Connectors & splitting¶
If a part doesn't fit on your print bed, PrintHaus automatically splits it into bed-sized pieces at export and adds connectors so you can plug them back together afterward. Whether this happens depends on the scale you choose in the Export step.
When does splitting happen?¶
A part that won't fit flat on your print bed is cut into several pieces across its long axis at export. Anything that already fits on the bed stays in one piece.
- The bed size comes from your printer choice, or from the manual bed size, in the Export step.
- The cuts are routed around openings (windows, doors) and wall junctions — never straight through a detail like that.
- Flat plates (floor, ceiling, roof) and long inner walls are split too when needed. The roof is cut across the ridge so each piece keeps a ridge edge and an eaves edge.
Connectors¶
Connectors sit at the split lines so the pieces line back up precisely. There are three kinds:
| Kind | Where | How |
|---|---|---|
| Tongue & groove (integrated) | Wall ↔ roof and roof face ↔ roof face | formed directly into the parts — the tongue slots into the groove, no loose piece |
| Dovetail / miter (integrated) | Outer-wall corners, inner-wall joints and the dividing wall to an extension | the parts are miter-cut and interlock with a positive fit |
| Plug-in dowel (separate) | at the cuts made by automatic splitting (walls, plates) | a separate little dovetail piece you push into both halves |
- At the individual-part scales 1:10–1:99, integrated connections join the parts: tongue/groove at the roof seams (ridge, hip, valley) and where the roof rests on the walls; dovetail/miter at the outer-wall corners and inner-wall joints.
- The separate plug-in dowels only appear when a part has to be split because of the bed size.
Where the dowels sit in the export
The separate plug-in dowels are output together with their parent part and carry its color — so you'll find them in the same file, or on the same plate, as the wall or plate they belong to.
Dividing wall between main building and extension¶
Where an extension meets the main building or another extension, the shared wall belongs to only one of the two bodies. The other one docks onto it with a dovetail joint: the tenon sits on the body that builds the wall, the matching pocket in the arriving wall. That way the arriving body doesn't just butt up against it.
This works in both directions: if the wall that runs through belongs to the extension, the main building docks into the extension wall; if it belongs to the main building, it's the other way round. Who owns the wall is covered under Extensions.
- The tenon reaches from below the base plate up to at most 2.50 m; the pocket runs through the whole wall height and is open at the top and the bottom so that the part can be slid in.
- Only at scales up to 1:99. From 1:100 on printing is monolithic — there the wall is one piece anyway and there is nothing to connect.
- Size: between 1:50 and 1:99 the connector grows along with the scale so that, printed, it always stays as big as at 1:50 — otherwise it would be too small to hold at 1:99. At larger scales (1:10 to 1:49) the 1:50 dimension on the model is kept; printed, the connector therefore comes out bigger there, which only helps its strength.
Wall ↔ ceiling¶
Where a wall stands on a floor slab or the base plate, the connection is formed in — you don't have to plug anything. Which of the two designs applies is decided by the wall's position:
| Position of the wall | Connection |
|---|---|
| The outer wall is also the edge of the slab (the normal case, including at the overhang) | Plinth tenon: the wall has a continuous profile along its underside, the plate beneath it the matching groove. |
| The wall stands in the middle of the slab — the slab continues beyond its outer face (typically after a setback) | Wedge joint: a 45° wedge on the wall's underside engages a pocket in the slab. The wedge is half as tall as the slab is thick and sits centered on the wall axis. |
If a wall runs lengthwise over a wall of the floor below, the plinth tenon stays — there the wall below carries the load.
The play of the wedge joint is 0.2 mm per flank when printed and stays the same at every scale; the wedge shape itself grows with the model.
Individual parts or monolith?¶
Whether your house breaks apart into real individual parts with connectors, or arrives as one solid block, is decided by the scale alone:
| Scale | What you get |
|---|---|
| 1:10 to 1:99 | Individual parts: every wall, ceiling and roof face as its own printed piece. Oversized parts are split and get connectors. |
| from 1:100 on (finer) | Monolith: each floor and the roof as one solid body each — no individual parts and nothing to plug together. Openings remain as cut-outs. |
In the monolith too, the roof of every extension stays a printed part of its own — it doesn't merge with the main roof. A building with two extensions therefore delivers one main roof and two extension roofs, plus one body per floor.
Monolith bodies are not split
From 1:100 on, nothing is split anymore. A floor or a roof body comes as a single piece — so pick the scale such that one floor fits on your print bed.
Technical terms
Tongue, groove, dovetail, ridge, eaves & co. are explained in the Glossary.