So you want to start printing parts for paintball. Welcome to an endless hole of possibilities and people asking you to print things for them. Here we will discuss some things to consider before printing your components for use in the field, whether it be bodies or cosmetic components for you marker, or functional prints. We assume that you have some 3D printing experience and feel comfortable working with your machine. What do you need?
3D printer
Set of calipers
Patience of a saint and a warrior's determination
Before diving into your first print for paintball I have to ask, have you leveled you bed? If not, go do it. If yes, then you're already in the 75th percentile of 3d printer users. Now, if you want to get to 90th percentile, have you tuned your machine to your filament? Tuning your machine is vitally important to getting a solid print and being able to maintain that quality when switching filaments. In one's excitement to get printing out the gate it is often the most overlooked requirement of 3D printing. Each filament material, brand, even color can be unique depending on the manufacturer and these differences need to be tuned out before you start printing your components.
Tune your flow. You will hear people refer to this as your e-steps and flow percentage, but the idea is to make sure that you printer is as dimensionally accurate (excluding x/y/z step calibration) as possible.
E-steps are the number of steps your extruder stepper motor needs to take in order to extrude a certain length of filament. In some cases you need to tune this in order to ensure that the amount of filament the printer is calling for from the extruder is actually being delivered. Chances are that your e-steps are already factory calibrated and you don't need to mess with them, but if you changed your extruder for example then you would need to recalibrate your e-steps on your machine.
The next step is to calibrate your flow rate. If your e-steps are your coarse adjustment knob, then your flow is your fine adjustment knob. Most likely this will be your first step. This can be done via a single wall box and set of calipers. In essence, you print a single walled part (hollow box with no top layers or infill), measure the thickness with a set of calipers, compare it to what it should be, and adjust your flow rate by the proportional difference.
Example: Current flow 98% with 0.4mm nozzle. Single wall measured = 0.38mm wall thickness. Target thickness = 0.4mm. Required flow = current flow * target thickness / measured thickness = 98 * 0.4 / 0.38 = 103 <-- set new flow to
Relevant link: https://teachingtechyt.github.io/calibration.html#flow
Tune your temperature. Temperature plays a big part in your finished print. It's a balance between the strength of the adhesion of the layers and the amount of stringing you get from the print. In most cases a little more temperature may be necessary for best strength and the stringing would be tuned in your retraction tuning. This is done by using what is called a temperature tower. A temperature tower is a stacked repetitive test print which includes features influenced by temperature (overhangs, bridges, open travel, ect) where the temperature is changed at each stack. Once it's complete, it gives you a visual indicator as to which temperature gives you the best results. This includes looking at drooping, the bridging, the stringing, the sheen, and the strength of the print. Feel free to flex it and see where it breaks. Better to test it here than outside in the field.
Relevant link: https://teachingtechyt.github.io/calibration.html#temp
Tune you retraction. Once you have your flow and temperature tuned, it's time to evaluate your retraction. What retraction does is pull back the filament at a set speed and distance to relieve pressure on the nozzle during travel where the printer is moving but not extruding. In this way, it lessens the amount of filament coming out during those travels, thus reducing stringing and artifacts on the print surface. The tradeoff is that too much retraction can lead to wearing of the filament in the extruder and clogs in the hot end. There are several test models which you can use to do this but the idea is to use a model where the printer has to travel between 2 or more points and adjust your retraction speed and distance until you get a result which you are happy with. First, print the model with your current settings (including the flow rate and temperature tuned in the above) and see how it looks. If it's good, then you're done. If not, time to get to work.
Check out our materials guide for more info but in summary if you are starting out, do not use PLA for prints to be used in the field. Start with PETG or ABS and then work your way up if needed. PLA simply is too brittle and prone to warping in heat for use in the field. Please note that each material you look at will have different requirements. For example, ABS fairs better when printed inside of an enclosure. Nylon's high printing temperature requires and all metal hot end. Composite filaments fair better with a larger diameter nozzle (0.6mm and above). All of their settings for retraction and cooling will be different. Hopefully much of these will have been figured out in the tuning phase discussed above but be aware that not all filaments are created equal.
