Good reminder that it's all fun and games when printing big-busted winged figurines - until you need to print something practical.

cool video! One small trick, not sure if it is already mentioned here: measure the pin size with calipers, now *zero the caliper*, then measure the outside distance between pins - it'll give you the exact distance between pins.

Holy cow. I'm very new to 3d printing, only actually printing about a dozen things. They were always too small, and since all of this is new to me, and there is a plethera of new terminology, I've been scouring the interwebs trying to figure out why. I thought my printer was either broke, or there was some calibration sequence I needed to do. I had basically given up, frustrated that I had to manually model everything larger to compensate, since I had no idea what was wrong. And then youtube dropped this in my lap. Thanks so much for taking the time to make this. No overly complicated terminology and a very simple solution. You saved my sanity! I hope your tester came out well!

Just so you guys know if you are using PLA and your parts are slightly to big (or your holes are slightly too small) your issue may be solved by increasing your horizontal expansion offset. Basically the PLA is expanding just a little bit due to the heat of melting it, so your parts will be just a little to big. The horizontal expansion offset can help fix this. You will need to do multiple tests seeing what value works best for you.

For precise features, we usually CAD those features in a very thin, quick, proto print to get them accurate. Then the full size part. This saves lots of iterative printing time and waste material. Also for threads, snap fits, flex fits, and anything that fits something from "the real world" or even another printer.

Great engineering level video thank you. “I’m using black because BLACK” 🤣

It would be great if you could do a similar video, showing the full process of calibrating the printer for accurate dimensions and setup of Simplify 3D. Your way of explaining things is really good.

Great video. Just pulled my old Tarantulas printer out printed an insulated spacer had almost exact errors you had. Your video confirmed my method I was about to do this morning. I am electronic designer by trade, worked with lots good machinist over the years each taught me real world solutions just like this video series. Big thank you.

This is an awesome video! Material shrinkage is something I've never thought about or even considered when modelling. But I will be factoring it in when printing dimensionally accurate parts from now on. Great job!

awesome! I found this as well with fitting a circuit board. You are the only one on the internet with the right fix. I spent a lot of time going down the wrong rabbit holes lol. subscribed!

Brilliant as always, James!

Love the “to my calibrated eye” ! I use that all the time. Nice clear and thorough explication of the shrinkage problem and how to fix it. I just bought a FDM printer and learning how to use it and that is an issue I have run up against. Thanks for the great video!

I learn something useful every time I watch one of your videos. Keep it up!

Thanks for the great advice, I never considered the shrinkage of the material being used. Makes a lot of sense!

Thank you for sharing your experience with us and I really enjoyed the video presentation. It showed me how one should go about dealing with shrinkage. Things that I noticed and hope you will continue to do include: You don't assume too much of the experience or knowledge of your audience which I think is great. You disclosed brand names of what you used (filament, 3D program, 3D slicer, spreadsheet, etc.) which I liked. It gives me ideas on how I can use them more effectively or in my environment. Your spreadsheet usage was particular interesting to me. You scripting of your video was well done in that you presented what you wanted to do, demonstrated the problem (with lots of visual close up shots) on what happened, how you identified the problem, the possible solutions and the final solution that you settled on. I thought that a visual inspection of the 3D object would have suggested that the problem was not in the hardware (i.e. 3D printer) but somewhere else since the printed object looked pretty good. But I do commend you for doing your 'due diligence' to make sure that you didn't miss anything as part of your problem analyze segment. As a side note, I thought that if I were looking for the actual shrinkage value due to the equipment & material, I would print the largest diameter rectangle that my printer to produce and measure the resultant print. The deviation between designed & actual dimension would be the most accurate. But back to the video. The pacing was sometimes fast, especially when not familiar with the application or situation but I was able to follow it. The video presentation was professionally done, with great video framing & sound reproduction. Thank you especially for taking the time to do a great presentation. Finally, I do want you to know that I appreciate the time & effort that you put in producing the video and encourage you to continue to do so. Take care and stay safe, Pat Young

This is a fantastic video. Clear explanation of problem with simple workaround. Subscribed!

Once Again ! Great solutions, for real world problems !!! Love this channel !!!

in the beginning i thought, that you didn't calibrate your axis correct, but your solution and description are GREAT... a new aspect to improve my parts. thx ;) hope that the software desire not too much manual changes in settings when changing filament OR temp! automatic part-enlargement should be mandatory for filament-settings ... NOT after importing, but BEFORE PRINTING!

I think it’s amazing what you can do on the 3D printer! I am proud of you for finding a problem and fixing it! Good stuff James!

