z-suite creates holes in model

Z-SUITE/Firmware General Discussion
1

I have a problem with the conversion of a model in zortrax to print layers.

It is created in blender, Im no expert in blender so I know that it probably is a problem I created.

I resize it to 50% before print.

I attached the stl file, a picture of the model before, a picture of the layers and a 50% layers view.

Can someone advise me what to do?

2

Your part has inside walls, in Z-Suite if you create a split before slicing you can see the inside walls -

HrsFISP.png

Not sure how to fix it in blender, there is probably a tool to remove inside faces. You could fix it in Meshmixer with the 'make solid' option. 

3

I tried to make it solid with meshmixer, the file size increased and artifacts are added but if I press print it still has holes.

So that did not work.

I tried to layer it with cura and there it works without a problem.

4

Cura will just deal with inside walls differently. 

In Meshmixer whack the Solid Accuracy right up and make the mesh fairly dense 250 or over, and choose accurate instead of fast. My ageing MBP only takes a minute or two to figure this out. 

There are a couple of dips on the surface after this which can be smoothed out by selecting these point and using smooth (under select>deform in meshmixer).

Whenever you ask a program like meshmixer to figure this out on it's own it's going to look at all the geometry and thats why it creates dips in the surface where it has seen an inside wall.

You can get a pretty good print out of it however. 

This is kinda patching a problem you have made for yourself however. A better way to sort it out might be to create a flat svg of your font in illustrator and then extrude this in blender. But I'm not sure how you would do the curved edges on the font (I dont use blender)

Or try to pick up a solid modelling software and do it with that, as making a solid out of a basic geometry would be easy in most solid modelling software.

Here is an stl created in Fusion 360 for example, process being

Sketch Text (select 3d, separate the letters)

Extrude (will create a solid for each letter)

move letters together

combine (into one solid)

rule fillet face (history must be on)

create underline

combine

You could achieve something similar in the free 123D Design as well. 

5

Thank you for the detailed explanation, will try it out next week when Im back home.