1 Topic by scullen

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Topic: Help Generating Support Structure for a Model I Made

So I made this 3d model, it is a  hard drive bracket for adapting 3.5'' drives to fit in a 5.25'' slot. But I can't get Slic3r or Skeinforge to generate the support materials for the little horizontal nubs that fit into the screw holes on the drive and the slots. I know there are other ways to accomplish this (print holes and little pegs and glue everything together to assemble it), but I really wanted to see if I could use support material for the 90 degree overhang these nubs represent. I have tried many  times, but everytime the gcode shows up in Repetier, I don't see any support material added.

If anyone has any advice or could take my .stl and produce gcode for my Solidoodle 3 with support material, I would be really grateful. Thanks. See the attachments for an idea of what my model looks like.

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3.5 to 5.25 hard drive bracket ver 2.stl 195.04 kb, 16 downloads since 2013-07-21 

3.5 to 5.png
3.5 to 5.png 46.22 kb, 1 downloads since 2013-07-21 

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2 Reply by adrian

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Re: Help Generating Support Structure for a Model I Made

have you tried just ticking 'generate support material' in Slic3r->Support Materal then clicking save then slicing ?
Never had it not generate material it didn't believe it needed...

3 Reply by scullen

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Re: Help Generating Support Structure for a Model I Made

So I tried to slice a very simple L shape placed on its end. And slic3r generated the support structure no problem. I also tested a simplified version of my bracket with different sized square nubs on the outside of it, and Slic3r also generated support structure for those. However, anything internal to the object, like the nubs on the inside of the bracket not only don't get any support structure, they don't appear at all in the final gcode. So I don't know what to make of that. Is slic3r incapable of generating support for stuff internal to the model?

4 Reply by spapadim

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Re: Help Generating Support Structure for a Model I Made

Not near computer to try, but an alternative is to add support yourself: just add some rectangles .4mm thick (or whatever your extrusion width is). Another idea is to make nubs (cut) cones, so overhang is gradual. I've done both in the past.

5 Reply by spapadim

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Re: Help Generating Support Structure for a Model I Made

Ah, ok, mesh is not manifold (and also not oriented, but RH can now fix that) -- does not generate any code for the nubs themselves (nevermind support).  Quickly tried "default repair" on Netfabb Studio, not much luck, and Netfabb Cloud is down (for more than a week now... what's going on... is there any free alternative?).  In any case, try fixing this first (since Netfabb Cloud is down, I can't give you much further advice, sorry -- I still occasionally rip my hair out on this with OpenSCAD smile ).

6 Reply by adrian (edited by adrian 2013-07-21 11:56:48)

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Re: Help Generating Support Structure for a Model I Made

cloud.netfabb works fine here ? Tis what generated the file below

http://cloud.netfabb.com/?key=c5333eab8 … ixedfile=1

Attached mesh file repaired and yes, generates support just fine when its manifold.

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3.5to5.25harddrivebracketver21_fixed.stl 85.14 kb, 1 downloads since 2013-07-21 

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7 Reply by adrian (edited by adrian 2013-07-21 11:45:13)

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Re: Help Generating Support Structure for a Model I Made

Note you'll want to change your support pattern angle or distance, as otherwise it will miss one or the other nubs internally... 1.5 works fine.. this is because support is sized edge-to-edge based on the outer dimensions of the STL, not just where its needed.. so you need to make sure you support is small enough to occur often enough for whatever it is you need to support smile (i.e, 2mm support wont work well if you have 1mm objects needed support 5mm's apart...)

http://www.soliforum.com/misc.php?action=pun_attachment&item=2731&download=0

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mesh.png
mesh.png 568.83 kb, file has never been downloaded. 

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8 Reply by spapadim

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Re: Help Generating Support Structure for a Model I Made

adrian wrote:

cloud.netfabb works fine here ? Tis what generated the file below

Darn.. I was getting "down for maintenance, will be up shortly" for a week on my laptop (and still did 15 min ago), but I just tried on my iPad and it works (from the same IP). I'll try going incognito (to clear any cookies that may be used for request routing?), thanks for letting me know.

9 Reply by scullen

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Re: Help Generating Support Structure for a Model I Made

Man oh man, thank you guys for the support. There was an error that slic3r spit out about a hole on one edge, but I combed over the model with sketchup and couldn't find any problems. Anyway, Adrian thanks for fixing the model, I just ran it through slic3r (in repetier), and everything shows up fine for the model, but the support structure only showed up on one half of the object!It shows up perfectly like your picture for the right side nubs on the inside and out, but completely missing any support structure for the left side nubs, inside and out. ARGH. I think I might just reinstall repetier, maybe all my messing around has left the config for slic3r irreparably messed up. Thanks again both of you.

10 Reply by adrian

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Re: Help Generating Support Structure for a Model I Made

adrian wrote:

Note you'll want to change your support pattern angle or distance, as otherwise it will miss one or the other nubs internally... 1.5 works fine.. this is because support is sized edge-to-edge based on the outer dimensions of the STL, not just where its needed.. so you need to make sure you support is small enough to occur often enough for whatever it is you need to support smile (i.e, 2mm support wont work well if you have 1mm objects needed support 5mm's apart...)

In the support material tab, down from where you tick it on/off, Set the distance to 1.5, and it'll get both sides. if it still doesn't, change to 45° angle.

11 Reply by scullen

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Re: Help Generating Support Structure for a Model I Made

Succcess! Changed distance to 1mm and pattern back to rectilinear (had it on honeycomb for some reason). Thanks very much for your help. I learned that I need to make better models or slicing you are going to have a bad time. What is this cloud.netfabb, I'm a little curious how you used it to repair my model.

12 Reply by adrian

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Re: Help Generating Support Structure for a Model I Made

http://cloud.netfabb.com/ , follow the bouncing ball smile

13 Reply by spapadim

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Re: Help Generating Support Structure for a Model I Made

FYI, a relatively simple explanation of manifold-ness:
http://edutechwiki.unige.ch/en/OpenScad … le_objects
(and link therein: http://www.iheartrobotics.com/2010/01/o … -time.html -- Netfabb will basically fix these for you, by ever so slightly moving/enlarging/deleting edges and faces).

14 Reply by scullen (edited by scullen 2013-07-24 02:53:25)

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Re: Help Generating Support Structure for a Model I Made

I will take a look at that spapadim, thank you. Here is a gallery of my most recent print, and all the problems my printer is causing me:

http://www.imgur.com/a/Ni1K3

Thanks guys for all your help, if you could take a look at that gallery and let me know if you see any changes I can make, I would really appreciate it. Cheers!

Edit: I wouldn't even have been able to get that far (printing) without your guy's help. Suprisingly it wasn't the nubs that were the problem, they were okay. It was that the layers cracked and fell apart so easily. I need help solving that. Thanks.