Base Printing

[tbraham22 0]

Hi Ultimakers!

 

A student has designed a bridge for a model of a railway station - it is going on a turntable. I'm fairly new to 3D printing but have had a number of successful prints and would like to think I know a little bit about it. However - he has done the drawing - exported it, and when we preview it, it doesn't include the base! Does anyone know why it might be? I've print screened the prepare and preview views so you can see the difference!

 

 

 

 

Thanks in advance for any suggestion - if not we'll get him to redraw and try again..

 

Tom Braham

[Guest maht]

What was it modelled in? There could be an issue with the mesh.

If you go into the Marketplace and download the Mesh tools plugin, it will automatically determine whether your mesh has holes in it or not, and fix them.

[tbraham22 0]

Thanks for your reply - it was done in Google Sketchup.

 

I'll speak to our IT team and get them to download the Mesh Plugin for us!

 

[Smithy 1,144]

I don't recommend to use Google Sketchup for 3D printing. It is known that the software generates non working models for 3D printing.

[neotko 1,417]

19 hours ago, Smithy said:

I don't recommend to use Google Sketchup for 3D printing. It is known that the software generates non working models for 3D printing.

Or just fix the objects

 

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

 

Free service and can fix almost anything 

[geert_2 557]

For the future, get your staff and students to use other software than SketchUp for 3D-printing, or you will keep running into problems and keep repairing errors. SketchUp was designed for visual models only, not for 3D-printing. It produces sort of "cardboard" models where the edges do not fit together and are not watertight, not solid. It is excellent if you want a quick idea on-screen for an architectural concept, as long as you are not going to print it.

 

Students and educators can often get free or cheap educational versions of professional 3D-CAD software.

 

Otherwise, you could use DesignSpark Mechanical (this is the one I use), or any other freeware offline or online program, designed for watertight *solid* modeling.

 

[tbraham22 0]

Hi all - thanks for the replies. We will endeavour to use some different software and see how we get on. We do have access to AutoCAD and have used Fusion 360 but our PC's really struggle with the recent versions.

 

Thanks again