3D Print Parts that Fit with FREE Conversion Calculator

In this video I tackle the challenge of creating 3D printed parts that fit together perfectly. I share my own method for adjusting sizes and tolerances, emphasizing that it's just one way to achieve a good fit. I explain how common it is for 3D models to lack the necessary tolerances for assembly, often leading to parts that don't fit.
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The printer i use:
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[@joehimes9898]

for simple part adjustment, use horizontal hole expansion in Cura. It will change the hole and not the rest of the print.

[@LathanM]

Not a bad explaination of the process. Next up you should try using the horizontal and hole expansion settings. They let you compensate for the issues a little easier. The hole one comes in really handy because it lets you shrink or enlarge just the holes rather than the whole part.

[@MrGrim88]

It also helps to add a slight chamfer to the edges of the peg and/or the socket.

[@kaspersorensen]

From now on, I will refer to myself as a 3D artist. You just made my day!

[@seanobrien7169]

"As you can see, it just doesn't fit together. I can force it in...but it just wasn't working out..." Story of my life...

[@johns_craft8582]

😂😮😃🙂😐🤔😳🤨💀

[@StephenEtherington]

Just wanted to say, i am new to 3D printing and i have watched a lot of KZbin trying to get my head around this addictive, hobby but your videos are by far the most helpful. keep it up please.

[@seanobrien7169]

Very informative, you covered a few things I wouldn't have thought about. Especially only scaling down one part instead of both. Common sense, but that would not have occured to me until I ran the print. Good to have you back, looking forward to see the progress on the shop.

[@mrnlce7939]

Prusa slicer x/y compensation -0.1 works for me. Both parts would be the same size as well. Great video. Keep up the good work.

[@stark8659]

great vid as always u'r the best when it comes to overcome 3d printing issues so thank you dude

[@ItsMeaDMaDe]

Thanks a lot I’m glad I’m able to help.

[@jameskellam2980]

In machining you have what is known as a clearance fit. If you make a hole the exact same size as the dowel pin, thry will not fit. They make dowelpin reamers to ease up on the hole a little. And if this is a blind hole, not a thru hole, it still wont fit unless you have a way for air to escape. You can get tight metal to fit by freezing the pin, or heating up the hole side.

[@brandonb417]

You've just dipped your toe into GD&T they teach in engineering school. I typically print models I've done, most of my modeling are machine upgrades, things for around the house or models for my customers. GD&T is super important when you're trying to get it to fit onto a machine. I would say the best thing to do would be print a 1"x1"x1" cube and measure, use a calibration cube for each material (assuming you can keep your humidity under control. I understand what you're saying that the modelers are living in paradise since we can make all the adjustments. I always joke, I can make anything look good on the computer.

[@petergomberg6472]

Love your very informative videos. One thing I do to help parts fit is I scale them in Blender on the two axes that need to be changed. I will do a few test prints to see what works. It's super easy to do, press TAB to go into edit mode after you select your object, then just select the part of the object you need to scale, press S for scale, then hold down shift and press either X and Y, or whatever 2 axes you need, X and Z, etc., then type "0.95" for 95% for example I've tried 0.95, 0.90, 0.85 and usually 0.95 works great. Of course this is once your printer is printing accurately.

[@SaiLentKnight]

Great video! Thank you 😊

[@ItsMeaDMaDe]

Glad it was helpful!

[@pacificcoastminiatures]

If you have an stl you could split the model in Tinkercad and then scale just the peg. And some slicers let you split an stl so you don’t even need Tinkercad.

[@ShootingBlanks00]

I’m familiar with the horizontal stuff. Just wish I knew about it sooner than when I did.

