Printing Screws, Software Used

A lot of what I will be printing will need to screw together. The software I use for 3D modeling is Autodesk Inventor Pro. However to keep file sizes small, Inventor uses a cylinder with a "decal" of the threads. Although the it is only a decal Inventor will still annotate the part with the correct thread pitch.

My question is, before I actually print, will Repetier Software understand the that threads are there or do I need to remodel all of my master files to physically shows the threads?

If you have created a screw, what software did you model it on?

 

I wouldn't try to print the threads. At least nothing below like 3/8". For injection molding plastics you generally want 80% the OD of the screw for the screw to tap into. Or you can lookup a tap chart.

 

Thanks, a bit of background

our smallest stud is roughly 3/8"

Our standard parts are:
M10x1.5 [3/8"]
M12x1.75 [1/2"]
M16x2 [5/8"]
m18x1 (which i think will be too fine to print)

I will be printing for R&D purposes and would like these printed parts be able to assemble to our standard library parts, so in an ideal world I would like to print the threads

 

I believe inventor and solidworks work the same way. Cosmetic threads never produce geometry.

Repetier is more of a visualization and control software. Slic3r is what you're concerned with. The slicing software takes an STL file, which is a polygon representation. If you're going to print the threads, the threading needs to be in the polygons.

I dunno if McMaster's inventor files are as good as their solidworks but you could pull from them to get the thread pitch shapes.