Ah I see. I can fix that! 
Actually, Dave, Can you tell me how you figured out? With Solid inspector?
Indeed wishing I had turned it into a component 
Oh right, why is it easier to model in meters? I’ll turn off the length snapping…
I didn’t need Solid Inspector for that. When I selected the group I notice that it didn’t report as solid in Entity Info. My first reaction was to orbit to underneath to see if there was anything obvious. I have a keyboard shortcut set up to hide the rest of the model when a compoennt or group is open for editing. I used that to get the rest of the model out of my way for examining it.
That’s not an uncommon thing. I guess part of the thinking ahead to what will or may happen with the model helps.
SketchUp is primarily designed for modeling much larger objects. It has limitations regarding how short edge segments can be. If the end points are too close togehter SketchUp will assume they are supposed to be the same point and delete one of them. If one point is deleted the edge gets deleted and if the edge gets deleted, the faces that require the edge get deleted. Then you have a hole in the surface that prevents the object from being solid. This affects small details, especially those with curves. Working as if millimeters are meters generall eliminates that.
I’m digging in to your border object. It’s not soild for several reasons. One is the reversed face on the bottom. Another is a few internal faces. Both of those are easily fixed by Solid Inspector 2.
The nested instances, though are those partial cylinders which are groups packed in with the geometry of the border. You either need to explode all those cylinders or you need to group the border geometry without them.
I would suggest starting over on your chessboard. Make sure a component is solid before you make a bunch of copies of it. That will save you time later because you won’t have to repair it.
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Welkom Sandra, er zijn er nog meer hoor!
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Hey,
since the orbit issue was resolved pretty much in the first 4 messages, and the following 40 are talking about modelling tips and 3d print, I took the liberty of changing the title a bit 
, so people interested in 3d printing will read it
feel free to readjust it f you need, I didn’t read it all, another title might be (probably is) better
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Oh dear, starting over agian 
I guess learning really does take a lot of practice, doesn’t it.
Thanks for the explaination of working in metres instead of mm, that’s helpfull! I get it now, I was puzzled before.
The solid issues: Okay I get those first two issues. Could you explain what is the problem with the partial cillinders? I don’t get it… Maybe I don’t understand what is meant by ‘nesting instance’.
Okay, I think I already found the answer: " By the way, nested instances just means that you have a group/component within a group/component . A solid can only be one level deep, so raw geometry wrapped as a group or component."
So I cannot make groups within groups then. Does that mean that if I create all the building tools needed to make the board, I can group them individually, but should not group all those groups in the end to make one big group/component?
The partial cylinders (half cylinders, quarter cylinders) are groups separate from the loose geometry of the border. It’s not a problem that they are partial cylinders, just that they are groups.
Think of a group or component as a container that has something in it. Analogy: imagine that you have a bunch of geometry but it’s peanut butter, Nutella, Chinese mustard, and horseradish sauce. If you just put all that stuff together it will all combine into a single mass. So each of them goes into a container (component) to protect them from each other. That also makes it easier to move them around. If you put those four jars into your shopping bag, the shopping bag becomes your nested component.
In the case of your border group, you have a bunch of jars of peanut butter (the partial cylinders) dropped into a shopping bag and then you just poured in the horseradish sauce (the geometry of the border) on top.
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This is basically right. Only the bottom level groups and components can be identified as solid because the contain only edges and faces and that geometry meets the requirements for being solid.
You can have groups inside of groups.
No. You can make groups of small chunks of geometry and collect those groups into a nested group or component. You’ve already seen the downside of using groups for your model. As I told you days ago, use components instead. That will make your whole model easier to work with.
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It’s good I wasn’t drinking coffee! It would have exited through my nose… 
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Remind me to stay away if @DaveR is cooking 
!
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It does make an explosive mixture. 
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I took this advice from Dave a few years ago and never looked back. I can’t think of a reason to use groups so I very rarely use them anymore. Mostly by accident if I do!
Maybe some odd extension doesn’t work on components so needs groups, don’t know…
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Okay okay! I’ve heard it this time. No more groups :P.
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Soooo… I’m not sure that I understand correctly… Sorry to be a bother 
So my partial cylinders are peanut butter, I’ve put those in a group which is my shopping bag, but then I’ve just combined them with the raw material of the border, which is the horseradish sauce? Do I understand that correctly?
Would the problem be solved if i also put the raw geometry of the border into a component and only then group them together with the partial cylinders? Or no?
Basically all edges and faces should be in component or group containers at the lowest level. There should be no loose geometry in nested objects with components or groups. So yes. The horseradish sauce should be in a container before it goes into the shopping bag with the jar of peanut butter and the jar of Nutella.
Hahah awesome, I’m happy to understand it correctly. Okay I’ll keep practicing then :). Great analogy!
Also, can you find any fold with this model? Apparently this one also gives errors. They can build it in Fusion 360, that’s not a problem. I just wish to understand what I may have done wrong in this model, that it would not be printable…
They need to tell you exactly what errors. I’m not getting any when I export your file to .stl and open it in the slicer.
You didn’t do the things I recommended like modeling with sub-components and you didn’t model it in meters. I don’t understand why you keep ignoring my recommendations since I’ve shown they will work for you the way you need them to.
No this was still the same model, I haven’t had the time to build a new model. But I’m definitely taking your comments for the next model, don’t worry!