Photographing 3D Prints Part 2 – Equipment

Before I start listing expensive photography equipment, I should mention that I have dedicated cameras and lenses for other photography.  You can probably get similar results using a decent phone camera, but I haven’t done enough product photography with a phone camera to be able to give advice there.  Some of the info here will be helpful with a phone camera, some will be more useful with a SLR-style camera.

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Photographing 3D Prints 1 – Overview

I’ve been asked many times about how to take good photographs 3D prints, and it’s always hard to answer in a brief format.  Just like giving advice with 3D printing, it’s hard to know what will be useful without knowing more about the hardware, software, experience, and intentions.  Even in a longer format, photography is just too large of a subject to cover without skipping over a lot of important details.  I actually started this post years ago, but every time I try to finish it, it just keeps growing.  So I’m going to split it into sections, starting with the basics, and I hope to get to the rest someday.

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3D Printer Failure 1 – Broken Fan Wiring

I’ve found wiring to be one of the most fragile parts of my 3D printers.  Fans can often fail where the wires are connected to the PCB, which can be particularly frustrating failure since there’s often limited clearance for soldering and most fans are welded together, making them difficult to disassemble.  Fortunately, a bit of preventative reinforcement can significantly reduce the odds of a broken fan.

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Printing Failure 4 – Detached Part (Stuck to Hotend Variation)

One of the worst things a detached print can do is attach to the heater block.  This case wasn’t too bad, but I’ve seen pictures where the hotend is encased in a giant ball of plastic.  If this happens, turning up the temperature of the hotend will make the plastic easier to remove, I usually set it high enough to soften the plastic, but lower than normal printing temperatures.  A brass brush is also very useful for cleanup.  Watch out for any wiring damage during cleanup, especially around the thermistor.

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Tiko Part 2: First Prints and Adjusting the Extruder Tension

My first prints with the Tiko was terrible (not unusual for a 3D printer), I used the default settings including the default temperature of 210°C and it was clearly too hot, making the test print come out a melted mess. No problem, I know how to fix that.  So next I tried 190°C and it came out very underextruded.  The clicking sounds made it clear that the something in the extruder system wasn’t keeping up.

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High Z-resolution 3D Printing

IMGP4478Most FFF printers support a high resolution z axis, but I rarely find the need to print with a layer height smaller than 100 microns (0.1mm). Of course, there are exceptions, and a surfboard fin is one of them.  Here’s a comparison of 5 prints with layer heights from 10 to 200 microns.

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