Splitting Up a Print

[nheather 1]

Hi,

 

Very new to 3D Printing and Cura.

 

I have downloaded a model from Thingiverse that I would like to print.

 

The model is in multiple parts that will need to be assembled when printed.  Perfectly happy with this but the STL file has all parts on the bed at the same time.  The parts are distinctly different and separate just all combined in the STL. 

 

I like to print them separately because

 

i) I prefer a number of shorter prints

ii) the support requirements for each part is different

 

Is there a way in Cura to separate each of these parts into their own STL files?

 

Cheers,

 

Nigel

[Smithy 1,144]

Not in Cura, but you can cut the parts in other Software like, Fusion360, Blender, and so on....

[obewan 37]

I found meshmixer easiest to use for this, just copy n paste each part to a new stl

[Smithy 1,144]

That was the name I was looking for - meshmixer - not Blender, but it will be possible in Blender too, but MeshMixer is the easiest one as obenan said.

[geert_2 557]

I think in older Cura versions it was possible to "split object in parts" or something similar? This would split a model into all its parts, and these would all be distributed on the build plate separately. Then you could delete the unwanted parts one by one, and only keep the desired ones.

 

You would have to redo this whole sequence of splitting and deleting for every part, so it is a bit cumbersome, but it could be a temporary workaround to get a job done.

 

I don't know if this is still possible in the newest versions of Cura (I haven't tried)?

 

[nheather 1]

3 hours ago, geert_2 said:

I think in older Cura versions it was possible to "split object in parts" or something similar? This would split a model into all its parts, and these would all be distributed on the build plate separately. Then you could delete the unwanted parts one by one, and only keep the desired ones.

 

You would have to redo this whole sequence of splitting and deleting for every part, so it is a bit cumbersome, but it could be a temporary workaround to get a job done.

 

I don't know if this is still possible in the newest versions of Cura (I haven't tried)?

 

 

Just to be clear though, I'm not talking about breaking down a single model into parts.  The model is already in parts, the problem is that they are all in a single STL file.

 

Cheers,

 

Nigel

[gr5 2,167]

yes.  Cura 15.X does this.  You can download and install cura 15 and it doesn't interfere or affect or replace versions of cura 2.X through 4.X.

 

Right click on the model in cura 15.X and there is an option.  If the objects in the STL do not touch it separates them out.  Unfortunately I don't think there is a way to save the STL files.  So the more that I think about this, the less useful it seems.  meshmixer might be your best bet for simplicity.

 

Also check carefully on thingiverse, sometimes they have a "tray" stl file that has all the parts but in addition they have the STL files for each part separate.  Sometimes.

[geert_2 557]

2 hours ago, nheather said:

 

Just to be clear though, I'm not talking about breaking down a single model into parts.  The model is already in parts, the problem is that they are all in a single STL file.

 

Cheers,

 

Nigel

Yes, that is how I understood it.  :-)

 

To be totally sure I just tried it on my old Cura 14.09, and there the function is named "Split object into parts". It works, and you can indeed delete each of the parts separately afterwards. So, you could save the remaining as gcode, and print them one by one in this way.

 

However, it does have side-effects: if there are hollows in an object, like my watermark text, these will also be extracted as separate objects... Lol.

 

 

Which should have been this:

 

[nheather 1]

How very peculiar.  Why was the functionality removed?  I always thought that features got added with new versions not taken away.

 

I'm assuming that meshmixer is a different application.

 

Cheers,

 

Nigel

Edited June 7, 2019 by nheather

[nheather 1]

Okay, downloaded and installed MeshMixer.

 

Imported the STL file.

 

It displays all the separate parts.

 

But I can't see ay intuitive way of selecting each and saving as a separate STL.

 

Cheers,

 

Nigel

[tinkergnome 927]

20 hours ago, nheather said:

But I can't see ay intuitive way of selecting each and saving as a separate STL.

 

Lol, "Meshmixer" and "intuitive" are terms that i would not use in the same sentence...🙂

 

In Meshmixer:

- "Edit" -> "Separate Shells" (the object browser shows up with a list of separate shells)

- select a single part

- "Export" as *.stl

 

Or in a recent version of Cura:

- go to the Marketplace and install the "Mesh Tools" plugin from @ahoeben

- this gives you a new menu entry:  "Extensions" -> "Mesh Tools" -> "Split model into parts"

 

[nheather 1]

1 hour ago, tinkergnome said:

 

Lol, "Meshmixer" and "intuitive" are terms that i would not use in the same sentence...🙂

 

In Meshmixer:

- "Edit" -> "Separate Shells" (the object browser shows up with a list of separate shells)

- select a single part

- "Export" as *.stl

 

Or in a recent version of Cura:

- go to the Marketplace and install the "Mesh Tools" plugin from @ahoeben

- this gives you a new menu entry:  "Extensions" -> "Mesh Tools" -> "Split model into parts"

 

 

Thanks for the suggestion.  The MeshMixer works well.  I did also install the Mesh Tools plugin, appears in the extensions menu but unfortunately it crashes Cura 4.0.0 when I try to use it.

 

Cheers,

 

Nigel

[bartwybouw 0]

On 6/8/2019 at 6:13 PM, nheather said:

 

Thanks for the suggestion.  The MeshMixer works well.  I did also install the Mesh Tools plugin, appears in the extensions menu but unfortunately it crashes Cura 4.0.0 when I try to use it.

 

Cheers,

 

Nigel

 

I just tried it in Cura 4.1.0 and it works fine. It does take a while and you probably need a system with a beefy CPU and quite some memory to chew trough it, but it does work (running on Mac OS Mojave (10.14.5)

[netwave 0]

Please re-add "split objects into parts" into the next build of Cura, this was a brilliant feature which was unnecessarily ditched.

[Toolman12345 0]

On 6/8/2019 at 9:33 AM, tinkergnome said:

 

Lol, "Meshmixer" and "intuitive" are terms that i would not use in the same sentence...🙂

 

In Meshmixer:

- "Edit" -> "Separate Shells" (the object browser shows up with a list of separate shells)

- select a single part

- "Export" as *.stl

 

Or in a recent version of Cura:

- go to the Marketplace and install the "Mesh Tools" plugin from @ahoeben

- this gives you a new menu entry:  "Extensions" -> "Mesh Tools" -> "Split model into parts"

 

THIS - this is just precisely exactly what I needed to do today, THANK YOU. I'm talking specifically about using the Mesh Tools extension to separate two parts into two separate stl & gcode files. I can hardly wait to try it tonight on something that failed utterly to print in it's original form. The various 3D model softwares are confusing as heck, as mentioned. For someone just starting out anyway. 

[tansan6 0]

Just added the mesh tools from @Ahoeben  and it worked perfectly.  Let me break down a long 8 hour print into smaller pieces so a failure doesn't cost me the whole job

[StephenJS 1]

Hi, the functionality is still there, I think you just need to add or enable the mesh tools extensions.  If it is not under your extension menu. Just go to marketplace and install mesh tools. Then load the model and select extensions then mesh tools and split models into parts is there then you go move or delete parts.