3D Printing 2 Parts at Once - Printing an Iphone Tripod Adapter

When 3D printing one of the initial stages is to open the STL file and slice it into many pieces. Although KiSSlicer free version only allows a single model to print at once it will allow you to print mutiples of the same model. This example worked out well to demonstrate how the quality of the print changes when printing duplicates of the initial model.

Submitted by SFlettering for the Instructables Sponsorship Program

Here you can see the print at about 50% when using the print multiple command for preparing the gcode file. In the print you can notice the small hairs of PLA that are left behind on each piece as it moves location from piece 1 to piece 2 while printing.

I made it at Techshop http://techshop.ws

Here you can see the control panel interface for control of the 3D printer. Here on the right you can see the basic outline of 2 models. Each layer shows up on this part of the screen as it is printing "live" in a red color. 

Some of the settings to notice on the left include the heat temperature settings

Through the hole in the front piece you can see PLA hairs. these are showing up when printing in draft quality and doubling the model to print 2 copies. these hairs are thin and easy to remove although they do not pull off well and are better removed with a knife. 

After pulling off a few of the PLA hairs between the 2 printed parts you can see a cleaned up version of the print that does not include about 40% of the hairs that were pulled off by hand. Other PLA hairs will require a sharp knife for removal. 

I noticed also while printing this example that 2 pieces that are tall will easily pull off of the print platform after completion of printing using the leverage of their height to pull them off. Smaller and wider pieces printed early were harder to remove than this print which is my first without using a raft layer. 

The final quality of the parts printed simultaneously are better than expected. The clean up of the printed parts was fast and the inner edge that is used by the tripod screw looks sharp and solid enough to grip the bolt and clamp the iphone into position. 

Due to the very hard nature of PLA I did not test this piece out on my phone for worry about scratching of breaking the plastic. 
I expect that when positioned on the phone in the right position this piece will hold the phone well onto a tripod when tightened in place.


Overall a good quality print and a worthwhile lesson in printing 2 parts using the 3D printing duplicate models feature in KiSSlicer.