Hello, I hope this wasn’t covered already but my issue is I get lines in my printed parts. I’m not certain if my .STL file generated by Solidworks is to blame or it is a printer setting. Any feedback on the issue would be appreciated.
What you’re seeing is normal—layer lines are a result of the 3D printing process since parts are printed layer by layer. They tend to be more visible at the top of the print where the angle is shallower, kind of like the “slices” in a topographical map.
There are a couple of ways you can reduce the visibility of these lines, you can try using a smaller layer height in PreForm, which will give you finer layers, but will take longer to print. Another option is to re-orient the part. The more vertical a face is (closer to 90 degrees from the build platform), the less visible the layers will be. Surfaces that are closer to being parallel with the platform will show more layers.
You can check out this PreForm guide on part orientation for more tips on how to get the best surface quality.
That is NOT normal of SLA unless the model has those lines in it or the pritner’s layer thickness is set too high.
If you look at the images from your company you’ll see that they are only slightly noticeable when zoomed in. https://support.formlabs.com/s/article/Adjusting-layer-thickness?language=en_US
I would agree this is not normal considering my layer thickness is set to .1mm and these lines are spaced ~1mm. Also, these lines are not a part of the model.
Any other suggestions out there? Perhaps the way I am generating my .stl?
You can check if your export to STL has these lines by bringing it into another 3D program like Blender etc., but you should see those kind of lines even in PreForm.