Frequently Asked Questions

offset the edges of your print to account for these differences. This
setting is labeled “Horizontal size compensation” and can be found
on the Other tab of your Process Settings. For example, setting this
value to -0.1mm will shrink your model by 0.1mm in the X and Y
directions. This setting works best when the dimensional error is
consistent, even when printing models of different sizes. For
example, if the part is always 0.1mm too large, regardless of if the
model is 20mm wide or 100mm wide, then this setting can easily
account for that difference.
(4) Increasing Dimensional Error
If you notice that the dimensional error tends to increase as
you print larger parts, then there is a different setting you can
adjust. For example, if your print was 0.1mm too small for a
20mm wide part, but increased to 0.5mm too small for a 100mm
wide print, then it is likely the problem may be due to thermal
contraction. This can be a common issue for high temperature
materials like ABS, since plastic tends to shrink as it cools.
Simplify3D includes several options to help with this. First, you
need to determine the shrinkage percentage. In the above example,
the part is shrinking by 0.1mm over a 20mm print, so the
shrinkage percentage is 0.1 / 20 = 0.5%. The easiest way to fix this
error is to double-click on your model in the Simplify3D interface
and set the scale to 100.5%. If you find yourself making these
changes consistently, you can also setup an Import Action to
perform this scaling automatically each time you import a new
model. Please see this video for more details about creating Import
Actions.