Filling in holes in a model and creating new ones?

Hello!

We recently got a Ultimaker 2 extended+ at my college. And i’m going to print a chassi based on the O2/odac amp. but for now it will be a chassi for a high powered cmoy amp. But to the problem. The front plate the chassi has atm is made for the o2 components not a cmoy. So i want to remove all holes in the front plate and repalce them to fit the stereo jack, the 3,5mm input jack, my dual pot, power led and a power switch.

I was told by a friend who is 3d modeling a bit that i need to remove all the “triangles” but i did not catch how i do it. So i was wondering how do i do it or can someone here help me get the model suited for my needs(I have all the measurements for diameter of the components)?

It isn’t clear from your post whether or not you have an existing SketchUp model (or some other 3D model) you want to modify or are creating a new model from scratch. Your reference to “remove all the triangles” sounds like you have a stl model you want to edit. STL represents everything as a mesh of triangles, which can be very awkward to work with in SketchUp until you clean things up. Checking the “merge coplanar faces” import option is an essential first step, and there are various cleanup plugins that can help afterward.

If you have a model, could you upload it here (or to 3D warehouse if it is bigger than 3MB) so we can see what you are dealing with?

First things first, it’s best to assume that not everyone is well versed in the intricate and convoluted constructions that were once called car radios. And I may even be off the mark there.
My point being, try to explain your question clearly without using references to things that we may know nothing about.
Good images and models will get the best answers, so use the upload button to give us some more info.

Slow phone typing so i may have repeated @slbaumgartner

My bad i forgot to upload the stl file. I’ll include the whole folder as im not sure what the stlprt files are.

As for making new holes when i manege to fill in the current ones. Is there some guide i can read up on to understand how i go about when i create the holes.

(the file im trying to fix is the O2Front_FlippedOver.stl)
Enclosure_for_O2_Headphone_Amplifier.zip (311.2 KB)

OK, that actually imports quite cleanly with the appropriate options set.

To remove holes, orbit until you are looking more or less vertically at the surface, drag a selection box left-to-right around a hole, confirm that you selected the right entities (i.e. didn’t miss any or get anything extra), and then hit delete. If it makes a mess, undo and try again.

To create new holes, draw a circle of the appropriate radius at the required location and then use the push-pull tool to push it through until it reaches the other side of the plate. If you push exactly to that side (look for inference snaps) it will make a clean hole.

Afterthought: in my animation you will notice that the holes in the import have lines down them whereas my new hole does not. That is merely because the importer did not smooth the holes whereas the pushpull tool did. The edges are also present in mine, they are just smoothed out so they don’t show.

I currently do not have the ability to take a screenshot, but when I imported the file it was full of lines and certainly not as clean as yours. How do I go about to get a clean import like you?

Hi folks.

Soften coplanar still leaves the edges in the model.

It is better to click the Option button of the Import Dialog Window just before importing and then check the box labeled “Merge coplanar faces”. This will eliminate unnecessary triangulation resulting in a much simpler model.

To remove all the holes in one operation, use a top view with camera set to parallel projection. You should be able to select all the holes in one left to right sweep.

Just ideas.

Jean

1 Like

@jean_lemire_1 got it right - I just selected the merge coplanar faces option before importing.

The really sad thing, after looking at the files, is it’s about 3 minutes work to draw in Sketchup.
Far too many people are trying to print things without understanding the geometry.
Downloading something and attempting to modify it slightly without actually learning what they are doing.

3 Likes

I agree, it requires effort & knowledge in 3D printing requirements to get files into a printable state manually.