Unfortunately, I don’t have my own 3D printer, but I have come across various “3D printing service” sites on the Internet.
I have now selected the following case via Printables: FP6 Case
Unfortunately, I have absolutely no idea about the technology, so I opted for the material TPU.
It is very important to me that the back of the case is completely closed. I don’t want a honeycomb pattern like you can see on the Printables page.
Do I have to use 100 as the infill value for the print service or would it be too inelastic as a smartphone case?
In my opinion the geometry of the case is so thin that it only makes sense to print with with 100% material as infill. That’s what I did some years ago, when I printed a case for my mobile phone. Especially if you’re planning to print it with TPU, which is a soft, rubber-like thermoplast.
My recommendation would be to print the version with the closed backside, and not the one with the honeycomb holes. Just from aspect of printing and stability.
Then I would enter 100 as the infill value.
On the printables site I can only find one sample as a download, namely the fp6-case.stl ..I assume that this is closed at the back and not the one with honeycombs or?
Would be curious to know how thick it is and how much it protrudes to provide protection to the screen. Can you provide some feedback once you’ll have printed it? Thanks!
I can’t provide you this information on the case itself as I don’t plan to print it on my own right now. I’ve ordered the one from Fairphone. But if you’re interested in the dimensions of the case I can offer you to measure them in the 3D CAD dataset. Depending on your printing setup the dimensions will not differ significantly between data and real part.
Just give me the information which dimensions you are intersted in.
That would be great, thanks! Basically I’d be interested to know the thickness of the material on the sides and back of the cover, and also the total thickness of the case itself. With the known dimensions of the FP6, this will allow to deduce how much the case protrudes on the screen side.
Hey, thanks a lot for the detaiked info! That is really helpful! Since the phone is 9.6mm thick, the case should protrude by about 13.6 - 1.9 - 9.6 = 2.1 mm above the screen, which is great and should provide goid protection!
I don’t want to waste €25 either, unfortunately I have no experience at all with 3D printing.
German:
Ich habe mir das Case bislang noch nicht drucken lassen, da ich mir immer noch unsicher bin wegen des infill-Wertes.
Auf der Seite sagen sie typischerweise sind die infill-Werte für Smartphone Cases zwischen 20-50.
Manche sagen dann wiederum sie würden auf jeden Fall 100 nehmen.
Ich möchte natürlich auch nicht 25€ verschwenden, leider habe ich was 3D-Druck angeht überhaupt keine Erfahrung.
Your calculation is correct.
But it seems like the designer added 0,2mm clearance for the thickness of the device, so he ends up here with a final dimension of 9,8mm, so just 1,9mm left for protection above the screen.
I can only share my experience with the TPU material I’ve printed and it is the following:
An infill value below 50% makes the surface look uneven.
So maybe you can go with a value of 50%, which is also within the recommendation from the printig service.
And in the information from the printing service supplier it’s not 100% clear if the recommended infill rate is linked to the TPU material or just another “hard” material which other persons used for printing their cases. If you use softer material like TPU, there’s no need to make the material “weaker” by thinning it because the TPU material itself has the dampening properties.
Ich kann dir nur meine Erfahrungen mit dem TPU Material geben, welches ich gedruckt habe:
Eine Füllrate von unter 50% läßt die Oberfläche uneben/unruhig/unsauber aussehen.
Evtl. solltest du es mal mit 50% Füllrate versuchen, dies ist ja schließlich immer noch im Bereich der Empfehlung des Druckdienstleisters.
Außerdem geht aus der Information des Druckdienstleister nicht hervor, ob die empfohlene Füllrate jetzt speziell für dieses gewählte TPU ist, oder ob die Empfehlung darauf basiert, daß andere Personen ihre Hülle in einem “harten” Material gedruckt haben. Wenn man mit einem weicheren Material wie TPU arbeitet muß man ja das Material/Design nicht soweit “schwächen” durch ausdünnen für dämpfende Eigenschaften, daß TPU Material selbst besitzt ja schon dämpfende Eigenschaften.
I am currently printing the file (in PLA though, as my printer doesn’t handle TPU very well). Anyway, I will let you know how it fits.
From the print settings, you don’t need to care too much: If you follow the guidelines (wall count 3 and solid top/ bottom layer: 4), you will have about two layers with infill. Therefore, it does not matter, if you choose 20%, 50% or 100% infill. I would go with 50%.
Ok, I am back from printing. The case printed very well and fits perfectly (in fact, I did not manage to get my phone fully in without applying a lot of force, but PLA is very hard). With TPU, it most probably will work, and all the holes seem to fit. I would give it a go for printing.
Please find below two pictures of the printed file. As mentioned, I could not fit my FP6 in there, as PLA is too hard and does not flex. However, it will most probably work with TPU.
Thanks for showing your result!
Maybe you can rework the undercut rib by grinding material away so your phone could slip into the case?!
If the complete inner dimensions are too narrow, what can happen with 3d printing, I see no chance for fitting the phone into the bumper without massive rework. In this case the model would need to be redesigned with more clearance to the phone to compensate the material overflow from the nozzle. Maybe it could be enough to upscale the model in the slicer with a factor about 1,005% to a achieve a slightly larger model. If your slicer has the ability, you can scale individually each of the three axis.
You can calculate the scaling factor with this formula: upscale_factor = device_length[mm] / device_length_housing_measured[mm]
If you want to be on the safe side add 0,1-0,2mm additional clearance to the device length.
I have printed the case in question on my Voron with Extrudr extra hard TPU with honeycomb grid.
I used an earlier version which didn’t yet have the cutout for the power button and the usb c port position was a bit off but the current design fixed these issues (and I fixed them with a small knife, can’t be bothered to reprint).
The design works well, the dimensions are accurate, no scaling or other shenanigans needed (on my printer with the material I used)
I would recommend using a harder tpu, 98a seems to work well. Softer ones could deform too much.
So, the case is here now and does its job quite well.
The only issue is that it has a little too much play on the side where the power button is, and you can press it in there.
It is made of TPU 95A with an infill value of 100.
I would possibly choose a slightly harder material, then it would definitely fit more securely on the Fairphone.
Nevertheless, I am satisfied so far and will now use it.
