Test Run of Cowl Ventilators on a SLA printer

3d modeling. It is a constant learning process. I have had some cowl ventilators printed on a Multi-Jet printer and a SLA printer. Generally the Multi-Jet printer seems to print a harder/stiffer model than the SLA printer for the same wall thickness. The photo shows a test run of the ventilators from a SLA printer. The wall thickness was 0.5mm or about 0.019″ thick. This isn’t thick enough for the relatively large cowl/tube. The problem is in part due to the way a SLA printer works .. layers of resin are ‘cured’ using a focused light. The prints have to be hardened after printing using UV light … so between the curing and hardening the prints are more like a thick jello .. therefore possible problems with thinner walls.This can be addressed somewhat via the supports used but that I haven’t had ‘hands on’ .. yet.

I think that increasing the wall thickness on these models from that .5mm to .75mm .. or to about 0.030″ would give some good prints.

In the meanwhile .. thinking of offering these for sale as “Breaking Yard Details” ..

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