Weak Across Layers: How Much, and What Moves It
Printed parts are weaker across layers. Folklore says by half; tests say a tenth to nine tenths. What a bond is, what moves it, and a coupon to measure it.
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How Far Can a 3D Printer Bridge?
Vendor guides say 5 mm, torture tests say 100. What a bridging strand is doing, why slower is not safer, and the coupon that measures your machine's limit.
Pattern 3D: Lattices, Infill, and Surface Textures
The Pattern 3D node and its 150+ families, bounding a lattice with an Intersection, scale and precision trade-offs, and the Infill and Surface Pattern steps.
How Thick Should 3D-Printed Walls Be?
Wall thickness is set by the nozzle, not by a rule of thumb. Why two perimeters is the real minimum, where strength comes from, and what to calibrate.
The 45° Overhang Rule, and When It Is Wrong
The 45 degree rule measures how much of each layer the one below supports. The geometry behind it, why layer height moves the limit, and how to design past it.
Clearances for 3D-Printed Parts That Have to Move
Clearance belongs to the printer, not the design. Why printed holes come out tight, how to read diametral against radial, and the test coupon that settles it.
How Much Clearance Does a Printed Thread Need?
A printed thread comes out tight, and how tight depends on which way up it was printed. Why pitch limits printability, and the coupon that settles it.
Threads and Snap Fits That Print
Thread node, calibrated clearance, helix phase proven by interference check, printable pitch rules, and a mating snap-fit pair with strain and force readouts.
Designing a Cam and Follower That Prints
A cam turns rotation into motion you draw. Motion laws, the 30° pressure-angle limit, and a grooved cam and follower that prints without supports.
Designing a Geneva Drive That Prints
A crank that never stops, a wheel that moves in locked steps: the geometry behind a Geneva drive, its 2.4× speed peak, and a model that prints without supports.
Text as Geometry: Building Reliable Personalized Products
From font glyphs and measured bounds to printable strokes, attachment rules, and production tests: reliable personalized goods treat text as geometry.
Pricing Customized 3D Prints: Costs, Yield, and Margin
Build repeatable prices for customized 3D prints from material, machine time, labor, yield, selling fees, and margin.
Parametric Goods: From Customer Choice to Printable Product
How parametric Rig Cad projects turn personalized orders into validated, priced, repeatable 3D-printed products, from listing options to fulfillment.
Oversize the Cutter: Reliable Booleans in Rig Cad
Use deliberate cutter margins to prevent coincident-face failures, preserve transformed through-cuts, and give smooth SDF subtraction room to resolve cleanly.
Coming from Onshape or SolidWorks to Rig Cad
A feature map from Onshape and SolidWorks to Rig Cad: sketches, patterns, shells, threads, variables and mates, what has no equivalent, and the mental shift.
Repeats and Arrays: Linear, Radial, and Parametric
Linear, Radial, Parametric and Path Repeat: tile profiles in 2D and extrude once, derive pitch from the host, vary copies with instance.i, avoid Mirror traps.
Fillets and Chamfers Without a Fillet Tool
Five ways to round or bevel an edge in Rig Cad: primitive corner radius, extrude edge profiles, SDF blends, Minkowski sums and Surface Offset, measured.
Personalized Prints That Sell
Name tags, photo lamps, photo figurines, desk plates: the four personalized 3D-print families that sell, and what each one has to hold in the model.
Transforms and Reference Frames in Rig Cad
Learn how position, rotation, and scale compose through local, parent, and world reference frames so Rig Cad features remain aligned, movable, and parametric.
Fits, Clearances, and Tolerances for Customized 3D Prints
Turn measured printer behavior into dependable sliding, push, press, and cavity fits across customized 3D-printed product families.
Constructive Solid Geometry in Rig Cad
Learn how primitives, Boolean operations, transforms, and a readable scene tree combine into robust, editable parametric models in Rig Cad.
Rig Cad for OpenSCAD Users
If you already write union, difference, and modules, you already know this editor. The tree is the program.
Rig Cad for Tinkercad Users
If you know group and hole in Tinkercad, you already know the operations. Here is where they live in Rig Cad.
Gyroid TPMS: When Geometry Becomes Structure
From butterfly-wing photonic crystals to compact heat exchangers, the gyroid shows how triply periodic minimal surfaces become tunable engineering structures.