I am looking to prototype some parts and was wondering about minimum feature sizes and best printer/materials to use.
I am hoping to create a part with ~200 um diameter holes, patterned in an ~ 1 mm thick rectangle about the size of a post-it note. Are printers capable of building this within an ~10 um accuracy? If so, what do you recommend for materials/printer to use?
There are no strict mechanical/chemical property requirements for this part. Only the holes are uniform and somewhat smooth.
Thanks for the help. I was originally hoping for cylindrical holes through the part. A square shaped hole might work as well.
The reason I ask is because I plan to drop 180 um spheres through the holes. I need them to be able to pass through each hole consistently (and I can not just increase the size of the hole).
What printing material would you recommend for highest quality without spending a whole lot on this project($250+)?
For strength, ABS is a good choice. Printing holes that small is a challenge and will require some iteration to get them just right on the printer. The best thing to do is to print the part to nominal and then run a 200 micron carbide drill bit through the holes. This reaming process will ensure consistent 200 micron diameter holes. However, depending on the number of holes you have, this might be an impractical/tedious secondary operation. How many holes are you trying to print? If you have a 3D (Solidworks, STL etc) file, I’d be happy to take a look at the possibilities.
In that case, I would avoid 3D printing. If you need the part stiff, then 1mm thick FR4 PCB material would work well. A CNC machine or laser cutter would be able to make this part for low cost out of a variety of materials. In fact, if you are not averse to using FR4 PCB material, you could design the part for PCB fabrication process. The holes will be very accurate. I occasionally send boards to a vendor for fabrication who will turn the board around in a week and most likely be under $100 for 10 boards. I can send you the contact details if you wish and am happy to assist you with the “board” design if that’s sound like a reasonable approach.
Alternately, a machine shop will be able to fabricate this part for you.
This sounds similar in description to microfilters almost along the lines of a coffee/tea filter/mesh. I don’t think you’re going to get the support and stiffness in the material printing through 3D printed methods using either ABS or PLA nor will you be able to get symmetrical holes created within the traditional setup… might be better accomplished through laser micro-drilling or cnc with micron drillbit
