What is the impact of excessive cooling on FDM prints?

Excessive cooling in Fused Deposition Modeling (FDM) prints can have significant negative effects on the printing process and the final part quality. When a print is cooled too quickly or excessively, it can lead to issues such as warping, cracking, and poor layer adhesion. This occurs because the rapid contraction of the material as it cools can create internal stresses within the print, leading to defects. The cooling process impacts how well each layer bonds to the previous layer; if one layer cools too fast before the subsequent layers are applied, it may lead to insufficient bonding and ultimately result in structural weaknesses or visible flaws in the printed object.

While other factors in FDM printing do contribute to layer adhesion, color contrast, and dimensional accuracy, excessive cooling primarily correlates with defects in the print. Therefore, it is critical to manage the cooling process to achieve high-quality FDM prints.