Mystic Turtle's Calibration Station

Last crawled date: 4 years, 3 months ago

THIS TEST IS FOR CALIBRATING YOUR EXTRUSION MULTIPLIER AND OR OFFSETS TO ACHIEVE ACCURATE DIMENSIONS ON A VARIETY OF PART FEATURES.
NOTE: The default units in most of these files is mm. if you try to open these documents with inches as your default unit it will end up being rather large.
For your convenience, i have added a version of each of these files with inches set as the default document unit.
NOTE: Please check out "PRO TIPS" and links to helpful youtube videos that show you everything i am talking about on this page.
Intro:
I work at a fairly large factory in the research and development department. We have an aluminum extrusion press for making our own materials and I check new die samples to ensure everything is within tolerance before we let it run through assembly. Short story is, I do lots of measuring and lots of fabrication/machining of prototypes in my line of work, and I am rather obsessed with precision.
This test is for those of you who are also obsessed with precision and accuracy in your work.
I tried to include most common measurements one would need to ensure accurate printing of a multitude of common parts/part features while making it easy to measure with a pair of dial calipers and a classic protractor.
Instructions:
To complete the full test you will need a pair of dial calipers. As well as a 1/4"-20 bolt and a nut. ( This is all in English Standard Units. Sorry to the rest of the world, if you need a metric version please let me know and I can make one.)
There are two versions of each file.
One is lower resolution, for much smaller g-code files. The drawback is that you will have facets on your filleted surfaces (for testing radius with a radius gauge).
The other is high resolution, but the g-code file will be a doozy and your printer may or may not like it depending on how fast it can process all those tiny fillets.
NOTE: There is also a Mini Calibration Center version without text on it. When I printed it with a .6mm nozzle the text is not legible and the edges on that side were skewed.
If you have a smaller nozzle you run, you may wish to text its small text capabilities.
You can print these files at whatever settings you are trying to use regularly for your parts, though make sure you have your cooling and temps figured out to prevent warping of the base on the full test. IF FULL TEST BASE IS WARPED DIMENSIONS WILL BE SKEWED!
The mini calibration center file is a 1"x1"x.25" print. This was designed to allow you to check all the main stuff quickly, both printing and measuring, while using very little of your time and filament. One could also use it for quick periodic checking of your printers accuracy after the tuning is completed. I printed this with a 600 micron nozzle and it used 6 grams of filament and took about 5 minutes to print. (est cost based on $20 roll of 1kg 1.75mm filament is 12 cents.)
After you think you about have it dialed in, go ahead and do the full test.
The big one will take much longer to print comparatively, and use more filament at 4"x4" with a few tall features. However, it will also allow you to spot check your printer on nearly any common part feature type across all of its axis/planes. This one on a 600 micron nozzle takes 79 grams of filament and about 2.5 hours. (est cost based on $20 roll of 1kg 1.75mm filament is $1.65.)
The full test does include a threaded feature, both male and female. One can test these features with commonly available (in the US anyways) and inexpensive hardware you may already have laying about your workshop. If you do not have it, go to your local hardware store and you can likely purchase a small 1/4"-20 COARSE THREAD bolt and nut for around 15-20 cents per item. This is so you can make sure your tolerances are tight enough to utilize pre-existing hardware and components in your designs.
This does not have an overhang feature simply because, if all of the features on the full test are placed/measure correctly, your printer will likely have no trouble printing an overhang correctly via a series of shapes shifting over the XY plane.
PLEASE SEE ATTACHED DRAWING IMAGES TO REFERENCE DIMENSIONS YOU NEED TO CHECK.
There is both a JPG screen shot and a much higher resolution PDF document you can view.
If you wish to have accurately scaled printed pages on the PDF. You need to turn off "adjust image to fit page size" or some similar setting you find. Then, set 1:1 scaling on your printer (1:1 scale is included on these drawings). Both of these drawings are sized for standard size A paper (8.5"x11").
Dimensions will be shown down to 0.0000" tolerance where necessary. (0.0625 is 1/16")
Quote:
"It is simple to design something that is quite complicated. Though it is quite complicated to design something that is simple."
Conclusion:
I sincerely hope this helps some of you on your journey to making accurate custom parts for your designs!
This is the first "Thing" I have made for ThingiVerse. As I generally keep my designs to myself since many of them are business related.
I tried to make it quite thorough and informative.
If you liked this and would like to see more/similar things, or have any suggestions, please up-vote it and let me know in the comments!