Mastering 3D Printing

Chapter 10

Large Prints and Post-Processing

For many applications, a part works fine as soon as it comes off the 3D printer, perhaps after picking off a bit of support. However, there are circumstances that require a bit of post-processing, either because the part had to be made in multiple pieces or because it needs to be smoother than the printer can achieve.

This chapter describes how to deal with a model that is either computationally big (an STL file over 50MB or so) or that, if printed, would be physically too big to fit in a printer’s build volume in one pass. This chapter also covers how to lower the resolution of an STL file to make ...