2016 9:50 am
by blakehaas
I need to print essentially an m4 bolt. The issue i have is that the m4 bolt at ~4mm in diameter is really thin and it ends up being printed a bit wiggly and the threads are not even.

I believe this is a problem with the print speed as well as heat. I am pretty new to simplify3d software (I have an xyz Davinci 1.0).
How can i make an M4 bolt come out good?

I can print m6 bolts just fine, but smaller than 5mm and problems start happening with cylinders.

Thanks

Re: Printing M4 bolt?

Posted: Fri Apr 15, 2016 5:49 am
by CompoundCarl
Yup, I would agree that over-heating is going to be a big issue at that tiny size. You can try adding extra external cooling fans

Re: Printing M4 bolt?

Posted: Sat Apr 16, 2016 5:27 am
by dkightley
To be able to successfully print a thread of this small size, you are going to have to use a nozzle size of no more than 0.2 mm and layer thickness of 0.05 mm max....and have a hell of a lot of good luck!

The alternative is to print the bolt without any threads on it, and invest in a top quality M4 die and carefully thread the extruded part in multi passes.

Re: Printing M4 bolt?

Posted: Mon Apr 18, 2016 8:24 pm
by blackt1ger
I printed a 22mm long m3 bolt, nut and washer --- with a 0.3 mm nozzle and a 0.1 layer height. (not with Simply3D - I just did buy this).
The trick was to a) go slow, b) use a layer fan. Without the layer fan, all wobbly, with layer fan - it worked fine and I verified with an actual M3 nut.