First Project - Getting ready for 3D Printing - Solids

[lafilipczyk]

Hello everyone, I am trying to get my first model ready for 3D printing, and I am running into issues getting the model to be recognized as “solid”. I have tried multiple things but I do not see the notification on the entity info. I have grouped the entities, but I suspect that the space between the solid faces are NOT solid at all
Final Circle 2.stl (118.9 KB)

The model itself is very simple, just a disk with 2 screw holes and a center hole for a button. The solid parts should be the faces of the disk, and the screw support holes. I creataed the spaces using the extrusion tool, but I dont know if it is enough for that section to be considered “solid”.

I am also truggling a bit to set the objects perfectly flat when printed. As the print starts it appears that the faces are not perfectly flat, but I am not sure if that is because the full object is tilted, or if the face shate is the one not flat.

Any ideas and advice will be welcome, since I am VERY new at this.

Thank you for your time!

[DaveR]

Share the .skp file with us so we can see what you’ve modeled exactly.

Looking at the .stl file it appears you have exposed back faces. There should be no blue back faces visible in your model. The blue back faces are toward the print media. The white front faces are toward air.

Very likely you also have internal faces. Every edge in the model must be shared by exactly two faces. No fewer and no more.

[lafilipczyk]

Final Circle 2.skp (182.7 KB)
Hello Dave, here it is.

Thank you in advance for your time!

[DaveR]

So there are quite a few problems with your model that would prevent it from being 3D printable.

First, why have you placed the objects so far from the origin. You should keep the model near the origin.

Looking at the bottom you can see some of the reversed faces.

For the piece with the loop on the outside edge you have the screw bosses as groups inside the larger object but the larger object is just loose geometry.

The round box would also need to be a group or component and it along with the screw bosses would need to be identified as solid in Entity Info. The screw bosses have a face skinning the hole at the bottom.

On the other part you can see internal faces when you zoom in and use the Xray style.

You would have an easier time of modeling these parts if you think about the modeling process in much the same way the 3D printer will print it. For example you’ve modeled features on the ground plane that won’t print until farther up in the layers of the print. You’re spending too much time thinking in 2D. Get the thing 3D ASAP. The screw bosses, for example should be modeled on the upper face in the box, not on the ground plane.

Also, set the model units to Meters and model as if millimeters were meters. This will allow you to use more sides for circles and arcs so you can get smoother shapes. There’s no need to scale down before exporting the .stl file.

As far as drawing circles. Make it a habit of dragging out their radii on axis. Don’t drage them out in a random direction. That’ll make working with them easier.

I’ll see if I can make an example for you. Based on what you’ve modeled I’m not sure what the dimensions are actually supposed to be, though.

[DaveR]

Another thing I notice while looking at your model for dimensions is that things aren’t modeled “level”.

[lafilipczyk]

Thank you for the pointers Dave! I might start over with the feedback you provided since fixing the model might be more trouble than just re modeling.
Any tipes on keeping things “level” with the free web version? Just making sure of locking axis as much as possible?

[DaveR]

@lafilipczyk

Any tipes on keeping things “level” with the free web version? Just making sure of locking axis as much as possible?

Keeping your model close to the origin will help a great deal. Pay attention to the inferencing messages.

Starting over is probably a good idea but give me a few minutes to make some more screenshots for you.

Does it matter where that D-shaped thing is on the side relative to the screw bosses?

[DaveR]

Let’s see if this helps. Although I’m working in SketchUp for Desktop I haven’t done anything that can’t be done with SketchUp Free.

This is modeled as I described with the units set to meters. The outside diamter of the part I’m modeling will be about 74 meters but in the 3D printed object, it’ll be about 74 mm. I’m also using 96 sides for all circles in this model. That gives smooth surfaces without going crazy.

I started by drawing a cross section of the box and a circle. These will be used with Follow Me for the main part of the box. The gap between the blue axis and the profile defines the central hole. Note that I am working centered on the origin so I have that center as a reference at all times.

Select the circle, get Follow Me, click on the profile face.

At this point I drew the bases of the screw bosses on the inside face of the box. They are laid out on a guideline parallel to the green axis to ensure they are 180° opposed to each other.

Until that face exists in the model the screw bosses are not useful.

With those circles drawn, it’s only a matter of extruding the donut up to make the screw bosses.

At his point I made the thing a component and SketchUp identified it as a solid component so it’s good to go.

For the ring on the side I drew another circle along the red axis centered on the side of the box. I added the hole and used Push/Pull to extrude it to height. I used Intersect faces on the top face and them Push/Pull down to trim the ring to match the side of the box. For this example I left it as a separate solid component. That makes it easy to deal with if it needs to be moved or duplicated or even removed.

You can see, then, two solid components indicated in Entity Info.

Here I’ve exported the components in .stl format and opened it in the slicer. The dimensions are small in the lower left but hopefully you can see they are in millimeters.

The slicer treats what was two separate objects as a single object because they are touching each other. FWIW, there was no cleanup required in modeling any of this. They two objects were solid from the moment the components were created.

By the way, if you expect to do more modeling for 3D printing I would suggest that you look into getting at least a SketchUp Go supbscription. It’ll give you Solid Inspector which can help with troubleshooting your models. You would also get the Solid Tools which can make creating complex shapes easier.

[lafilipczyk]

Amazing!! Thank you so much Dave!

I will review the subscription for Sketchup Go.

Thank you for your time!