I’m trying to prepare an .stl file for 3D printing. btw… I used the Microsoft Netfabb Model repair here which worked great: https://modelrepair.azurewebsites.net/ Model repair prepped my .stl perfectly except that 3D printing & CNC fabricators are telling me my walls are too thin. Using the “Print 3D” addon in Blender, tells me my walls are 1 foot thick, which is impossible because my model is only 9 inches tall… bottom line is my Blender dimensions are way different than what the fabricator’s software says… hmmm. Can someone please take a look at my .blend file, and help me properly thicken the walls? I would be very grateful. The walls need to be at least 0.04 inches or 1mm thick. [ATTACH]397245[/ATTACH] Thanks very much!
I tried to implement your suggestion, Richard, but had no success. I’ve contacted numerous fabricators about manufacturing my model, and only one responded. And this one keeps telling me my walls are too thin. For some reason, no matter what I do, the walls will not change thickness when exported to .stl. Either that, or I’m just not doing it correctly. Could someone please help by making my walls at least 1 mm thick (.blend file attached), and explaining how you did it? I’d be very grateful! Thanks so much.
3d print assumes so called “watertight” mesh. This might be whole model or if the model is taking too much volume (read - material to build, price) “watertight” walls with thickness determined by minimum allowed by process or durability needed.
Your mesh had errors - phantom faces, long and narrow not being used at all, internal faces (1 ) and internal edges. A lot of not needed loops on the body, legs, hands.
Scale was not applied (should be Scale XYZ 1,1,1 on N-tab).
Mesh consisted of several separated elements - 3d print mostly doesn’t like this afaik. After you separate mesh into individual objects by L-select in edit mode and P separate into object and correct errors mentioned, use Boolean Union to combine mesh - start by adding ears to the head, apply Boolean mod. Continue on body parts. Add head to the body using the same Boolean Union.
I’m not sure i know what scale is exported stl - if Scene says object is 5cm tall and on stl export Scene Scale is checked this site says object is likely virus-sized and it needs to be scaled up 1000 times to show some meaningful result.
I’ll leave this to the wise ones to figure out what should be the export size or scale or scene or whatever. http://www.pasteall.org/pic/92541 http://www.pasteall.org/blend/37807
Hi Eppo, thanks so much for your help. I was actually able to use “Microsoft 3D Model Repair” to fix the errors you mention… and it worked great. The .blend file I uploaded was BEFORE uploading to the repair site, as I first need to thicken the walls. Were you able to thicken the walls? Because I kept thickening the walls, and I had applied scale, but the thickness did not seem to change. And yes, the dimensions given by Blender don’t seem to match the dimensions that other software comes up with… very confusing.
The obj in file i posted is made without internal cavities. You’d need to come up with initial parts which already have needed wall thickness and then boolean them.
While parts are separated it should be easy enough to add and apply Solidify.
