Thin walls and minimum feature size — how thin is actually printable per process?

Question

Designing an enclosure with 0.8 mm walls and 0.5 mm text embossing. My FDM prints look awful. What are the realistic minimum wall thickness and feature sizes for FDM, SLA, SLS and MJF so I can pick a process instead of fighting settings?

Marcus Weber · Accepted Answer

Rules of thumb we design to: FDM 0.4 nozzle : walls ≥ 1.2 mm 3 lines , embossed text ≥ 0.6 mm wide / 0.5 mm high SLA : supported walls ≥ 0.5 mm, unsupported ≥ 1.0 mm, text ≥ 0.3 mm SLS PA12 : walls ≥ 0.8 mm 1.0 mm to be safe , text ≥ 0.5 mm wide / 0.5 mm high MJF PA12 : walls ≥ 0.6 mm, text ≥ 0.4 mm For 0.8 mm walls with fine text, SLA or MJF is your process. On FDM, either go to 1.2 mm walls or switch to a 0.25 mm nozzle and accept 4× print time.

Thin walls and minimum feature size — how thin is actually printable per process?

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