Instructions

Print objects 4 times at full size and 4 times at half size with recommended filament and printer settings. Measure each feature side and base of part 4 times and enter data into the corresponding Excel sheet. The Excel sheet will output an adjustment scale factor and a regression plot to show the accuracy of this scale factor

Methodology or Approach

To calculate the dimensional error across filaments, 2 sets of test artifacts were printed on two separate printers (both printers were identical make and models), each of these test artifact sets had 8 features on it to be measured ranging from 25mm to 5mm and each feature was measured 4 times on various sides. This left a sample size of 128 measurements per filament. The filaments used in this experiment were PLA, ABS, PETG, carbon fiber composite, and nylon composite. The measured difference between the actual measurement of the part feature and the intended geometry was collected and analyzed. Regression analysis was carried out, comparing feature size to dimensional error as well as population difference in means to compare/ contrast the part error across materials.