How to increase a component or body by a certain percentage.

[Anonymous]

I am using Fusion360 to design small parts to print out on my 3d printer. The problem I’m running into is the parts are printed at a slightly smaller size than indicated in Fusion. For example, a hole shows as being 29mm in Fusion but actually prints at 28.5mm. Probably no big deal for most projects but for something that must fit with close tolerances it can be a pain to resize in my printing program and re-print, test, and repeat to get it right.

I have measured and figured out that I need to increase the size by a factor of approximately 1.725%. I’m sure I would have to run some tests to get it just right though.

My question is, “is there any way to select a body, part, or component and increase the size by a certain percentage so the parts will print out at the right size?” Currently there is no adjustment parameters I can find in my printer firmware file or the printing software I am using.

The ideal way would be to simply select the part, after I’m finished in Fusion, and increase the size by a certain percentage to account for the printing error.

Thanks in advance for any advice you may be able to provide.

[jeff_strater · Accepted solution]

@Anonymous:  Have you tried using the Scale tool:

it uses a Scale Factor instead of a percentage, but performs the operation I think you are interested in.

[davebYYPCU · Accepted solution]

What software are you using for the printer? Would like to avoid it, myself..  

I have used two programs that can adjust for that.

Scaling in Fusion is using a bandaid to treat a broken leg,

fix the problem the correct way, and it will heal.

There are lots of calibration routines and tests for the machine base settings.

Might help....

[Anonymous]

I’ll try that.  Thanks Jeff.

[Anonymous]

Hey Dave.  Thanks for the reply.  I’m using a Davinci Pro 1.0 with the XYZ software that came with it.  I just found a procedure for adjusting the x, y, and z axis’ on it so I think I’ll try that and do some test prints and see what happens.  If I can get this thing dialed in, it will eliminate a lot of headaches I’m sure.

Thanks again.

[GRSnyder]

If all else fails, you can probably bake a coordinate system correction into your gcode header. This might be a good place to start investigating.

[jakenemiroff]

Hi there, I'm not sure if I like the raised center, any chance anyone knows how to remove that?