Can't seem to print the walls of a model

[rcase1965 0]

I am using Cura 4.1 and I am able to print all sorts of things without any issues, I have one model of a box that has strips along the sides that bulge out a bit and it is an odd shape. My problem is that the walls don't print. I get tons of support structure but and the base seems to be fine but all I get for walls and top is support structure.

I have tried changing items under the shell like wall thickness and wall line count but nothing seems to help. The images are what the model looks like, sliced with support structure everywhere and with support only from the build plate. I have tried printing this at least 10 different ways and every time I get about the same result.

I am not sure what settings need to be changed and I need to scale this way up for a friend. I would appreciate any help I can get.

 

Thank you

Robert

[gr5 2,172]

The 3rd photo - support "touching buildplate" is probably what you want - I'd try that first.  You don't need support for those things that stick out.

 

Okay so your model isn't solid.  What CAD software did you use?  Try passing it through this netfab repair service:

https://service.netfabb.com/login.php

You have to create an account but it will repair your STL for free.

 

Also try viewing your part in "xray" mode. (top selection "preview mode" left selection "x-ray view").  blue and white areas are good.  Red areas are a problem.  For example if your walls are infinitely thin then it will print nothing (infinitely thin is nothing in 3 dimensions).  Or if your walls are < line width *2 it may also print nothing.  So if your line width is 0.4 you want the walls at least 0.8.  You can also select the checkbox "print thin walls" which let's you go down to around 0.4mm thick walls I think.  how thick are your walls?

 

[rcase1965 0]

Hello gr5,

 

I believe this was created with solidworks, I received a sldprt file and used edrawings to export it to stl. The walls should be much thicker (I would like something around 0.8 to 1.0). I tried to make the walls thicker within Cura but that made no difference. I will definitely try netfabb and see if it fixes the issue, otherwise I will open it in another cad program and try to thicken the walls before exporting it.

I appreciate you taking the time to respond and I will post how the repair goes.

[gr5 2,172]

It's really hard to tell what's going on from your images.

 

The wall width should be defined in the CAD software by where you position the inner and outer edge of the wall in CAD.  Cura doesn't normally mess with wall width but you can increase "horizontal expansion" which is a little hard to explain - an STL file is an unordered list of triangles.  The slicer intersects them with the plane to slice next.  This results in an unordered set of lines.  Cura then tries to link the lines up into loops and then tries to figure out which side of each loop and it's lines are "inside" and which side is "outside".  "horizontal expansion" moves all the lines away from the "inside".  So if your wall is 1mm thick and you do 1mm horizontal expansion it moves the inner and outer part of the wall to make it now 3mm thick.

 

This may fix your walls but mess up other things (make vertical holes smaller for example).

 

Because your photos are so far zoomed out and because I don't know what the inside of your model is supposed to look like (I can mostly only see the outside) I don't know what is going on.

 

Did you try xray view?  If you don't see any red then netfabb probably won't be able to help.

[rcase1965 0]

I did try netfabb and you are correct, it didn't really help. I will have to either get the engineer of the model to give me a version with thicker walls or make them thicker myself. The inside of the model is exactly what you would expect from seeing the outside. I am attaching the XRay view.

When I scale it way down to test I basically get no walls. I had someone else print it larger a couple of weeks ago and the walls were just barely thicker than the support material. I can't really post detailed pictures on here.

You have certain;y helped me go in the right direction, I am fairly sure I can figure out how to make the walls thicker in CAD