This comes down to either replacing the fan for a higher quality one, or using a fan duct which properly directs the cool air to your 3D prints. The first thing I would do to improve my overhangs is increase the efficiency of my layer cooling.

It isn’t always possible to eliminate those angles, so let’s get into the good stuff. How To Improve Overhangs in Your 3D PrintsĪs previously mentioned, making sure your models don’t have angles higher than 45° is a great solution to overhangs, but there are a lot more ways to improve overhangs that you can be implementing in your 3D printing. Luckily, there are many methods to improve just how much overhang our 3D printers can deliver, so stay tuned to find out these tips and tricks. Some models are complex, making it pretty hard to avoid overhangs in the first place. You want your layers to have more surface area to have adhesion for successful, strong 3D prints. Going past that 50% point really outweighs the support needed for a solid enough foundation, and the further out the angle, the worse. The physics behind this angle is that, when you picture a 45° angle, it is right in the middle of a 90° angle, meaning that 50% of the layer is support, and 50% of the layer is unsupported. In 3D printing, the general rule to combat overhangs is to print angles that at 45° or less, where angles above this will start to be negatively affected by overhang. It will practically be printing in mid-air. Its difficult to print overhangs at sharp angles because there isn’t enough of a supporting surface below your next extruded layer for it to stay in place. It is printed with no supports and 100% infill to really test your printer’s abilities.

The most popular overhang test on Thingiverse is the Mini All in One 3D Printer Test by majda107, which tests several important features on a 3D printer. There are overhang tests which you can try which have angles going anywhere from 10° up to 80° to see just how well your 3D printer handles overhangs, and they can perform pretty well as long as you take the right steps. You would do fine up to the middle part of the letter because it is nicely supported, but when you get to the top line, this 90° angle is far too sharp to have any support underneath. To put this into perspective, you can picture the letter T trying to be 3D printed. This results in that extruded layer ‘overhanging’ and producing poor print quality, since it cannot form a good foundation underneath.Ī good overhang is one where you can actually 3D print at an angle above the 45° mark which is diagonal angle. Overhangs in 3D printing are where the filament your nozzle extrudes ‘hangs over’ the previous layer too far, to a point where it is in mid-air and cannot be adequately supported.

Tune Up Your 3D Printer What Are Overhangs in 3D Printing?

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