I need help... Please...

[OKJack 0]

H...

Newby (retired beekeeper) here... Please forgive me if this question has already been asked elsewhere...

I'm brand new to 3D printing, and I love it !!!

I recently purchased an Anycubic Chiron 3DP, and (as recommended) downloaded Cura to slice my SketchUp designs...

So far, they have all worked well, meaning what I drew and sliced and printed were all the same !!!

But, I designed a new 400x200mm "tray" made out of a bunch of hexagons, and as it started to print I could see that it was making "solid" plates (in the lower left segment)where there should be hexagons..

Pictures attached of the Sketchup, deign, Cura slicer and Chiron print deck....

Could someone please explain what I am doing wrongly, and how to fix it...

Maybe I need to adjust some Cura settings ???

Thanks in advance...

Rick...

[gr5 2,168]

STL files have something called "normals" which tells cura which side of every triangle faces inwards towards plastic and which side faces outwards towards air.  Unfortunately sketchup doesn't set these up by default.  You have to fix them all.

 

There's many options for you.  I'm going to recommend one but there are faster solutions. 

 

So in sketchup in your first photo posted above - see how some of those hexagons are white and some are gray?

 

See how the white ones worked okay and the gray ones didn't?  That's because "gray" is facing "inside".  You should never see gray on any face in sketchup.  Unless you are inside the part.  \

 

So right click on all those gray surfaces and select "reverse faces".

 

That's it.  I know you have to do about 100 so I can give you other options but that's probably the best option and it will teach you going forwards to always get your normals correct in sketchup.  Here's a document to help you fix other problems you might have in sketchup along with some sketchup plugins to test your model:

 

https://i.materialise.com/blog/3d-printing-with-sketchup/

 

By the way, most CAD programs will not even let you do this (create backwards normals).  Because most CAD programs are for createing real things.  Things you can pickup and touch.  Whereas sketchup is designed for architectural models that you can look at only on the computer.  However it can create "real things" if you follow all the rules in the above document.

[OKJack 0]

Awesome !!! Thanks for your help gr5 !!!

(I'm new to SketchUp as well)...

I'll give that a try...

Much appreciated...

[nallath 1,120]

Don't use sketchup. Save yourself the headache and learn another program (Tinkercad, blender, freecad, fusion360).

[OKJack 0]

OK... Thanks...

[gr5 2,168]

Lol.  He's not completely wrong.  It took me a year to get really good with sketchup where I could design at the speed of thought and not even know what my hands were doing.  If you are at that point it might really suck to switch CAD.  If you are not at that point it might be worthwhile to switch to something like DSM (design spark mechanical) which I love and that ALSO took me a year (plus I had to buy a space mouse) to get so that my fingers just do their thing and I don't have to think about what shortcut keys I should hit next.

 

But if you have put in a ton of effort getting really good at sketchup then you can put in a tiny bit more to use the special plugins I linked to such that sketchup will not let you make non-manifold parts (parts that are impossible in reality to exist).  Sketchup plus plugins is... good enough.

 

There are things I really hated about sketchup though - often two flat planes that appeared to be coplanar and should have been, were not.  And it was so frustrating and wasted dozens of hours of my time trying to close up holes.  It's incredibly common to have a few open triangles in sketchup that just won't seal up.  No issues like that with DSM.