Parts of my model greyed out?

[doron 0]

Hello folks,

 

I'm relatively new to Cura (and 3D printing in general) but learning fast.

 

I'm loading a model into Cura (3.4.1). It's a set of chess pieces so it includes multiple unconnected objects. Upon loading, some (6) of the pieces turn grey and do not go into the sliced gcode.

Trying to figure this out I moved those pieces around on the simulated bed - and when moved to some other sub-area of the bed, they suddenly turn yellow.

 

To me this could mean that the bed size definition is wrong (too small); however looking at the printer config the bed side looks just fine (240x340 mm), and anyway the grey pieces are so far from the edge of the bed that it must be something else. And the bed is drawn in the Cura UI, quite nicely and perfectly.

 

I must be missing another setting - having to do with Cura, my printer or the model itself - but I can't figure out what it is. 

 

Any help would be greatly appreciated! Thanks in advance.

 

[Nicolinux 288]

Hi and welcome to the forum.

 

Which printer do you use? Depending on the (Ultimaker) printer, Cura preserves a "safe" area for the extrusion of material at the start of a print or for switching between two materials (if you use an Ultimaker 3).

Other settings can influence this safe areas too, like "Build Plate Adhesion -> Brim/Skirt".

Switch from "Solid View" to "Layer view" (top right). This way you can see the print preview for each layer. Move ot the first layer (slider under the Layer view dropdown).

[doron 0]

Hi @Nicolinux, thanks for the quick response!

I'm using a non-Ultimaker printer (sorry about that ? ), it's a Tevo Black Widow (I hope it is still okay to ask these questions here).

The printer appears to be configured properly and the bed size seems to be okay. 

I'm using neither a skirt nor brim for this print (I have good bed adhesion). 

 

I didn't understand how the layer view can help with my issue - can you please elaborate a bit? I mean, the greyed out pieces are not sliced, so they don't seem to have any layers.

 

Thanks!

[Nicolinux 288]

The layer view would show you these safe areas and the bed adhesion which you would not see in "Solid View".

 

 

[doron 0]

Understood. (Interesting, your interface is different than mine - I don't have the horizontal slider, only the vertical one).

 

At any rate, you are referring to relatively small safe areas. My problem seems to be larger. Here is what I get when I load the models into Cura (before any slicing is done):

 

 

After slicing, with layer view / first layer as you guided me, this is what I get: 

 

 

Obviously, the six grey pieces are not sliced.

 

 

 

[ahoeben 1,990]

(Your layerview is in “compatibility mode”, either because your gpu is too old or because you have forced compatibility mode in the general preferences)

 

Please save your buildplate as a project, so we can replicate the problem.

[doron 0]

6 minutes ago, ahoeben said:

(Your layerview is in “compatibility mode”, either because your gpu is too old or because you have forced compatibility mode in the general preferences)

 

Oh! Indeed the GPU is a bit old but I didn't realize it was related. Could be just the driver?

 

6 minutes ago, ahoeben said:

Please save your buildplate as a project, so we can replicate the problem.

 

Sure. Do I post it here, or PM to you? (I'm new here).

[gr5 2,234]

You can try uploading it here.  If that doesn't work the post it anywhere else - say dropbox - then supply us a link.

 

The gpu thing is mostly unrelated.

[doron 0]

Thank you. Attached.

 

TBW_Chess Set.curaproject.3mf.curaproject.3mf.curaproject.3mf

[gr5 2,234]

Perfect.  Well this is strange.  In normal view (not layer view) I see the same thing - when I clicked only on the queen as you can see below (she's outlined in blue) that she has this HUGE box around her and in the upper left you can see that cura thinks she is 189mm by 106mm in X and Y.  I don't know why.  Did you create these models or download them?  I'm thinking there is a tiny line or dot or surface feature very far to the left of most of these chess pieces.  If you created these yourself then see if there is something over there you can delete or at least avoid exporting to STL.

 

If you didn't create these yourself you could try passing them through the netfabb repair service.  It's free but requires you to create an account.

 

Or you could just print this in 2 batches.

 

[doron 0]

Wow. Thank you. That makes perfect sense.

I did not create this model. I will either fix it as you suggested or indeed print two separate batches.

 

Just for my education -  did you get these box lines around the image, exposing its actual size, in Cura? Or did you draw them?

(I realize the XYZ numbers tell the story, but the lines make it obvious...)

 

Thank you!!

[rlrmills93 0]

On 9/11/2018 at 2:42 PM, doron said:

Wow. Thank you. That makes perfect sense.

I did not create this model. I will either fix it as you suggested or indeed print two separate batches.

 

Just for my education -  did you get these box lines around the image, exposing its actual size, in Cura? Or did you draw them?

(I realize the XYZ numbers tell the story, but the lines make it obvious...)

 

Thank you!!

Hey did you ever get it fixed?