Selective Laser Sintering Design Tips is a blog series covering a study performed by Stratasys Direct Manufacturing and the University of Texas, Austin. Read part one on wall thickness, part two on holes, or download the full white paper.
Text is often incorporated into 3D printed parts for aesthetic, inventory, and tracking purposes. Text identification is especially important when it comes to making design updates while functional prototyping and for traceability in end-use production applications. Embedding text right onto the part ensures a part’s serial number isn’t lost, rubbed or sanded off or covered with paint. To discover the optimal text size and font and better understand how text resolves for Selective Laser Sintering 3D printing, the University of Texas at Austin and Stratasys Direct Manufacturing designed font plates with a range of font sizes and both serif and sans-serif fonts which were tested both above the part’s surface and embedded, vertically and horizontally oriented. This test proved that directly 3D printing serial numbers or labels into a part for tracking or branding purposes is feasible and can be preferable depending on the applications or project timeline.
Raised or Recessed: Designing Text for SLS Parts
The graphic below incorporates a plate with font sizes ranging from 36-1 (defined by font point sizes within typical word processors). In addition to the font size itself, the fonts were raised and recessed from the plate by 0.25 mm to 2 mm, with height gradations occurring at 0.24 mm increments.
The serif fonts plate (left) and sans-serif font plate (right) incorporate font sizes beginning at 0.25 mm and ending at 2 mm in depth / height. The fonts are extruded from the plate or de-bossed into the plate as well as located on upward (upskin) and downward (downskin) facing surfaces. To learn more about the plate designs, download the full white paper on Selective Laser Sintering.
Two separate parts were tested against the following parameters:
The test results are shown below. Passing means the font is clearly legible to the naked eye and doesn’t contain defects, whereas a fail is illegible due to major gaps and incomplete font structures.
Based on these results, we recommend the following guidelines when designing text features for parts being built with Selective Laser Sintering:
FONTS
FONT SIZES
Sans-Serif
Serif
Ready to become a Selective Laser Sintering pro? Download the full white paper, An Insider’s Guide to Laser Sintering.
