New user with an stl file problem

Hi everyone, I've just finished the calibration procedures and managed to get pretty good results in general. But now Im having trouble bringing my own stl files into slic3r.

I have been using inventor to design the parts and then exporting to stl. When I bring the stl's into slic3r though, slic3r reads them as being tiny, tiny files that only have 5 or 6 layers. I have had some success with scaling up the files to over 900% but the prints I get from this are very messy, like only getting the basic shape right.

I have read on the forum that some of the different slic3r releases work better than others but I cant actually figure out which version of slic3r I have (it was included in the Prusa i3 kit I bought). Ive attached a screenshot of it if it helps anyone but really I'm just asking if this has come up before and how to get around it.

Are you certain that you are exporting the STL files from Inventor with the correct scale, and you don't have a mm/inch confusion somewhere?

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Large delta printer [miscsolutions.wordpress.com], E3D tool changer, Robotdigg SCARA printer, Crane Quad and Ormerod

Disclosure: I design Duet electronics and work on RepRapFirmware, [duet3d.com].

I don't know if I have a scale setting on the stl export. I know the ipt files are to proper scale though. I went into some old exercise files and converted those to stl and I've had the same result.

I've also been unimpressed with slic3r's outer support material generation. I read that slic3r 0.9 was better in that regard so will probably try that in the future.

I think dc42 has the right idea. Your ITL files are the inventor internal representation. In reality these files are unit less - units dont matter until you export the file for a particular device.

I suspect that when you export, you are exporting in inches, but your printer needs millimeters. This will result in your printed objects being 1/25.4 of the size of the original object. I have seen students on my high school robotics team do the exact same thing with inventor.

Given a scale factor of over 900%, I suspect the problem is metres vs millimetres, rather than inches/mm?

Thank you everyone. The solution was pretty easy actually. save as has the options dialogue in inventor but export doesn't. Changed to using save as = problem solved

Can anyone tell which version of Slic3r I have from the screenshot I posted?

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/26/2015 04:07AM by Moovellevague.

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Moovellevague
Can anyone tell which version of Slic3r I have from the screenshot I posted?

Don't you know that in almost every software since at least the last 20 years, you can get the version from the Help --> About menu?

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jbernardis
Your ITL files are the inventor internal representation. In reality these files are unit less - units dont matter until you export the file for a particular device.

This is wrong. This may be true with Autodesk AutoCAD, but not Autodesk Inventor. Like other parametric CAD software, an IPT file has units, and IIRC this is set with the selected template. Units can be changed afterwards, but there is always a unit system set into the file properties.

It is the STL file specification which is unitless - but all open source slicers work in millimeters so the STL must be exported to mm from the CAD software.