Nice example. Thanks for taking the time to show that. Using Siemens NX, I like to add manufacturing specific features like this at the end of the model history, and place these features in a named feature group. That way I model the part as it should be, and then have a group of features for 3D printing (or other manufacturing process) that can be suppressed or unsuppressed as a group. For example, I might enlarge holes slightly based on inaccuracy of the 3D print. Scaling the final part for shrinkage would be a feature in the feature group.

Great video, this is invaluable information for anyone doing practical prints! 👍

Thank you for sharing your solution! Very easy to understand explanation and solution. I've seen a few of your other videos and as always, you do an excellent job of presenting your topics in a clear, well organized fashion. Keep up the great work!

I work in a 3d printing lab and we have had this same problem. I haven't thought of this solution so thank you this will save a lot of time and money.

This may be late, but wouldn't you scale by the reciprocal of the part scale (e.g., to account for a shrinkage of 25% that would result in a part at 75%, you would scale by 1/0.75=1.333...)

You can change to a Z up orientation in Fusion 360 by clicking on your name in the upper right and selecting "preferences". In the general tab look for "default modeling orientation" and change it from "Y up" to "Z up"

You sir have made a video that I was exactly looking for. Thank you so much.

Well done, very helpful! You have given very usable and succinct information...thanks for your time and attention to detail! Thanks and best regards, Dave

Great video, thank you for taking the time to go through all the details 🙏🏾

Great video!! Thank you for the detailed explanation on resolving the issue

WOW That was such an educational video. Thanks for uploading!

Thank you for sharing this fantastic tip

These are valuable videos! Thanks for them.

Well thought out and executed. Nice video.

I just wish all KZfaq videos were as clear and concise as this. Great Job....!

Thank you. My projects have been coming out a little undersized. Now I know what to do.

You can go to preferences in Fusion and change so Z is up :)

This was a great video to watch. Ive been having an issue of critical cylindrical features being undersized in a part. Ill definitely try your method out.

Very interesting. I suppose the shrinkage changes based on the thickness and shape . . . . . if it were directly proportional, no matter what, printing a set of 12" "rulers with very fine scale marked, then compare to actual ruler and maybe that would tell you whether the shrinkage happens across the scale, or jsut in certain parts?. Love your videos, and the Fusion 360 has been far more useful than what pertain to be F360 tutorials. You make it far clearer than those other guys! Thanks!

One of the best videos on this problem I’ve seen. Thanks man!

Another outstanding video that explains why I had to keep scaling my parts to fit precisely! By trial and error, the factor for my ABS was 1.1%!

I am a photographer. I still use the old 4X5 field cameras. Last year I bought an MPP MK VII technical field camera for landscape photography. It came with one lens board of Copal 1 size. This camera has not been produced since the early 70s so, instead of paying silly prices for battered old lensboards off the Bay, I decided to 3D print them using a CF infused PLA. I ran exactly into the same problem as you just did. Both trial size No 0 and No1 boards came out undersized. I had to adjust the printing sizes in Cura by quite a bit , around 1% mark If my memory serves me right, to get the lens flange to fit the holes and the retaining nut fit in. I am not quite 100% sure if the quoted filament sizes are accurate or not either.

Great video! So much knowledge and perfectly explained the issues I was having with ASA. Thank you

Excellent video, thank you!

Nicely explained and demonstrated.

WoW. I really enjoyed this video, very well layed out & explained in a logical way. I am just a day away from using my first roll of ABS & now I know how to deal with part inaccuracies. Great timing for me thank you very much, I've subscribed & am eager to see more of what you do. Cheers Di

What a tremendously presented study of shrinkage and the solutions thereof.

Thanks, me ayudó mucho, hoy mismo probaré ajuntar la impresión :)

Great video! I run into this problem a lot, too.

Thank you very much, this information and explanation will solve and make a big difference to those that are trying to get into 3D printing and can't understand why their parts don't finish dimensionally accurate. The information you provided, how you arrived to your problem solving methods and ultimately the end result were great. I just wish i knew more about Excel to do a simple number processing file as you did for averaging numbers(measurements). This will be something i research now as it will help me a lot and speed up my post part analyzing process.

Excellent! Very helpful and well done. Thank You.

Thank you for this video! Helped me out a lot

Been 3d printing now for 3 years and still have been doing the scaling manually on simplify3d. Thankw for making my 3d printing life much simpler. I do a lot of mechanical parts so this helps a lot.

Thank You! Mind Blown! Once my 3D Skill Level is ready for action, I'm gonna make some super custom sewing machine presser foot attachments (to help glide over stubborn fabrics). Schooling us that the ABS 3D Printer filamint will shrink a bit after it's cooled greatly reduces my shock expectancy of my first printed piece.

