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chopping a drawing???

Discussion in 'Troubleshooting' started by tesseract, Jun 9, 2013.

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  1. tesseract

    tesseract Moderator
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    Not really sure where to post this but here is a question for those who are good in 3d modeling and the ins and outs of slicing software and printing them.

    I have a 3d drawing that is over 19" in length obviously too large for the ROBO but I do see an opportunity it is based on a tube with different mechanical components on the exterior of the tube with a few holes in the tube itself. In this drawing there are small gaps that when looking at the draw it is simply the tube itself and it is actually made up of three separate sections in this way. I can't go into more detail for proprietary reasons at this point but what I was wondering was is there a way to chop up the item in other software at those specific gaps on the tube where there are no mechanical items. I am using SW but everything there is based on a tree like structure that build from a base object in this case the tube so I do not think I can chop it into 3 sections in SW but maybe there is a way I just don't know about. I was hoping to do it else where.

    The 19" total tube could be done this way as it has gaps at 5" and 14.4" so it would leave pieces 5" 9.4" and 4.5" all would fit in the ROBO

    One of very raw brainstorming ideas I had was to position the full piece in such a way as to have only the section I want in the actual printable area in effect cutting it at the end point of the print area.
    Although I am not sure of what the printer does with parts that go off the print area.

    Any ideas
    Thanks
    Jeff

    If I do get permission to distribute this file I will it is actually pretty interesting.
     
  2. Printed Solid

    Printed Solid Volunteer Admin
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    Export it to STL and slice it up with Netfabb. 2 minutes tops. Netfabb is a must have program for fixing all of the garbage files you'll come across in thingiverse that look pretty, but are full of error like holes, flipped edges, etc.

    You can do it in solidworks as well. The way I would do it is get everything positioned correctly, lock all pieces in position and delete constraints as needed, save the model, draw a block over what you want deleted, extrude it as a cut, save that piece, open the original, and repeat for your other two cuts. The cuts will just need to be after any features they are related to.
     
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  3. tesseract

    tesseract Moderator
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    Cool Thank you very very much that all makes perfect sense to me you actually made my day I have done things just like that before in tutorials just forgot about it. I guess trying to jam a lot of SW in my head a little bit got pushed out.

    Thanks Again

    I will also be looking at netfabb
     
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  4. tesseract

    tesseract Moderator
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    Hey Matt I just tried and it of course worked just as you said if you could only see the smile on my face.

    Thanks again for the refresh
     
  5. Thamer Albahiti

    Thamer Albahiti Active Member

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    Netfabb is freaking expensive isn't it ?
     
  6. tesseract

    tesseract Moderator
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    don't know haven't had a chance to check it out yet
    I hope not
     
  7. Thamer Albahiti

    Thamer Albahiti Active Member

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    it's like $1'780 ouch!
     
  8. tesseract

    tesseract Moderator
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    I think he is talking about netfabb studio Basic here is text copied from the site

    netfabb Studio Basic


    Download
    netfabb Studio Basic is available to anybody, it is free just like in free beer, and runs on Windows, Linux or Mac.
    netfabb Studio Basic is not just a viewer, it provides mesh edit, repair and analysis capabilities to everyone already being or aspiring to become part of this fantastic, growing, creative, high-tech industry called Additive Manufacturing, Rapid Prototyping or 3D Printing.
    netfabb Studio Basic is available and is just one click away. Its compact size of only a few megabytes allows a quick download, an easy installation and the handling of STL and slice files within seconds. Due to its highly modular design, netfabb Studio Basic includes a variety of useful features while staying the fast and effective viewing application it is meant to be.
    netfabb Studio Basic features the same user interface as netfabb Studio Professional and the *.fabbproject file standard of netfabb Studio is identical in both Basic and Professional.
    netfabb Studio Professional is the ideal software for home and educational users interested in 3D Printing. It is also an excellent complement to netfabb Studio Professional to provide an entire organisation with a common platform for handling 3D data for 3D Printing and Additive Manufacturing.
    Please note that netfabb Studio Basic is NOT a trial version of netfabb Studio Professional. netfabb Studio Professional offers a number of powerful additional features to access large files, combine parts, modify original files, optimize & configure mesh quality and to repair files.
    For a comparison of the features of netfabb Studio Basic and netfabb Studio Professional please click here.
    For a summary of the top 5 reasons to upgrade to netfabb Studio Professional please click here.
    stl file viewer

    File browser with preview

    Slice export

    Scale, mirror, translate, rotate

    Save triangles as part

    Simple automatic part repair

    Measurements of parts

    Self-Intersections Removal

    Part analysis

    Netproject import/export

    Metric «» Inch

    It looks like it would do what Printed says it can
     
  9. Printed Solid

    Printed Solid Volunteer Admin
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    yeah. pro version is pricy, but the basic can do slicing, model repair and a few other things. I trialed the pro. It has the most user friendly boolean tool of anything I've tried. Wish that they would release a lower tiered version that includes that boolean. I'd pay a little for it, but not the price of the pro.
     
  10. tesseract

    tesseract Moderator
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    That is good to know Printed but I did manage to get my project broken down so it will actually print on the ROBO now I have to work on my welding skills basically joining the tubes ends back together.The only other thing I need to figure out is the since this original file was from Rhino it has several imports it seems to make the object overly complex at least to human eyes I wish there was a way to select certain objects AS THEY EXIST currently and make a new object out of them with all the correct geometry. An example would be one of the parts is about 4 inches long but in order to get the piece to that 4 inch I need to do the cut on the 19inch piece so in order to keep the cut I need to keep all that empty geometry when the geometry for the four inch piece would suffice IF I could select that 4 inch piece and make a new object out of the just the existing geometry making up what was selected life would be easier and it is probably something that SW does just haven't found it yet.
     
  11. 1d1

    1d1 Active Member

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    Something to consider, Jeff: Make a copy of the whole thing, and "slice" the portion you want by making a hole out of a shape big enough to cover the portions you don't want . Group the whole thing and be left with just what you want and not what you don't. The file may remain large, but will still print from an .stl only as you saved it. I can do this easily in Tinkercad so I would think that SW can as well.
    Dean
     
  12. tesseract

    tesseract Moderator
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    Ok now I am getting embarassed a little bit. Thanks Dean the reason I am embarassed is that I actually learned how to do just this in SW a few weeks ago but forgot all about it. Printed mentioned the same thing as you yesterday and now that makes two people who don't have a brain cloud that told me the exact same thing, something I already knew but forgot.

    LOL

    What it is they say is the first thing to go , I forget.
     
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