The final intent of the part is going to drive a lot of decisions in the 3d printing process. 3d printed parts have become very useful in improving prototyping and developing new products. However, as the cost of 3d printers has come down significantly over the past decade, or so, many hobbyists (like me) have also started buying 3d printers. I’m sure I’m not alone in this, but I use my 3d printer for all kinds of stuff. I make figurines for my kids’ games. My wife wants a new decoration for her curtains and can’t find any that she likes in the store, 3d printer to the rescue. I also use if for functional parts.

End use drives many decisions, such as:

• material selection: for functional parts, I tend to use ABS. For the figurines that I create for my kids or decorative items that I make for my wife, I tend to use PLA
• layer height: for decorative parts especially, I like to use a very small layer height to allow my components to be as smooth as possible in the Z direction. If I’m just creating a quick prototype and don’t care if there are obvious stair steps on the model, I might increase the layer height
• speed: in my experience, higher speed = more vibrations, and more vibrations = lower part quality. There are a few things that you can do to dampen vibrations in your printer, but you will need to adjust your speed based on the final use of the part