Their study determined that 3D printing can be used to understand therapeutics and drug technologies better. A Nanoscribe Photonic printer is responsible for creating the little item, which is one of the highest resolution printers available for nano printing. This boat requires a microscope of great magnitude to see its tiny form!Ĭreating the tiny boat shape was to examine the microswimmer’s ability to move through fluid in an odd form. The boat is only 30 microns (or a millionth of a meter) and is one-third the size of a strand of hair. Dutch Tiny Boatĭutch researchers created the world’s tiniest boat to better study how tiny particles can make their way through the water. We’ll finish our list off with some cool tiny objects that use standard 3D printing technology. We’ll first look at some amazing nano 3D printing projects that are finding impressive applications for the progress of research and science.

We’ve gathered some of the smallest 3D printed things and the techniques the designers used to accomplish such detailed work.

I have added my 0.1 mm and 0.2 mm tests pieces (in STL format and one in STEP format if you want to make changes to it) so you can print them and test it with your material and printer to see which works best for you.Table of Contents The Smallest 3D Printed Things But design the tabs into small test pieces - don't waste tons of filament just for testing. The smaller the tabs, the bigger the effect of the printing and material flow error, while it may be less so for larger tabs.ĭepending on the size differences, you may need to experiment for each size of tab to find its perfect gap size. I also printed a set with a draft (sloped profile) but they didn't stick at all and would simply fall apart again.įor the second set I used a gap size of 0.2 mm and that gave me a perfect fit which needed only a tiny amount of pressure to get the pieces to fit, enough so they would not simply fell apart again.ĭisclaimer: The gap size needed won't be the same for larger puzzle tabs. I then went ahead and experimented a bit and printed 0.1 mm gap pieces which was still not enough and no amount of pressure would make them fit. I had no gap designed in and because of material flow during the printing stage (and the large effect it has on tiny details), did not fit at all. My first set of puzzle pieces (to test the different % fill settings) did not fit at all, using PLA and my small Duplicator i3 Mini printer. Every material and printer needs a different gap size for the pieces to fit.

3d printer for small objects