Scaling problem - thin walls

[CCO 0]

Hi Team

 

We are having a lot of problems scaling our products down to a size, where we can 3d print it. 

We are using Autodesk Inventor Pro 2022 to design our products (industrial fans). 

We would like to 3D print models of our products, which are quite big. 

 

Our problem appears when we try to scale the model and the wall thickness of the sheet metal plates are getting extremely thin. 

Is there any way to setup a rule in ex Cura to control that some dimensions are not scaled below a certain wall thickness?

 

Or any other ideas?

 

I have added an example of a part, where I have scaled it down 1:10

 

Thanks

Christian

30045581.stl 30045581_Scale.stl

[gr5 1,857]

1) The most important new feature in Cura version 5 is that it handles thin walls better.  So make sure you have Cura 5

2) make sure "print thin walls" is checked.  This allows you to print walls twice as thin versus if you don't check that.

3) Look at "horizontal expansion".  If you set that to 0.2mm it should expand each side of a "wall" by 0.2mm to make all walls at least 0.4mm and that should be enough that you get something printable.

4) Fans, propellers I have found to be the most difficult thing to 3d print because of the support issue combined with how delicate each blade is.  I hope you have a dual printer that can print water soluble support.

6) You can print down to 75% of a nozzle size without much (any?) degradation in quality.  So for a 0.4mm nozzle consider setting line width to 0.3mm.  Also then you can set horizontal expansion quite a bit smaller as well but eventually the part is too delicate.

[CCO 0]

Thanks GR5

 

I will try your idea in point 3. I would be great if Cura could extend all too thin walls. 

[gr5 1,857]

4 hours ago, CCO said:

I would be great if Cura could extend all too thin walls. 

Agreed!