Table of contents

  1. Table of contents
  2. Introduction
  3. Material choice
  4. Quality settings
  5. Bed adhesion
  6. Supports

Introduction

In this page, we detail how to get a great Dactyl print. This information applies to the Bastard Keyboard designs, so your mileage may vary for other models.

Our keyboards are complex models. While we did our best to make them less difficult to print, we strongly recommend to print a few tests beforehand to test support separation, surface quality, and bed adhesion.

Material choice

  • Do some test prints with different plastics to see which one works best for you.
  • PLA is easiest to print.
  • Plastics with patterns in it works best - eg. Prusament Galaxy or Fillamentum Extrafill.

Quality settings

From personal experience, 0.15mm is a good layer height. Going lower than that doesn’t show an increase in visual quality and adds a long time to the print.

Printing with a 0.4mm nozzle is recommended over a 0.6, as larger nozzles leave more visible lines on the flat curves of the keyboard. The difference is very visible.

Bed adhesion

Dactyls take a long time to print, so it’s important to ensure good bed adhesion.

This will depend on your printer - if you have experience with it and are sure that it’ll adhere properly, go ahead. It’s still recommended to stick around for the first few layers, to check that the print is not warping. If the print warps, it will be visible during the final build, or may even (for plates and tents) prevent installation completely!

If your print does not stick, here are a few pointers:

  • Add a brim, of 5 or 6 mm
  • Use glue - paper glue or wood glue diluted with water works well
  • Disable the parts fan for the first layer
  • Make sure your bed is leveled correctly

Supports

Here’s what we found works best for me in prusaslicer:

General settings:

  • 75% XY separation
  • 0.1-0.25mm Z distance
  • 3-4 layer interface*
  • 100% fan speed (except for 1st layer)
  • 0.2mm interface spacing

*If your printer has good cooling, you may go to 1 or 0 layer interface to save print time

For Scylla / Charybdis :

  • tree / organic supports

For Skeletyl / Charybdis Nano :

  • 2-3mm rectilinear pattern