Need assistance fixing design

SketchUp 3D Printing
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NewCase.stl (63.0 KB)

I am new to SketchUp and mechanical design in general as I’m an electrons engineer. I designed a case for my new project, but I cannot get it to print because it has errors. However, I have no idea what the errors are. Can someone please take a look at the files and tell me want I did wrong?

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Share the SKP file instead of the STL please.

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NewCase.zip (2.5 MB)

4

Lots of problems to fix.

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You can see some of the issues here–holes with surface borders and reversed faces.

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5

For starters, there are a couple of basic issues with the model.

  • You have a large number of unused components that are bloating the model. If you do Model Info->Statistics->Purge Unused you will see the file size decrease noticeably.
  • The unused components are also not using layers properly. They associate their edges and faces with layers other than Layer0. All edges and faces should be drawn with Layer0 active and left there. Only Groups, Components, and some non-geometry items such as dimensions should use other layers.

That said, for starters if you plan to export as stl you should first make your object a group or component so that you can test whether it is what SketchUp considers a “solid”. Most printers won’t correctly process a SketchUp model unless it is a solid. When it is made a component, the Solid Inspector 2 extension will show you the errors @DaveR illustrated.

Some of these SI2 can fix on its own, so your first step should be to ask it to “Fix All”. There will still be some errors left that you have to repair manually. Several of them result from small gaps in the arcs that define a couple of the holes in your object:

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If you use the line tool to fill in those little gaps and then run SI2 again it will find a large number of issues but will be able to fix all of them!

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Take look at this file. It’s considered solid by SketchUp and should print just fine. I redrew the entire thing. Dimensions in your model were kind of strange but I stuck as closely as I could to it. I hope it’s workable.

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NewCase.skp (196.4 KB)

1 Like
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Thank you both for your assistance. I reworked my original and SI2 says says everything is shiny ( I miss that series). However, when I export my or DaveR’s rev it still does not print. I am using a Robo2 which converts it to a gcode file. Only 15 layers an a 1 min print time.NewCase.skp (139.4 KB)

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I don’t see any issues with your SketchUp model (thanks for sharing it). What file type do you export? I know nothing about Robo2 so I’m sorry, I can’t help with that part.

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I export as a .stl. I insert the thumb drive into the Robo2, go through the print config, and it generates a .gcode file for printing.NewCase.stl (368.6 KB)
Now that the .skp is ok I will hop over to the Robo forums. I will post any updated.

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I exported an STL file from my revised version of your model and uploaded it to i Materialise and it all appears to be find for them.

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1 Like
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My exports are converting to mm. I imported my STL to Cura and it was a tiny 2mm x .83mm x 1.57mm speck.

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What happens if you export the STL with unis set to millimeters?

I exported in model units and chose Inches for the upload units. There must be a place to select the units.

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I uploaded the stl from my skp to i Materialise and got the same results as you, so I ordered 2. :slight_smile: I’ll get this solved when I make changes after the fit tests. Thanks for your assistance, old dogs can learn new tricks.