ALWAYS MEASURE BEFORE YOU PRINT!

thingiverse

Everybody knows it. After hours of printing, you detach the part from the printing plate, want to assemble it and notice that the holes don't fit. Too small. Too far apart. Incorrect dimensions. The threaded rod does not fit through. The screw bursts the layers. The required 4mm linear shaft slackens in the provided 5.8mm opening. This is especially true for technical things. Where something has to be screwed, plugged or clipped. Why is that so? Very simple: Tolerances! A hole that has 8mm in the CAD tool later has a thin diameter in the printed part. This can vary between 7.6mm and 7.9mm. And exactly these 4/10mm are clearly noticeable. And the topic is much more complex than the examples I bring here. **I have seen such things by the dozen!!** But nothing is more annoying (and this has happened to me so often) than finding out after a long print that it just doesn't fit and that you have to help with the drill and the file. With technical things like 3D printer components or machines this is most violent. Of course that doesn't matter with a Concrete Pot Mold or with some Lowpoly masks. But not in a complex project where linear shafts, ball bearings and screws are used. Or where it is extremely important that two linear shafts run exactly parallel and that the holes in the opposite parts have exactly the same alignment.