Exporting 3D models to STL from Blender problem

Hi,

I'm new to the forum, I just finished building my new Mix G1 3D printer.

I'm not new to 3D designing, I have been messing around Blender for a year or so and I love the fact that its free... but I've come up with a problem I can't seem to find the answer to.

1. When I try to export my 3D drawings from Blender, as STL files and read them into Repetier-Host and Slicr, they don't get properly translated or the drawing will not show.
This is the case for 90% of the drawings I have made. Others do show and great, but I can't seem to find how they are different from others.
I've tried scaling them smaller, bigger, rotating them everything! and they will not show up to be sliced.

2. Also, what would be the scale to draw my designs at? for example I have a car piece I need to draw because it broke and to replace it, it costs like $300 dollars (printer only cost $499)... so how do I choose the scale or how do I model the piece to be an exact size replica of the original?

If anyone can help I'll be extremely grateful!

Thank you kindly

Sincerely

Maverik

maverik Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> 1. When I try to export my 3D drawings from
> Blender, as STL files and read them into
> Repetier-Host and Slicr, they don't get properly
> translated or the drawing will not show.
> This is the case for 90% of the drawings I have
> made. Others do show and great, but I can't seem
> to find how they are different from others.
> I've tried scaling them smaller, bigger, rotating
> them everything! and they will not show up to be
> sliced.

OK this is because the model is not manifolded. You need to model where every vertice is connected to another. None can end at an edge. You then need to be sure there are no doubled vetices. To do this you can select all in edit mode and press remove doubles from the side bar. Then press the recalculate button. At this point you can try and export it and slice it. But most likely there will still be an issue unless you manually modelled and did not use and Boolean functions. If it still has issue you can run it through cloud.netfabb.com or their down-loadable version of netfabb. Also not this is an issue with 100% of all modelling programs. People do have workarounds for there favourite programs to prevent them from doing this but in general they all do it if you are not really careful about how you align things.

>
> 2. Also, what would be the scale to draw my
> designs at? for example I have a car piece I need
> to draw because it broke and to replace it, it
> costs like $300 dollars (printer only cost
> $499)... so how do I choose the scale or how do I
> model the piece to be an exact size replica of the
> original?

Turn off metric and imperial in Blender so all you have is blender units and then use them as mm's. All the slicing programs expect mm input files.

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This is awesome news!

I'm not too sure how I could join parts with others, but I extruded them sufficiently so that they overlap but not deform the main idea of the idea... I did also run through the website you mentioned earlier and found that some of my drawings were showing part of my drawing but not all... so I'm guessing its that I didn't join the pieces am I right?

Thanks a lot, it really was useful information!

Exactly. They need to be one contiguous part. To join them hide everything except the main section. Then you select the main part and go to the modifier menu (little wrench picture) and select Boolean and then select join and in the input box you select the part you want to merge with the one you have showing. If it works out you should now see the new part as part of the main part that was left showing. You can then press apply or add another to the list. You never really need to apply them unless the math needed is really complex and it starts to take a long time or makes mistakes. If it makes mistakes you will want to apply the previous one and then enter edit mode and remove doubles and recalculate. Then go back and add the next piece and repeat. If the math is really crazy like poking twenty holes in an organic shape you may need to run it through netfabb between booleans so it can join the next piece onto a nice perfect part and not try and deal with holes in the model from the mistakes it made during the last boolean.

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FFF Settings Calculator	Gcode post processors	Geometric Object Deposition Tool Blog
Tantillus.org	Mini Printable Lathe	How NOT to install a Pololu driver

Ah that makes sense, I'm just deleting doubles at the moment... I never realized how many doubles one simple design could have...

Thanks a lot for the help I appreciate it!

A question if I may (even though its not relevant to the topic) I'm trying to put text on Blender and convert it to be printed as part of the object, but the program doesn't seem to recognize the text functions in blender... what this means is, I have to actually model 3D text for Repeater to recognize it as a figure...

Do you know any way around this? I really need to put some text in this particular drawing and it has over 10 letters... imagine modelling 10 letters and numbers... tedious work...

Once again,

I appreciate your help!

sincerely,

Maverik

1) Shift+a

Select: Add text from the list.

2) Tab

Edit mode: Change the text to say what you want.

3) Tab

Exit edit mode: Object mode. You can now rotate and move the font around.

4) In the side panel where you found the wrench earlier you will see a letter T. Press it and you will get the text properties. Under "Font" you can select the font and font size. Then under "Geometry" you can set the Extrude, Offset, Bevel depth and resolution of the text.

5) alt+c

Select mesh from curve/meta/surface/text to turn the text into a mesh which is needed to be able to export it as an stl or boolean it to something else. Be sure to make a copy of it beforehand as it is no longer editable as a mesh except by moving the vertices or scaling it.

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FFF Settings Calculator	Gcode post processors	Geometric Object Deposition Tool Blog
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Ah I see, I had everything except the last step to convert it into mesh! awesome! then I could even use a different font into it and it would convert it to mesh!

Thanks so much! you've saved me about an hour of work!

Sincerely,

Maverik

No worries. Just be sure to pass it on if it ever comes up again.

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FFF Settings Calculator	Gcode post processors	Geometric Object Deposition Tool Blog
Tantillus.org	Mini Printable Lathe	How NOT to install a Pololu driver

Will do!