[@TS_Mind_Swept]

I actually started out 3D modeling before I ever printed anything, so when I was already pretty familiar with it when I finally got a printer. For a while I just made individual parts (or who's interaction didn't much matter), but when I finally needed something to hold together, I did some tests prints and figured out that 0.2mm offset is good for sliding, and 0.1mm for a fricton fit (at least with larger parts, on ones that are only a few millimeters it seems to need to be bumped up 0.1mm more), at least for my printer, not sure how it would work for others (and don't forget to fillet your vertical corners BlargNaut )

[@SamiGale]

Thank you for the great explanation and all your videos. I printed out the models and everything from on the tighter test that is .25 and lower is basically fused together. I noticed in bambu studio (x1c) it does look fused on some of them. Is this then nozzle/slicer/printer dial in that need to be addressed or is that pretty darn good in terms of accuracy for a home 3d printer.

[@MrWoody17309]

Hi I have just bought a SUNLU s9 plus printer and I’m stumped. My test file printed after setup but now I can’t get anything out of it. The first layers just won’t stick and I get a bowl of spaghetti I know I have watched one of your vids that could help but I can’t find it now. Can you please help

[@sirrodneyffing1]

Thank you. Useful video. But I noticed the gap in the seams and thought, can you get tighter fitting seams? Maybe, could you use variable layer heights (much lower layer height right on the edge) and maybe ironing to get more perfect edges right where the 2 parts join? Just a thought, could be a silly idea, but I'm going to try it.

[@simona625]

A simple mod.... remove the corners of the peg. Doesn't need more that 0.2 chamfer, just enough to knock off the edges, sides and end

[@gcm3d]

I was experimenting with X-Y hole and contour compensation and it seems to work for nuts and bolts and whatever, so I guess it can work for this as well.

[@xdragonx5373]

hey i got a ender 3 in my room and i print PLA is that bad ? i got my door open and a fan

[@ericcatoire76]

hi, thanks for your videos.. very intersting ! i think there is a different between "tolerance" realted to tools precision and "gap" between pieces witch allow movement.

[@adiandanna]

Yeah. He's saying tolerance but he means clearance.

[@core36]

I’d expect to use a tolerance of about the radius of the nozzle. The filament thickness becomes roughly the diameter of the nozzle, so half of the filament thickness ends up inside the part, the other half outside of the part. Given an exact print, this expansion of the filament will overlap, by exactly the radius of the nozzle. A .4mm nozzle needs .2mm tolerance to fit. So you’d need to move both walls apart by .1mm. Make sure to not accidentally double the tolerance, especially when making screw holes But a 3D print is never perfect and exact so your mileage may vary.

[@EDC3DP]

You can also in Prusa slicer you can just add a box modifier around the peg and put the setting in to do external perimeters first and a lot of times that will give you enough room to be able to slide those parts in easily you can also use the cut tool and isolate just the peg that way you can change just the percentage size on the peg of your X & Y axis that way the main portion of the print doesn't change in size only the peg

[@Blaggsta]

I did a box with 16x16 outer dimension and another box with 16x16mm inner dimension... it fit perfectly.. I mean perfect!. but I rotated it 90 degrees and it was a bit tight! This was with cura and using PLA+... I wondered if it was the contracting of the plastic when cooling..

[@DPTARMIGAN]

My issue is print in place interlocked models like puzzles. The parts never have enough clearance unless the modeller makes it so. Going to try some of the suggestions here in Orca and Cura.

[@pacificcoastminiatures]

Great video! Any tips for resin prints? Some resins do shrink when you cure them.

[@ItsMeaDMaDe]

That’s interesting the resins I’ve used never so I’ve never experienced that. Is there a specific type of resin or brand? But you probably could use the calculator I made in the same way to fine what you need to scale it too to accommodate the shrinking.

[@PeterAgostiniJdcap26]

I use the caliper to make the square smaller by knowing how over sized it is then deducting that and plugging it in to x or y on scaling icon in cura or studio

[@janoshorvath9430]

I think it is a better practice to make these changes within the CAD environment because if you need to re-slice the model for some reason, you will need to remember / tweak these values again. Also, once you're familiar with your printer's capabilities, you'll have a second nature guessing the right amount of tolerance.

