3D Printing Lexicon

Special Vocabulary and Terms

Often used with 3D Printing

Normal

Although unique the Quality meets or exceeds limits and the parts achieve enough objectives without too much hassle.

Turbo-Charging

Using a 3D Printer to print upgrade parts for a 3D Printer especially those that improve the Quality and Speed of the 3D Printer but also Safety and Ease of Use improvements too.

Open-Source

Free and Open projects for which the Source Code is readily available on the Internet. This shortens the cycles of iterations and improvements and also lets everyone benefit from those improvements in a public collective.

First Layer

Just like first impressions the First Layer of 3D Printing is very important to get right. If this layer doesn’t “go down right” it jeopardizes the entire print. It’s always best to start with a good foundation first so don’t be afraid to restart the print now rather than waste time and filament.

Boogers

The filament blobs stuck to the nozzle that often burn, discolor, and dislodge in the part usually in the worst spot. Sometimes their occurrence can be exasperated by pausing the print to fix previous Boogers. Make sure you wipe your nozzle especially if you have a runny filament that continually oozes. Weather you wipe front-to-back, back-to-front, side-to-side style, or pinch-and-yank I’m sure you’ll figure out something that works consistently enough for you. Just be Lickety-Split with the nozzle mopping and your future will be better.

Layer Shift

When the entirety of the printed part shifts unexpectedly while printing usually due to missed stepper motor steps. Minor Layer Shifts might only effect the part cosmetically and the print may continue as Normal. Severe and repeated Layer Shifts may lead to Printing In Mid-Air or the remainder of tower like structures breaking off depending on the geometry of the printed parts. It’s important to determine and correct the cause to avoid wasting more time and filament.

Printing Air

When the 3D Printer is printing but no filament is coming out. Can be caused by a clogged nozzle, stuck filament, broken filament, an incorrect filament path, or by a debug setting enabled while compiling Marlin. Usually it’s risky to continue a print once too many layers have been skipped because of future structural issues that may arise. Experts can sometimes intervene manually and edit the G-Code to remove the already printed section and start their new modified print job without letting the print bed cool off too much to release the parts before completion depending upon machine and firmware configuration. Everyone else usually just starts the print over and hopes it doesn’t happen again. Those with more time and less dollars and pickiness might compromise by re-slicing and printing the missing remainder and gluing the prints together.

Printing in Mid-Air

When the 3D Printer attempts to start printing an area with no previous layers below or close enough to it’s current location to support the current material being extruded. Overhangs that are too steep and Bridges that are too long may exhibit mild characteristics but severe outbreaks could lead to a Spaghetti Mess or worse even canceling parts of the print or the entire print if correct completion will not yield Normal results. One limitation of current additive manufacturing techniques employed by 3D Printers requires continual and adequate structural support during production. Printing in Mid-Air can be caused by Layer Shifts, by not enabling “Generate Support Material” during slicing, or by previous structural failures during printing, or rarely by a large list of remote causes too lengthy and technical to list here.

Spaghetti Mess

The large balls of loosely-packed extruded filament that appear if Printing in Mid-Air is allowed to continue. This can literally snow-ball if left unattended with addition parts becoming dislodged by larger and larger plastic balls being drug around by the Hotend thus contributing to the speed at which the devastation occurs.

Killer Blob

A large ball of molten plastic that envelops the Hotend which can lead to fire and multiple deaths. Given enough time, speed, and flow-rate a Spaghetti Mess can melt into a solid mass that continually follows the Hotend. Continued localization of the extruded material beneath the Hotend can lead to the Hotend Heater and Hotend Thermistor wiring becoming encapsulated in plastic which makes liberating the Hotend of plastic without cutting wires much more difficult, tedious, and time-consuming. If the Hotend Thermistor wires become disconnected the Hotend Heater may go into a thermal runaway condition if a Thermal Runaway Management Solution is not properly configured and enabled in the 3D Printer’s firmware. Thermal Runaway of a 3D Printer Hotend may produce temperatures exceeding the ignition temperature of plastic thus leading to a fire which could cause damage, injury, and multiple deaths. It’s very important to keep your 3D Printer off of and away from flammable objects or surfaces to minimize the risk of any potential fire spreading to consume the structure where the printer resides and the surrounding buildings, equipment, and vehicles. Test your smoke detectors regularly. Having a working smoke detector and fire extinguisher in the same room as the 3D printer is recommended if the building is made from flammable materials.

Pimples

The small plastic blobs left on the outside of parts where the nozzle seam started and stopped especially if left on random. Sometimes these can be reduced by tuning the 3D Printer retraction settings or moved to a less visible or important area by aligning the seams or painting their desired location on the part prior to slicing if your chosen software supports such features.

Replication

Using a 3D Printer to print parts to build another 3D Printer especially those of the same make and model. This could possibly be further classified into a Parent – Child relationship or a Heterogeneous Family Bush depending on the Drama Level.