Make Honeycomb structure

Hello,

I want to print a object with a “honeycomb” structure, but it’s possible with printer with resin ??
It would be practical for it to be lighter !

I don’t have found a good software for do that…

Thank you

You could prepare your design as following:

  • make it hollow from the inside
  • design a honeycomb pattern in your CAD
  • fill your part with the pattern and you’re ready to go

Yes but I have a .stl file, and I want to change directely on this file…

Yes, it is possible. To really take advantage of it, you’ll need to leave a drain hole so that the uncured resin inside the hollowed area can escape. It’s actually a good idea to leave 2 holes, one on the top and one on the bottom.

As for how to do it. Autodesk’s Meshmixer can hollow an STL file. It can even add the holes for you. But I don’t think that it will add any sort of honeycomb for you. I know that Autodesk had a prototype of that at one point, but I think that they were folding that into NetFABB rather than Meshmixer, so you might look there. But, you actually can just hollow the part without adding the internal lattice. Just make sure that in PreForm, you generate supports with the “Internal Supports” option selected. This will add enough supports inside the hollowed region to make the part print successfully. You won’t be able to remove them after it’s printed, but if you’re using an opaque resin you won’t know they’re there. If you’re using one of the clear resins, then you probably want to figure out how to add a lattice or honeycomb because, as you know, PreForm’s supports are a little random looking.

Honeycomb is not a good fit for SLA printing. You would need to vent/drain each and every cavity to make this work.

Normally it’s best to just hollow out the part to a thickness that makes it functional, cut a vent based on how you want to orient in the printer, and print.