[@xnetworkDEVILx]

Please can u make review for the V400

[@_CLARK3D_]

Very informative. But if you could do a tolerance video of collapsible sword using bambu studio that'd be awesome

[@aabernethy2002]

I appreciate and like your videos. I think you meant to say you need some clearance when putting to pieces together and not tolerance.

[@ItsMeaDMaDe]

Your absolutely correct and this is why I’m not an engineer. Thanks for the correction!!

[@doro626]

Hello, really slow person that is bad at math here. If you reduced the entire model by the same amount ( the first time you did it) , how does that change anything? how did it change anything? Was it solving an over extrusion issue?

[@matthewhaworth5935]

Maybe change the wording on the spreadsheet to "add" and "subtract" tolerance with a (Tighter) or (looser), just for clarity. I can tell you now some people that use it are gonna get that mixed up. Also, is there a way to add a primitive as a modifier and scale only that section?

[@olafhannappel698]

Hi Matthew! I think i know what you mean by "ppl which might gonne get that mixed up" (: Imagine to have the spreadsheet providing the wording "add tolerance (tighten)" and "substract tolerance (loosen)" ... that probably clarifies the calculation, math and values, for those people which have the "male" object (the piece which will be inserted) in mind - but could cause mixing up for the people which think of the other piece when it comes to change either ones size: the "female" object - in terms of adding or substracting, as long as there is no reference to the one or the other ... no? Thinking for longer about an unambiguous wording for the spreadsheet to have it defined perfectly clear, i feel like sliding towards the mixed up ppl ;) Thanks for the great video and helpful tipps @ItsMeaDMaDe 👍

[@howtoinvest4yourself241]

Would these numbers work the same for threaded 3d prints

[@calletey]

Maravilloso. Lo he realizado y ok. Ne resulta mejor realizando el diseño con ls tolerancia que a mi también me sale 0,5 mm Gracias

[@MsJellyfan]

whats with Hole expansion? shrinking compensation? firstlayer compensation a.s.o thought that are the parameters for that after calibrating the flow. I recommend to calibrate every printer, than you always have less stress..........

[@frkop]

it work on resin printer too?

[@DuskRiderOfficial]

Crazy how lots of people need a program to solve for a delta L 😅 (Cad dimension / actual dimension) x 100% = %error scaling factor

[@darkfrei2]

4:30 - Why you scale both, but not separately? One must be 99%, the other one must be 101% scale (except the hight scaling).

[@YouTubeStat]

I use negative parts to reduce the peg to the size I need... Or a modifier part and scale only a section of the 3D model

[@IDirtbike]

What if you just split that one part,scale the insert and then assemble them after?

[@davidzizza]

Can you use a modifier in Bambu or Orca in order to change the peg size without going back to CAD?

[@MistImp1]

You can change the size of the hole with hole compensation.

[@rayshell1147]

thought this link would be to an excel file? its to some site to sign up for web site stuff?

[@bTusler]

I printed the tolerance checker and the whole thing printed as a single piece. I use cura 4.13 and a flsun v400 printer. I have no idea how to fix it.

[@dougsholly9323]

I don't understand your second attempt (excluding tolerance, because that is necessary). Your second print just scaled everything smaller. I wouldn't expect making both pieces smaller to fit any better than the first try. You'd only want to scale down the 'male' part, and if anything, you would want to scale up the 'female' part, if fit was the goal. The dimensions on the female part would be even more off though. I am currently struggling with this. I actually built in tolerance to a model I made. It was fitting a metal bearing into a hole, and my first print the 34mm bearing didn't fit... by almost .5 mm. My whole piece was undersized. I think my printer is not calibrated. Is that a thing and where can I find how to calibrate the dimensions? There is so much information and lingo to wade through, and I get lost quite quickly. The rest of my print seems just fine, but the dimensions are always too small.

