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Fonts for 3D printing

Posted by peridot 
Fonts for 3D printing
July 20, 2016 07:55AM
If I want to put text on my things, OpenSCAD makes it easy to use a TrueType font. But what are some suitable fonts? Most include segments or serifs that are so small my printer makes a mess. I've seen Arial Rounded MT Bold recommended, particularly for very thin text.

Are there any genuinely 3D fonts (for ordinary text)? I'm thinking something like the fonts you see on classical sculpture, where strokes are cut into a surface with a V profile, deeper on wider strokes.
Re: Fonts for 3D printing
July 20, 2016 07:22PM
I'd have thought the slicer would remove "too small" segments and serifs. What slicers have you tried?

I guess you could chamfer the surface that the text is cut into (or embossed onto) to get a V profile, but I don't know whether that would be deeper for wider strokes.
Re: Fonts for 3D printing
July 23, 2016 03:09AM
Depends on where the font is, if it is placed in the XY plane (ie, on top of your print) than nozzle size is what dictates the minimum size of features. If you place it in the Z plane (ie, the side) than your resolution and print accuracy is more important.

Most fonts will work if you scale them up enough, how big do they need to be? Arial works well if you have to go small. Or just use any font and manually edit the small thin parts of the font to be printable
Re: Fonts for 3D printing
July 25, 2016 07:56AM
I'm looking for smallish text. In one case, I'm a bit stuck because I'm trying to make three-dimensional a mostly-text logo, so I'd like to match the font they're using; hence the desire for a "countersunk" font. But I'm usually looking at letters less than a centimeter high, on the XY plane. I guess ideal would be a single-stroke font, where each stroke was one extrusion width across (my nozzle size is 0.4 mm, and I usually use 0.4 mm extrusion width).
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