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Topic: Sketchup Letters

Anyone been able to print out words using the text function in Sketchup?  Stupid question, but I need to print out some things like "on/off", "sensor", etc for an invention I'm working on.

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Re: Sketchup Letters

Yep!  It totally works.  Just export the file to STL from sketchup, and it will print normally.

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Re: Sketchup Letters

Small text Will have problems but I can kind of fix it by lowering perimeter width to .30

My SD3:  Clear plexiglass case, case heater, X axis stabilizer, Z axis stabilizer, thumb screws, filament guide, heatsinks on all motors, extruder fan, controller fan, heatsinks on motherboard, Y rod pillow block, USB and Power on/off switch, fully calibrated including trimpot tuning. Am I missing anything?

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Re: Sketchup Letters

You can print standalone text (i.e. just the letters), recessed letters (like engraving), or raised letters.

Raised letters are easiest, rectangle raised 0.5mm or so (is a couple of layers), then "3D text" raised 0.5 or 1 mm (depending on how big you want it).  For a really cool effect, when you slice, find the layer where the text starts, and put an @pause in.  When the print pauses, drop the bed 40mm, change to a different filament, extrude 30mm or so (on an E3D) - being careful not to move the extruder head - clear away the colour change and continue the print.  You end up with contrasting lettering (extremely cool).  Doing the same trick with recessed lettering gives you a sign you can backlight to good effect.

Recessed letters are a bit of a bugger to get working, but search the threads here, there is a good work-through on making it happen.  Is quite fiddly, but very cool.