[@user-or1lu3ku3m]

Ahh yes, hiding it behind an email harvester. How scummy

[@toxxxicvision7400]

How dimensionally accurate is a delta printer in general. Would be a better representation if you used a bed slinger or core xy printer that the majority of people own.

[@ItsMeaDMaDe]

I have seen no different between all three types of printers. All of mine are typically off between .1-.2mm.

[@Ayden4107]

How about just check your bed level, offset, flow rate, print outside walls first

[@flatlander523]

I am not sure whwat time zone for live chat tomorrow morning?

[@oljobo]

It says 1h 10 minutes from now 👍😊

[@rocketboyjv5474]

Please guys it's not hard to just do the simple calculation to know the new scale. Certainly does not need a spreadsheet calculator. If you want an actually good calibration print get the calilantern. Because doing one small cube is not sufficient.

[@slabua]

One does not simply scale the models to fit.

[@hansherrera6969]

goes in and out easy.thats what she said lol

[@soniccinos]

Nah, if Im not the one modeling, I just sand.

[@jasonlockhart999]

I am a Mead Made Mailer Minion

[@ItsMeaDMaDe]

Ha ha that’s fantastic I like that one. That’s making on the list.

[@MsJellyfan]

i don´t like most things from sharing platforms, they are often designed for their own home printers with a lot of huge tolerances or like you told us, completely without tolerances, so they are pretty loose, or don´t fit. if you calibrate your printer or think just a moment about reality you get what you have designed! i can´t understand why people design things for their particular printers and not to change/calibrate/upgrade the printer(profiles) to the real world dimensions as close as possible!? Can´t even get it. Other manufacuring processes also have tolerances, why do some people designs without any tolerance? really suspicious........maybe they are the staff of the filament industry...to sell more filament because people have to print multiple times 🤔

[@lotuselansteve]

Probably just that they have a new toy and don't know what they are doing. Just because you figured out how to use Tinkercad/FreeCad etc doesn't make you a competent designer.

[@TC-dk6do]

Being each part printed on an FDM printer is a one off unit, each with its own non repeatable tolerance. This method is just a waste of time. Just design the part with an acceptable gap. You can't control many of the external influences.

[@brianr749]

Tolerance is not what you think it is. CLEARANCE is what you are calling "tolerance". And a big channel like yours is right now redefining the word for a good portion of the 3D printing public and that will get spread wider and wider as time goes on. Don't do that. Use the correct words and terms and teach the correct terms and words.

[@perniculous]

When he’s saying increase by 0.0 and decrease by 0.5 he is setting a tolerance of +0.0/-0.5.

[@AndysAlias]

The tolerance is an acceptable range in dimensions so the parts fit as required, the clearance is what he’s adjusting so it works within the tolerance

[@windforward9810]

At the start of your video there is no reason even try to print that item you have no tolerance design in the cad drawing. There nothing and I mean nothing can at 0 tolerance that will work, exception is a metal item like that is round, the inserted item is placed in dry ice so it can be press fitted. I’ve never seen it done with a square item. You maybe able press fit with a 3d plastic print doing the dry ice, but as a press fit the only way to remove the part is to dry ice both parts than heat the outside. Just so everyone knows that there is no machine that will manufacture any thing perfectly over time it will wear and the part can be larger or smaller, that is why every blue print has a tolerance of +-1 or xxxx. Was a in middle of typing before I saw your tolerance part of the video. Hope that is clearer, see response to is this my second language below.

[@lotuselansteve]

? I take it that English isn't your first language?

[@windforward9810]

It’s but I’ve got a head injury from being in the military that affects my speech and writing. Sometimes my writing is better others it way worst. I’ll leave it at that.

[@windforward9810]

I guess yours is not, why a ? mark at the beginning of the sentence, that is not in any English textbook. lol

[@VR6NAVYVW]

While a lot of good info, most the beginning is a waste of time and probably confusing to people who don't understand what they are doing. If you having given you part tolerance, that is the problem. That's it. Lesson 1 in mechanical engineering.