I am new to both SketchUp and 3d printing. (about 5 weeks now)
This is my first complex part and after working through the several tutorials from Trimble and others on Youtube I was pretty proud of this part! It looks pretty nice in SketchUp but when I get it into the slicer software and print it it’s a different story!
I am willing to bet way down in some pull down sub-menu there is EXACTLY the thing I need to fix this in one click though!
I am going to post several images so you can see what I see…the first two images are in SketchUp (I discovered we have a one image per post rule so several posts follow) …
Now I did REALLY struggle to get a circle on one end and a rectangle with different radii on the other end AND make it look nice (this is an RC Airplane model part) Now after I got the long period of stretching, shrinking extending, moving, etc to get nice flowing lines I did use he smoothing tool.
Unfotunately, that is probably what your model looks like in SketchUp, too. Only difference is that you have those edges smoothed, right now.
If you can share the file, some folks around here can probably post steps to generate smoother geometry from the get-go, and help create a nice smooth file for printing.
Well duh! to me! I supposed that is much better than screen shots!
So here is how I started. I post this only in case I did it wrong from the git-go .
Note the name, this was my 5th try at doing this cowl
So this is 5-3 early in the process where I have the firewall and spinner situated – so you can see how I was going–. extrude then stretch out to the guidelines I had drawn.
The top ring needed a lot of clean up. The goal is to get a single line all the way around. No breaks, and no extra lines. Once that is the case, you can Weld them together using the Weld extension. Then the fun begins! Select the top ring and the second tallest ring and use Fredo’s Curviloft - Loft by Spline to generate new, smooth geometry between the rings!
Robajohn; Ususally you want the design to be thin walled else the slicer assumes it is total solid and the print requires a lots of filament. Did you have that issue?
Well, early on I saw a thing on a YouTube from a guy named “Master Sketchup” and his advise was to just send it to the slicer as a solid and then in the slicer software convert it to hollow. (LOL “early on”! I have been doing this a whole 5 weeks now!)
If you look at the dialog on the left in the shot below you see “shell thickness” and more importantly “fill density”. As you can see I have fill density" set to 0 and that makes it hollow. Shell thickness sets how thick the walls are. When I actually printed this I did 2 mm walls . (ignore the red arrow as this screen shot is for another question- it just came in handy for your question as well)
To TheOnlyAarron, Thank you so much. I spent the weekend pounding the mouse learning and practicing what you taught me in one short post! My proficiency has increased dramatically. I can do a better drawing in far less time now. Hell, in a few years I might get good at this!
Check it out man! You taught me how to do this! I am getting better thanks to all the help from you and others! That one up top that looks so crappy took me about 8 hours to make! This one took me about two hours with far more detail and looking way better to boot!
Again, a big “thank you” to you and all the other coaches on these boards!
(besides smoothing) that will actually take all those “wrinkles” out?
