Im new on the Forum (and dont have a formlabs printer as of now) and would like to ask the community the following:
I work as an Engineer for a wholesaler and developer of screws, bolts and nuts, With my company, we would like to be able to use 3D printers for prototyping / developement of screws. Will the Form 2 be capable of printing threads that will run through a screw gauge? Prefered size for printing will be M2 and up (max M8).
M2 and M3 are going to be really tough to print. Your best bet for those is going to be either Rigid, grey pro, or Dental model resins.
From what I’ve heard accuracy is a little machine and process dependent. Small parts will need to be cleaned really well and allowed to dry completely before final cure.
Anything that needs an accurate ID feature (like an allen cap screw) may need to be designed slightly over sized.
Same feeling here. Under M4 I don’t even bother because while the screw may work it will not be on spec.
There is also a difference between printing somewhat functionnal screws and screws which will pass a couple of pass/fail gauge. My guess is that
Because the’yre plastic, you will not be able to perform a pass/fail test correctly as a .05mm inacuracy will just deform the screw and you’ll be able to make it pass through
Following point 1, .05mm is way over the accuracy that you can reasonably expect from an SLA printer.
TL;DR : under M4 forget it, over M4 and up to M8 is really depends on what you want to do with it.