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Comment by PacketPaul | Hacker News Reader

An FDM printer can absolutely do the job. My kids are always breaking the battery covers, which I recreate via a FDM printer without issue.

He needs to realign how the part is printed, the layer height, and possibly nozzle size. He can also anneal the parts for added strength.

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Disagree, and I used to run a company that did FDM printing. If you look at this design it's packed with tons of overhangs regardless of printing orientation, and a particularly nasty undercut ending in a sharp point (see right side view). This is actually a great example of where FDM is a bad solution and the part should be redesigned (ex. split it into multiple pieces or find a way to re-engineer it so it can be printed in some good orientation) or you should pick a different method. Yes, you could FDM print this, but the end quality would be garbage, the tolerances would be poor, and you'd end up with a lot of support material cleanup and probably failed/unacceptable prints.

If you print this angled so the curved side is down and the two sides are at 45 degrees to horizontal, it should print more or less fine without any support whatsoever.

Agreed. I’ve printed dishwasher replacement parts using ABS that hold up perfectly in high temps soaking in water. PLA is also great for certain applications and can look and feel very nice when done right.

The design itself could also probably be made more FDM-friendly.

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