In the wake of Luigi Mangione’s alleged killing of a health care CEO with a partially 3D-printed pistol, we built the exact same weapon ourselves—and test-fired it.
Material shrinkage is another factor to consider, and there are a myriad of other reasons why there are more accurate ways to mass produce things.
Even assuming a perfect print - no blobs, no zits, and, just for the sake of argument, let’s ignore the Z seam - I disagree that you can reliably get 0.1 mm precision off of a FDM machine in all directions. I’ve been able to get parts to fit each other to within 0.3 mm reliably in the best conditions on a properly-calibrated Prusa MK3S+
Material shrinkage is another factor to consider, and there are a myriad of other reasons why there are more accurate ways to mass produce things.
Even assuming a perfect print - no blobs, no zits, and, just for the sake of argument, let’s ignore the Z seam - I disagree that you can reliably get 0.1 mm precision off of a FDM machine in all directions. I’ve been able to get parts to fit each other to within 0.3 mm reliably in the best conditions on a properly-calibrated Prusa MK3S+
But that’s just my experience.