Printer Tolerance Calibrator

thingiverse

Please note: I haven't been able to test this in real life yet, so it might not work at all. Comments are appreciated! This calibrator enables you to easily measure the tolerance required to create separate fitting parts. Instructions ---------------- 1. Make sure your extruder and stepper motors are calibrated, your bed is level and you have a working setup. This calibrator is for final fine-tuning pre-production, not for initial calibration. 2. Slice and print both parts with the same filament and settings that you'll print your parts with. 3. Remove anything that you would remove from any other printed part (blobs, stringing, whatever) to make sure the surfaces where both parts touch each other are clean and even. 4. Insert the top part in the bottom part in the direction of the arrows until you feel resistance. Interpret your results ---------------------------- 1. If both notches line up with 0, you don't need to add tolerance to create fitting parts. 2. If the Overcompensation-notch lines up with >0, you need to remove material from your design to create fitting parts. The ruler ranges from 0 to 0.9mm, remove material accordingly. 3. If the Undercompensation-notch lines up with >0, you need to add material to your design to create fitting parts. The ruler ranges from 0 to 0.9mm, add material accordingly. See images for a visual explanation. Example ------------ Say you have a cylinder with an axial hole (r=10mm), and a rod (r=10mm) that's supposed to be inserted in the cylinder. You use the calibrator and end up with the following result: Overcompensation=0.13mm You would now enlarge the axial hole in the cylinder by 0.13mm (or reduce the rod's radius by 0.13mm) and should end up with fitting parts.