Can you help me combine these parts into one

SketchUp
1

I have a small mould that I 3D print and use individually:

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I want to put 8 of these into a grid and set them into a block…Like this:

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I assumed it would be easy… I moved/duplicated each piece and made a block of 8… But I can’t work out how to “sink” it into a block.

I tried drawing a rectangle around it and “pulled” it to the top and that left lots of holes… So I then tried creating a rectangle, and moving the set of 8 moulds onto it and pulling it… But I get a lot of errors and surfaces don’t join.

Is there a way to do this? And if so, anyone care to help me?

The SKP is attached.

7. Now with Ends.skp (1.6 MB)

Jon

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2

Try it with the model scaled up by a factor of 10 or 100.

Like this?

3

Also ensure that all faces are oriented properly.
It looks like a “trough’s” end is oriented backwards ?

4

I tried scaled x100 as I have seen problems like this before, but it was the same.

I did notice the ends were like this… But SolidInspector2 set them like it, so i assumed it was normal…

I have tried with them set correcty and its the same. The resulting model shows 1000s of bad faces in Soild Inspector and when I load it into my 3D printing software, its not correct.

I think its got something to do with “intersection” as if I zoom right in, my curved surfaces arn’t directly connected to the ‘block’ and there are little gaps all over the place.

5

Did you see the link to a version I made? I uploaded it to the 3D Warehouse because it was too big to upload it.

6

No… Sorry I missed that… Thats perfect…Thanks… I will use it for sure… But how exactly did you do it? I would love to know what I am doing wrong?

7

Here’s how I handled it. By the way, I wound up being able to do this without scaling the model up.

First, I got rid of the unneeded geometry and I fixed the face orientation on the ends. I also moved the trough over near the origin. It’s not a good idea to place the geometry so far away from the origin. It can cause issues.

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Next, I drew a rectangle for the plate these troughs will be in and pulled it up to the top of the trough. I selected the geometry of the trough and the top face of the plate and used Intersect Faces>With Selected. This divides the top face of the plate so the face inside the trough perimeter can be selected and deleted.

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I used Offset to create the edges for what will be the raised area around the trough.

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To make the other troughs, I used Move/Copy to copy the trough first to the right…

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…and then after selecting both troughs, I copied them back and made 3 additional pairs. The faces skinning the troughs automatically get deleted in the process.

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A little Push/Pull actionon the larger face lowers the top of the plate leaving the raised rim around each trough. Then I made it a component and checked to see that it was solid. It was.

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8

Thats awesome… Thanks very much… I will try this myself… I didn’t actually need the raised bit… I only had those because I was struggling to “pull” the top to the exact surface… So will try to create one which is totally flat on top.

Thanks again… I really do appreciate such thorough help on this forum

Jon