Outstanding! You are an amazing engineer! Great video, well explained.

Excellent work

really love your channel, keep up the great work.

Great information!

Nice work James 👍. Sigh, now I have to keep a crib sheet for filaments by brand/type and whack some small frames together and measure.

So that explains that😂 learning as I go along, but was disappointed with why my perfectly designed part was too tight in the real world. And now I know! Thanks for a great lesson!

To get the maximum precision, you should print a test piece at the largest size possible, that way, the shrinkage will be amplified making it easier to measure.

Wow this explains so much. I've ALWAYS had an issue with things being printed a little undersized and I've been 3D printing for 7 years now. I figured it was just my crappy old printer. I've been setting my prints to 101% or 102% for a long time, but great to know the reason now.

Thank you for that great video, very informative for the 3d printer community!!!

YES, finally someone who is using 3d printing for engineering purposes. Altho I'm looking for DLP tips, this came very handy for those mucked up designs :)

Don't have a 3D printer yet, but this was educational as someday one will be making its way home with me and it's good to have a heads up regarding print issues that one can experience.

I learn so much from you. Thank you

Husband Richard saw you on wife's phone and I subscribed cuse I love to build and design and create .you video was helpful to me with your concise explaining I could understand perfectly. Now I will remember shrinkage. Every now and than I will reach out to you with 3d print solving for help. Very well done 👏

Amazing video.... This helps a lot

Nice and succinct explanation. I've run into a similar issue and hadn't considered material shrinkage despite ruling out the same mechanical factors. My error is of the same magnitude hence my new suspicion of material shrinkage. Thanks 👍

Thanks for your experience and how you fixed your specific problem. I'm using Cura so I have to explore my options and I also have to verify if I do this whether or not already made .STLs haven't been scaled up for a material if I go this route. But I really like how this would alleviate some of the headaches of issues related to FDM printing for my use case.

Thank you so much. O was looking around to cope with that problem with abs for a very long tiime

I really enjoyed your video . . It was very informative . . Thank You 😊

Thanks a lot for this nice explication

Thank you so much, was looking for Pogo pins but was not able to remember what they was called :-/ so you save me a lot of time :-D

thanks pretty interesting, it explains me similar issues I had

it is awesome to see some real engineetring work on the topic.. thanks bro...

This was so educational ❤

Awesome video thanks it helps alot.

Thank you so much for this video! 👍

Brilliant!!! Thank you so much for sharing.... Brilliant.

As a retired guy it was an excitement to look a t this video. I think I’ll set aside my resin printer just to try your ticks. Thanks. JP.

Avsome, I was thinking how to fix it. Thanks for video.

very helpful... thanks!

Thanks a lot, sir! This informations are very useful.

awesome work

Good tip. Thanks

Excellent video! Definitely subscribing to the channel!

what a fantastic explanation

The pitch of the GT2 belt is actually only valid for a particular specified belt tension. If the tension is wrong, the pitch is wrong, because it does stretch by quite a bit! Well then again that's my experience and i use Chinese parts and not Gates belt. But its easy to check, you tape your calipers down under the nozzle when it's close to the bed, jog the head a bit via controls, zero the caliper, and then have the print head walk a known distance and compare. It's probably pretty close, not enough to make up that difference. The claimed 0.8% shrinkage for standard ABS is significantly less than what i've seen myself, i expect closer to 1.2% shrinkage. I think they have a measurement method which is very kind to shrinkage number. But any figure is a rough guideline since shrinkage is non-uniform depending on shape.

Great, very knowledgeable.

Now this is what I love about this channel, you just know that when James does something...he does it right! Yet another great video James, keep it up mate! 👍👍👍

Oh man, that is gonna save me so many test prints to calibrate and scale up whatever parts I need to be dimensionally accurate.

My ender 3 has sat for 5 months.... been moved... cats walk across it...i finally started printing again and printed 10mm and 20mm test cube, without leveling my bed, just cleaning the glass, and my parts came out .02mm off. Not too damn bad. Printed a print in place box with attached hinged lid... and i didn't even have BREAK free the hinge, it rotated right away. Love it.

Great video!

Second video i have watched of yours. awesome job. Liked and Subbed! I like the logical process of elimination and the solution is so simple it could slap you in the face :)

Very nice solution, I'll try it.

Awesome video buddy 👍

Excellent thank you

Thanks ! I can use this !

It was clear for me from beginning. But this video us ideal practical explanation.

excellent stuff.