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Hey,

So i’m kind of new with 3D printing, and for a project i would need to print an honeycomb very small (about 1mm hexagons) with the smallest walls possible (to still have more opening than walls). It’s not totally set, smaller/thinner is the best!

Here i mean honeycomb not as structure, but really as final result.

Also it should be about 200mm high.

I have a Felix 3.1 dual head (so 0,35mm nozzle and 0,05mm layer thickness).

It doesn’t have to handle heat, but it have to be lightproof matt black (possibility to paint also, which ad some mm tens).

It have to hold is own weight (several pieces glues together for a total of 1m by 1,5m)

Which material would be the best to do that? ABS? Nylon? PET? PC?..

Does it may need support material?

thanks!

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I would suggest you look at getting Simplify3D slicer as it will make things easier for you. I think the thinnest you’ll be able to do will be about 0.4mm (width of nozzle + expansion)

It will be up to your design asto whether it will support its own weight etc. As you will need to think about the structures involved.

Felix (I have one) will not be able to print PET/PC as it stands. I’ve modified mine to have the e3D-v6 extruder and I can do all but these two, just can’t reach the upper temperature required, I’ve tried PC but failed as I couldn’t reach the higher temps and was getting layer separation. With the E3D I can get up to 297 DegC as the max. It will also depend on what size your pieces will be as doing thin wall with ABS will more than likely have lots of problems with warping and layer separation due ABS shrinkage/cooling. You will also want to insulate your hotbed to be able to get up to 100Degc

I’ve done a bit of nylon printing and can warp as well, the newer bridge nylon is very good, but ASFAIK is only white so you would need to look at dying the filament for any other colour.

Another good choice could possible be the proto pasta Carbon fibre filament, very light and strong and is a greying black in colour. Ive done some testing with this, although a bit expensive. It is basically a PLA and Carbon fibre mix, so has similar temp range as PLA

Basically it will all boil down to how you design your structures as to whether it will be self supporting.

I’m assuming that when you say support material it is support being printed that will be removed. Again all boils down to how your design is. In theory anything < 45 Deg overhang will require support material.

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Like the previous poster, I think the lower limit of your wall thickness will be imposed by the nozzle - about 0.4 mm, regardless of which material you use. With hexagons with a side of 1 mm, I think the walls would cover about 25% of the surface - thus leaving 75% openings. I know in your case it isn’t infill - but it sure looks a lot like infill. And 25% infill can definitely support its own weight.

As to lightproof - not sure if one wall would be ‘lightproof’ enough for what you want to accomplish. Probably not. But a block of 20x20x20 cm would have about 100 walls from side to side, I’m pretty confident that wouldn’t leak any light. The matt finish however could be a factor - PLA and ABS tend to be quite glossy.

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Hey irpyc,

I think the wall thickness has been explained pretty well already. But I just had a few thoughts that I feel you should consider.

As far as I understand, this endeavour will be a “2.5D”-honeycomb, where you draw the hexagons in xy hundreds of times. (If not, don’t even think of printing this on a FDM machine!)

I have had to print similar honeycombs before, albeit with much larger hexagons (2.5cm sides) and smaller blocks. The biggest problem there was not even wall thickness, but very, very severe thermal warping. With PLA that is. Basically, the prints took so long, that the thin walls just melted into themselves and lifted from the bed, despite running only 60°C pure glass bed which had given me zero problems for hundreds of hours before.

My point is, do test prints before you embark on the full 200mm height.

Another point is the material. As I said, even PLA can give you trouble, most likely since the contact area with the bed is pretty small. That’s kind of the point of honeycomb, right? What I would suggest is some sort of composite material. In my experience, these have very, very, very low tendencies to warp. It does not necessarily have to be carbon fibre, even though I particularly like @Colorfabb’s XT-CF20. Wood filled material will be just as light “proof”, quite a bit cheaper and you don’t need to worry about hardened nozzles. For this application I would recommend FormFutura’s EasyWood.

Hope this helps,

Jonas