It’ printed fine as it was despite the geometry issues. The print looks perfect, as far as I can tell. .PCBs fit perfectly, and that’s what really counts. I forgot another cut-out I needed, added that too without a problem. I made about six so far.
Dave, you didn’t model it from scratch. Where did you get the dimensions for the holes, stand-off heights, etc? Had to be from the sketchup model I provided.
If you have some tips on how to “model from scratch” given an existing model with “horrible geometry”, that might be useful. But still, I don’s see why I should care unless it causes issues in SU.
Just measuring everything would take far longer than simply importing the 3d model, at least for me. Granted, I’m not a highly skilledSU user like you.
Other things I’m spending time on— circuit design for the pcb, reflowing the pcbs, writing firmware for the processor and C++ for the UIs.
This is for one assembly (the simplest) in a system that has seven. And that’s just one system. I have five projects sill in progress. I’m converting the enclosures from laser cut acrylic to 3d printed. Since the 2d “faces” exist in Corel Draw, I export them for import into SU. Make faces, extrude, and continue. Lots of “horrible geometry” results That’s why I’m interested in tips on how to do it easily
I created ALL of the geometry in my model of your box. Of course I took measurements from your model. I had to get them somehow and you didn’t provide anything else in the way of references. If you’d provided dimensioned drawings of it I would have used them instead. Or, if I was trying to duplicate an object I already had in hand, I would have taken measurements from it.
It sounds like you are satisfied with the unneeded triagulation of imported .stl files and the added work it can create so maybe there’s no need to change your workflow. My preference is for cleaner geometry without the unnecessary triangulation. It makes the model easier to work with especially if/when modifications are needed.
The reason for redoing the model isn’t that it can’t be 3D printed as-is. SketchUp isn’t the determinant of whether a stl can be 3D printed. There are lots of stl’s that SketchUp doesn’t accept as solid but a slicer may be fine with.
Rather, making a “clean” solid model in SketchUp makes it much easier to do any subsequent model editing you may require. Said another way, if you are happy with the stl, warts and all, why struggle to edit it in SketchUp, which is not?
SU was happy with the model–Solid Inspector says it’s “All Shiny”. Only after doing Solid Tools subtract, does it complain.
Because the model needs some changes–in this case holes cut. Simply cutting some holes in an object Sketchup considers a solid using solid tools seems like it shouldn’t cause issues
But, I’m constantly struggling with objects becoming “non-solid” after solid tool operations like subtract. The original post was a trivial example.
Sometimes, Solid Inspector complains after a Union. The issue it complains about was in one of the objects BEFORE the union, but SI only notices after the Union
For me, it’s just whichever takes less time to get the print I need. I’m about to punt on what I’m doing now and model “from scratch”. But, really not from scratch, but tracing over an imported 2d face with “for sure” orthogonal lines, adding reference lines from the imported model, etc. Not really from scratch, but should provide good geometry and be pretty quick. Quick for me is less than an hour.
Assuming you scaled up (or better, used the “Dave method”) that’s a sign that something in the model is right at the edge of what SketchUp will accept. I noticed in your example model that there were numerous faces that looked like they should have been planar, but if you delete the diagonal the face vanishes - a sure sign that the corners are not co-planar. Because stl consists only of triangles, it doesn’t care about things like that, but they can mess up operations in SketchUp.
In any case, the bottom line is getting results which you seem to have achieved.
I have several more enclosures that I want to convert from assembled, cut acrylic to 3d printed. On the one I’m doing now, I decided to model from scratch rather than importing.
It takes WAY longer than simply importing the pieces as STL and doing Unions/Subtracts. But, I must say it’s satisfying not to have to mess with surface borders mysteriously showing up.
But, after putting finishing touches on the “from scratch” model, suddenly a surface border showed up in an area of the model I hadn’t touched since very early in the modelling process. It’s in a hole adjacent to what was an identical hole. The adjacent hole has no surface borders.
I can’t see an easy way to eliminate the surface border. This is the type of thing that drives me nuts.
Also, I keep having to narrow the field of view to prevent clipping. The clipping only occurs when I edit the component. I can zoom without issue until I edit the component.
Initially, they were groups, not components. Changing the groups to components let me zoom farther without the clipping, but eventually that fix quit working.
I’ve made sure I don’t have any geometry still scaled 1000x and everything’s close to the origin. I suspect somehow the model has been impacted by the work done at 1000x. Scaling back to 1000x doesn’t eliminate the clipping issue.
What causes this and how to fix and avoid?lsu.skp (486.2 KB)
First thing, it is best to work in perspective mode and keep the field of view at around 30 to 35 deg, you have it set at 10deg. This can cause clipping.
The issue with the hole in the hole. The bottom circle and the top circle do not align. Yes they may be centered on the same point but you haven’t aligned them on axis so the vertices don’t line up. Always keep an eye on how you draw out your circles.
Along the way, I saved several “back-ups”. Here’s one that has the same “triangulated” geometry in the problematic hole, but Solid Inspector doesn’t complaing.no surface borders.skp (340.7 KB)
The surface borders may have occurred after doing Fredo Round corner, but Solid Inspector didn’t complaint.
I only went to narrow field of view to be able to zoom a bit farther without clipping. I always work in perspective.
Always keep an eye on how you draw out your circles
I’ve been relying on SI to catch things like that so I can fix immediately. I run it after EVERY operation so I can find and fix a mistake. But, apparently I can’t count on that.
There is something wrong with your model that is causing the clipping, have you been using Text label?
Try this and see if it clips. No clipping.skp (279.3 KB)
The model you posted does not clip, at least at the zoom levels I need to do editing.
But, I went back to the model I posted and I can’t get it to clip either! I’ve had clipping issues that were solved by simply shutting down SU and restarting, but I’d done that several times to avoid the problem without success.
