3D printing infill patterns — what, why, and why not!

How many types of infill pattern have you tried? The latest video from Raspberry Pi Press takes a closer look at 3D printing infill patterns, and why you may want to use a certain pattern over another.

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7 comments

Jack avatar

I am in favor of taking queues from nature. A hexagonal pattern is most efficent for material, and provides a srong and very stable structure. Bee hive construction is the example

TheDiveO avatar

did you meant “cues”?

willmore avatar

Hexagonal is nice, but it’s not as strong as others and it’s not anisotropic. If you want an inspired by nature infill that’s strong and anisotropic, check out gyroid.

Stewart Russell avatar

All depends on where you need the strength in the part. Diagonal is fastest in 2D, but not very strong in the Z-axis. Gyroid (also from nature) is the best 3d space filler, but has poor crush strength and is noisy on some printers. Sometimes you need lots of perimeters and almost no infill.

The open-source assistive tech devices we make at Makers Making Change quite often need higher fill for strength. Some slicers don’t offer all fill patterns at higher fill percentages.

Dmitry Kudriavtsev avatar

Gyroid and cubic infills have been shown in tests to be the most efficient in terms of weight to strength. Cubic infill prints much faster than gyroid and hexagonal. It’s the only one worth using.

Ed avatar

That’s great. However, right at the point when I thought: here we go for realsies … the video stopped.

Was it a teaser for a magazine article or later, more detailed video?

Alex Bate avatar

Head over to HackSpace issue 26 for more.

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