Expanding Thin Features

With the “Expand Thin Features” button you can make non-printable structures in Eiger printable!

This feature has been available in Eiger for some time, but as of October 2020 it has been fundamentally improved.

The background of the function is that structures below 0.4 mm cannot be printed because the nozzle has a diameter of 0.4 mm.
Until the update, the Eiger software thickened the entire component, resulting in a fundamental loss of dimensional accuracy. Now, however, only small features with dimensions of less than 0.4 mm are thickened.

This picture illustrates this very well:

You can see that in the default setting – i.e. when the “Expand Thin Features” button is not selected – the thin structures are not printed at all.

The image on the far right shows the old version, in which the entire component was thickened. The revised version now thickens the structures only where necessary.

However, I recommend not using the function very often, because the principle still applies:

I design the components so that my 3D printer can print them well, because only then can I rely on good, dimensionally accurate components! – Jan Geese