Help with 3D Printing
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Help with 3D Printing
Hello! My first post, and forgive me first as I'm new to FreeCad (and Posting in Forums generally) - your patience and understanding appreciated in advance!!
I've created a part in FreeCad, and sent it to a 3D printing company. The company tells me that the part fails to print correctly, and they are not sure why. They asked me to inspect my files and see if anything is wrong there. I've done that and to me, all looks fine, but wondering if a more expert eye might notice something that I've missed. So my questions are:
1) Is this the right place to ask that question (and if not, can you point me in the right direction)
2) Any ideas as to what may be causing the print to fail?
I've uploaded three files: A screen shot of how the part should look;a photo of how the part looks once printed; the Alias Mesh file as exported from FreeCad.
If it's not clear from the pictures - the clasp in the centre of the part prints as a mess!
Any tips or ideas appreciated.
Thanks, Kev
I've created a part in FreeCad, and sent it to a 3D printing company. The company tells me that the part fails to print correctly, and they are not sure why. They asked me to inspect my files and see if anything is wrong there. I've done that and to me, all looks fine, but wondering if a more expert eye might notice something that I've missed. So my questions are:
1) Is this the right place to ask that question (and if not, can you point me in the right direction)
2) Any ideas as to what may be causing the print to fail?
I've uploaded three files: A screen shot of how the part should look;a photo of how the part looks once printed; the Alias Mesh file as exported from FreeCad.
If it's not clear from the pictures - the clasp in the centre of the part prints as a mess!
Any tips or ideas appreciated.
Thanks, Kev
- Attachments
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- LGD.obj
- Alias Mesh exported from FreeCad
- (297.31 KiB) Downloaded 36 times
-
- Photo of Failed Part
- LGD - Failed Part.jpg (31.15 KiB) Viewed 1303 times
-
- ScreenShot of how the part should look
- LGD - FreeCad ScreenShot.png (90.8 KiB) Viewed 1303 times
Re: Help with 3D Printing
Hi Kev, welcome to the FreeCAD forum
No, Open discussion is not the right place, I moved your post to the Help forum. Here in Help forum you see an "IMPORTANT: ..." link at the top, please follow it and publish your FreeCAD info here.
To analyze your model we rather need the FreeCAD file with the extension .fcstd, not the exported mesh.
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Re: Help with 3D Printing
I opened the .obj file in Slic3r that I use for my 3d printer and everything looks just fine.
Re: Help with 3D Printing
I opened your obj in 3d builder on Win and I found issues... I'm attaching what the sw has repaired...KevCan wrote: ↑Tue Jul 31, 2018 7:33 am Hello! My first post, and forgive me first as I'm new to FreeCad (and Posting in Forums generally) - your patience and understanding appreciated in advance!!
I've created a part in FreeCad, and sent it to a 3D printing company. The company tells me that the part fails to print correctly, and they are not sure why. They asked me to inspect my files and see if anything is wrong there. I've done that and to me, all looks fine, but wondering if a more expert eye might notice something that I've missed. So my questions are:
1) Is this the right place to ask that question (and if not, can you point me in the right direction)
2) Any ideas as to what may be causing the print to fail?
I've uploaded three files: A screen shot of how the part should look;a photo of how the part looks once printed; the Alias Mesh file as exported from FreeCad.
If it's not clear from the pictures - the clasp in the centre of the part prints as a mess!
Any tips or ideas appreciated.
Thanks, Kev
PS I'm not familiar with 3d printing at all...
Re: Help with 3D Printing
Thanks for the welcome and the tips. I didn't spot the new post in the help forum, but probably I didn't check hard enough! Either way, I see what I need to do to get help efficiently, what I need to include in the post etc. Thanks for pointing me in the right direction!
Thanks Fosselius - appreciate you checking for me. I'll use the new post in the help forum to add new files in case that's more helpful
Awesome, thanks for that, much appreciated. I'll download the file and check it out. Out of interest, was it clear to you what the error was, or what was changed?
Re: Help with 3D Printing
Now it is in the help forum. If you upload the FreeCAD file we might find the source of the problem so that you can avoid the problems in the future.
A Sketcher Lecture with in-depth information is available in English, auf Deutsch, en français, en español.
Re: Help with 3D Printing
Ah yes - I've found it now, thank you
Here I'm attaching the FreeCad File: I've just upgraded to 0.17, but the FreeCad file was created in the old version (0.16) version. I don't want to keep printing the part over and over if there is something obviously wrong with the design that is nothing to do with the version. I don't really want to assume (just yet) that this is the issue. I'm expecting an error on my part rather than the software as I'm new to this.
If there is nothing to find or change with the design, then I'll reproduce the mesh using the latest FreeCad version and ask the printing company to keep trying.
OS: Windows 8
Word size of OS: 64-bit
Word size of FreeCAD: 32-bit
Version: 0.16.6706 (Git)
Build type: Release
Branch: releases/FreeCAD-0-16
Hash: f86a4e411ff7848dea98d7242f43b7774bee8fa0
Python version: 2.7.8
Qt version: 4.8.7
Coin version: 4.0.0a
OCC version: 6.8.0.oce-0.17
Thanks again, appreciate the help!
Re: Help with 3D Printing
Geometry check passes, sketches seem to be ok. One minor point: instead of using a vertical distance of 0mm you should use a horizontal or point on line constraint instead. Similarly the 180° angle can be omitted. So the problem might have been the 3D print process rather than the model. However, it is best to use the latest version for export.
If you would rebuild this model in 0.17/0.18 you would rather model it completely in PartDesign than to switch to and fro between Part and PartDesign. Might be a good exercise.
If you would rebuild this model in 0.17/0.18 you would rather model it completely in PartDesign than to switch to and fro between Part and PartDesign. Might be a good exercise.
A Sketcher Lecture with in-depth information is available in English, auf Deutsch, en français, en español.
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Re: Help with 3D Printing
If you create the mesh in mesh design workbench, using netgen -> very fine the resulting mesh looks okay except for some fold on surface errors, of which the LGD-repaired mesh also still has a few. If you run the analyze -> evaluate and repair mesh tool and set view to wireframe mode (or set transparency in the view tab) you can see where the errors are centered.
Re: Help with 3D Printing
Interesting, but that's not where the print had the defects.
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