How can you ensure 3D printing quality in a team?

Choosing the right 3D printer and materials is like choosing the right pasta for the sauce to mix perfectly! In my experience, here are five most important criteria to consider for making this selection: 1) Evaluate the print volume. Not every material fits every bed size and material plays a crucial role in determining the size of the parts to print without compromising on quality. 2) Software and UI friendliness. 3) Support and maintenance. A responsive support team and thorough documentation greatly impacts experience with the printer 4) Availability of Upgrades and experimental features. 5) A strong community forum to support user experiences, share valuable insights, troubleshooting help and potentially build a network of printers.

Another thing thats super important to note is tolerances, especially for precision parts. For example, if a team of 5 people were all working and fine tuning a part that used external hardware at separate locations, various factors such as wind, filament humidity, etc, can affect the tolerances. Make sure these are tuned before you make the parts, and accurate across multiple printers, else you will not have a very fun time.

Establish Clear Objectives: Define the purpose of the 3D printed objects, their intended use, and the required quality standards. This will guide the team in selecting appropriate materials, settings, and post-processing steps. Document Settings and Workflows: Create standardised printing profiles for different materials and object types. Document detailed step-by-step workflows, including slicer settings, temperatures, and print speeds. This consistency minimises errors and allows team members to share knowledge effectively. Version Control and File Management: Version control for 3D design files to avoid confusion and ensure everyone is working on the latest version. Establish a transparent file naming convention and storage systems.

In my experience this had a huge impact….always be ready to spend some time to calibrate filament temperature feed rate and speed test to get the best quality print at maximum speed ..it is important that the printing properties of same material changes with different manufacture. Therefore it is better to go always with printing samples like calibration cubes , temperature towers etc

I suggest calibrating the stuff in the following order: 1. Bed level/Z offset: this can be done with printing a single layer and live leveling, or doing the sheet of paper technique, make sure the printer is heated else it wont work 2. E-Steps: Use the 100mm method and verify that the PID tune on the extruder is solid, and that it’s actually extruding how much its supposed to 3. Tolerances: Print out a 20x20x20 cube and see how much its off by, then create a multiplier and apply, tune as needed And of course, do general matinence like swapping belts, swapping nossles, cleaning bed, etc

Depending on the slicing software, you can really see in detail what is being printed and how is being laid down on each layer. If there are some intricate geometries that are being printed, it might be worth to see the printing path to see potential red flags (for example a line being laid over seemingly nothing) because sometimes slicing software can fail. 5-10min of this kind of quality check can save hours or days down the road.

Post processing is where coordination gets really important. I've had multiple occasions where an errant hand twitch basically renders a print "unfit for sale" because a part broke during the support removal. For this, it is important to make sure that the team leader as well as their members both be mindful of what they are doing and to not rush, but instead focus on the task at hand.