With the resolution of your prints there needs to be a balance between quality and speed. Most printers come standard with a 0.4mm nozzle which means that your line width is going to be around that size. This will factor in slightly for the wall resolution on the x/y plane (not a huge impact) whereas the z resolution can be defined depending on what level of detail you have in your model. Generally the available resolution of a printer in the z-direction is around 25-75% of the nozzle width. In the case of the standard 0.4mm nozzle this means between 0.1-0.3mm z-resolution generally. That's not to say that you can't go even higher in resolution but it becomes a bit more difficult the higher you go.
Where do I want my resolution to be? This is completely dictated by the detail on the print and the time you want the print to take. On a completely smooth body, a tuned printer can provide smooth surfaces at 0.2mm resolution fairly easily. If there is a lot of detail on the surface of the print then it might be worth considering dropping the layer height (increase resolution) to 0.16 or 0.12mm. This of course will dramatically increase the time it takes to print.
What size nozzle should I use? Nozzle size (width) will dictate your maximum resolution while greatly affecting your print times. The wider the nozzle, the more material can be laid down at any given time; but because of the available resolution of the nozzle based on its size as discussed above, your absolute minimum layer height will be higher than with a smaller nozzle. Ultimately, the benefit you gain by using a larger nozzle is that you will cut your print time down.
If you are using a non-composite material, then you could use either a 0.4 or 0.6mm nozzle generally without too much of a quality difference between the two as you can still achieve 0.16mm with each, which should be sufficient and you can probably squeeze more out of the 0.6mm nozzle if needed. Does this mean that you should immediately switch to 0.6mm nozzle? No, if you are comfortable with the 0.4mm nozzle and aren't bothered by the print times then there is no reason to switch as it usually comes stock with your printer and if it isn't broke, don't try to fix it.
If you are printing with composites however such as carbon fiber, then it would be recommended to use the 0.6mm nozzle in order to prevent clogs. Again, you also won't lose a significant amount of quality by making the switch to 0.6mm.
The reason I lumped both infill and perimeters into the same category is that they both are consideration for the strength of a print; however, people often conflate what relative strength they each provide. The goal of infill is to provide some support for the walls but primarily support for the top layers. This means that for a print to have true strength, you would instead want to increase your perimeter count (walls). A 2 wall print with 50% infill will not have nearly the same strength as a 4 wall print with 25% infill. It is also much easier for the printer to handle the smooth motion of the walls rather than the back and forth of the infill. In short, if you want strength of print, increase your perimeter count. We recommend with PETG at least 5 perimeters.
Print orientation is important as it dictates how much surface is exposed to the bed for better adhesion, where on the print there will be need for support, what direction the layer lines will be allowing for the most stress (feedneck most important in this case), and what surfaces will be using what resolution (top layers versus sides).
In regards to the need for support, you generally want to keep this on the parts of the prints which will be least shown as they will tend to be rougher. On a body this means where the body will be hidden by the trigger frame mostly.
For the orientation of a paintball marker body, around the 45 degree angle mark makes the most sense to us as it keeps the majority of surfaces using the z resolution instead of using the top layer resolution and decreases the necessity of supports. The thing to balance here is where the print touches the build plate. In most cases this will be the trick to get the most points of contact at the beginning and make sure that you get great bed adhesion.
Supports are the bane of many a 3D printers; but once mastered, they can becomes one's most effective tool. Like the machine itself, support settings need tuning in order to get it right and are usually not great out of the box. The first trick is to avoid supports whenever possible. This means limiting your number of overhangs usually done through the design or print orientation. When they can't be avoided, there are two main support types to choose from, linear (or accordion) and tree.
Linear supports are the standard supports for FDM printing. They lay down a lot of material in a zig zag pattern in order to provide supports to anything directly above it. Overall it provides excellent support but has two drawbacks.
Large amount of material used. Because of the zig zag pattern, a large amount of material tends to be used which increases your print time, increased the amount of material wasted, and often times makes it difficult to remove (especially without the proper tuning).
Sometimes difficult to support areas without direct line of sight to bed. Anything that doesn't have a direct line of site downward to the bed till have to have linear support material laid on the model section below it in order to support it. This can be especially difficult on small or angled features.
Tree supports provide a less time and space intensive support structure and also allow supports to connect from the bed to a part of the print which would be unreachable with standard supports. This structure is also by far the easiest to remove due to the minimal amount of material used. The downside is that it doesn't leave as smooth a finish on large flat undersides. Given that that isn't common with marker bodies, tree supports will be your best bet going forward.
This guide is a great resource for troubleshooting your problems: https://www.simplify3d.com/support/print-quality-troubleshooting/
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