Need advice for printing difficult part

[Mike B]

I have been contacted to print the attached .stl file and am having a hard time with it. The part has 5 200 micron slits in it and every print I have done results in the slits being closed.

I am using natural white ABS and have tried both MatterSlicer and Slic3r without results. I just ordered a .35 nozzle to see if that helps, but am waiting for that to arrive still.

Any advice on technique or slicer settings? Is it even possible to print? Thanks!

[McSlappy]

Try Kisslicer first - I haven't been able to ever get Slic3r to produce detailed parts - seems to produce a too-fat bead.

How critical are the outer dimensions? Within Kiss, you can 'shrink' the model by say .01mm if that would help the slits show, but it would also affect the outer dimensions.

You'll need a nicely tuned filament profile and zero vertical wobble to get this to work I think. Also slow it down, not sure what speed you're at, but with this I'd not go above 30mm/s to keep the vertical walls as aligned as possible.

[Mike B]

Thanks for the reply McSlappy. I received the 0.35 nozzle yesterday and sliced the model using Kiss as you suggested. I tried a few things such as rotating the model so that the slits were created by layer height instead of by nozzle width. I set it down to 50 micron layers. Everything I threw at it ended up not working, so I let the customer know I couldn't do the print, but hey I have a new nozzle and know how to use Kiss now, so it's kind of a win!

[DocHogan]

It might be worth spending some time with Autodesk's MeshMixer in order to isolate printing issues. As well, you can define your own support structures and find what works best. It is available for free at http://www.123dapp.com