this post was submitted on 09 Oct 2023
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3D Printing

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Quality of 3D printing versus injection molding (lemmy.ml)
submitted 11 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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Are consumer level 3D printers able to print plastic objects of similar quality to ones produced using injection molding? Or is 3D printing useful mostly for the prototyping stage before a design is finalized and a steel mold is produced for injection molding?

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 months ago (2 children)

nearly impossible with FDM

I'm not in the space, but what's your opinion of acetone vapor treatments to get a bit higher polish for fdm?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 months ago

I haven't tried it myself yet but from the results I've seen online it seems like a good way to decrease roughness. But you still you have to print with a low layer height since larger layers result in deeper crevices which can't be mitigated by the vapor. And its nothing I would try without proper safety measures. Of course you can also sand and polish your surfaces by hand but especially larger surfaces get really tedious really quick :D

[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 months ago

I finally have a pretty well tuned ASA and ABS capable printer and am excited to give vapor smoothing a shot. That said, I am very curious how repeatable it will be in terms of part tolerance. Most of my parts are functional. Nicer surfaces would be cool, but not if it results in some variability in tolerance.