1 Topic by shellguy

  • shellguy
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Topic: Changing Shell Property for SLA Printing

Hello everyone,

This is my first message in this forum so apologies if I have a mistake.

I am doing 3D SLA printing using Formlabs Form 2. The object I am printing is very delicate and requires high resolution and the printer was sometimes not able to print it. However, lately, especially after moving to Solidworks 2018, the printer could not print the structure at all. I wondered whether there was an issue with the printer and contacted the distributor in my country with the .STL file. They replied back with a "fixed" .STL file, saying that they used a program called 3-matic to change the "Shell" property of the drawing (I remember them saying they reduced the parameter from 3 to 1 but I am not sure).

So the thing is that this is a software I don't have access to and I can't ask them each time I want to print something new. That's why I tried looking up for free meshing software such as Meshmixer but since I am a newbie in this field I don't know whether I can do the exact thing those guys did in 3-matic software. Does anyone know here what this "Shell" setting means in 3-matic or what it corresponds to in other free meshing software?

2 Reply by carl_m1968

  • carl_m1968
  • carl_m1968
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  • Registered: 2014-10-17
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Re: Changing Shell Property for SLA Printing

shellguy wrote:

Hello everyone,

This is my first message in this forum so apologies if I have a mistake.

I am doing 3D SLA printing using Formlabs Form 2. The object I am printing is very delicate and requires high resolution and the printer was sometimes not able to print it. However, lately, especially after moving to Solidworks 2018, the printer could not print the structure at all. I wondered whether there was an issue with the printer and contacted the distributor in my country with the .STL file. They replied back with a "fixed" .STL file, saying that they used a program called 3-matic to change the "Shell" property of the drawing (I remember them saying they reduced the parameter from 3 to 1 but I am not sure).

So the thing is that this is a software I don't have access to and I can't ask them each time I want to print something new. That's why I tried looking up for free meshing software such as Meshmixer but since I am a newbie in this field I don't know whether I can do the exact thing those guys did in 3-matic software. Does anyone know here what this "Shell" setting means in 3-matic or what it corresponds to in other free meshing software?


3-matic does offer a trial version. Not sure what all you can do with a trial version though as most of them are limited.

Printing since 2009 and still love it!
Anycubic 4MAX best $225 ever invested.
Voxelabs Proxima SLA. 6 inch 2k Mono LCD.
Anycubic Predator, massive Delta machine. 450 x 370 print envelope.

3 Reply by shellguy

  • shellguy
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Re: Changing Shell Property for SLA Printing

Thank you for the suggestion. Still that version will help me only for a limited time so I will eventually need to find the equivalent of that command in free packages.