I’m trying to make a server blanking plate for my PS5 (I have a friend with a CNC mill and an appetite for tomfoolery). Here is the ideal end state.
I know the basics of SketchUp but haven’t really mucked about with any of the Solid Tools before. My plan was to import a PS5 from the warehouse (there are many), create a rectangle to represent my plate, then subtract a void into the plate using a very slightly (1-2%) scaled up PS5 model as a kind of cutting tool.
It turns out none of the PS5s I have found are solid, so the subract tool rejects them. I know this generally means watertight, e.g I don’t need to fill the interior, but I can’t see any gaps and the models are very, very detailed, so it might be hard to find them!
Is there a way to limit my warehouse search for just filled models? Or a trick for filling these in? I’ve attached the skp file with a couple of examples. I don’t need it to be terribly accurate (I thought about tracing the photos) and I’m going to laser cut it on acryllic or ply first for a test fit.
I don’t think you can filter for solid objects in the 3D warehouse and I expect most users who are modeling objects like that don’t care about the thing being a solid.
There are extensions such as Solid Inspector and SOlid Inspector2 that can help you identify what is preventing an object from being identified as a solid. In some cases Solid Inspector 2 can make repairs. For example the outer case here is not a solid due to this:
The stray edges can be deleted but the surface borders (linked to missing faces in the oobject will need your input.
It would help to understande what it takes to have a solid group or component in SketchUp. In simple terms every edge must be shared by exactly two faces. No fewer and no more. So no stray edges, no holes in surfaces, and no internal faces.
Also, in order for the Solid tools to be usable, the two objects (the case and your blanking plate blank) must be in the same context. In your model the outer case of the Playstation is buried several levels deep in nesting. You could explode the Playstation 5 component and top two Group levels to get things in the same context.
I don’t know how much of the Playstation model needs to be used for the blanking plate but you could help to simplify things by deleting the groups you don’t actually need.
I really don’t know which part you need to use but here’s an example. I exploded the three top level objects so your plate and the case parts are in the same context. I hide the other objects leaving use the inner case. I used Solid Inspector 2 to identify where the problem geometry is and then I used CleanUp3 to remove the unneeded edges before selecting and deleting the problem geometry and the neighboring port since your plate didn’t involve them. That actually made the object a solid. I also had to group your plate geometry to make another solid. Instead of using the native Solid Tools I used Bool Tools2 because I have the toolbar out. The native Solid Tools would also work in this case. The extensions I mentioned can all be found in the Extension Warehouse.
But if I zoom right in and delete those lines, it deforms the model; if I try and draw over the gaps with lines to make them solid, it doesn’t close up the space (and they’re never convenient little shapes I can cover with a rectangle or simple shape).
I agree with Mike about the thing from the 3D Warehouse. I would be skeptical of it’s accuracy. That said, fixing the geometry isn’t going to be automatic. This area for example is going to need to a bit of work.
I might extend the upper surface behind this mess and then use Intersect Faces To make it possible to separate the geometry above so it can be removed. Something like this.
Before you do any of that you should scale the model up. I would scale it up by 1000x so 1mm is 1m long. That will help avoid issues with tiny faces that won’t fill. You already have model units set to Meters but you haven’t scaled the model up.
Work with Hidden Geometry turned on so you can select and delete the unwanted faces and edges.
It’s tricky because it’s such a weird shape to try and freehand, and you can’t trace from imagery because I’m trying to get the cross-section with a bit of an offset from the front edge.
I am planning to laser cut it out of ply or acryllic before I touch my metal stock just to check
I would use a contour gauge to pick up the shape off the real thing. Then in order to get it into SketchUp I would scan the gauge or trace the gauge onto a piece of paper and scane that to create an image to import into SketchUp which I would then trace. I did a similar thing to create a model for 3D printing.
