Can anyone slice this model?

Attachment 6561

Here is a link to the model's OBJ file:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B3E...ew?usp=sharing

The file is 40.55 MB in size. I made it with the Grasshopper parametric modeling add-on for Rhino3D. I have tried slicing it with several slicers and they all fail in one way or another. The slicer's I tried are Craftware, Kisslicer, and Cura. I posted the OBJ file because the STL version is 683.93 MB.

Netfabb reports no problems with the model. MeshMixer deletes everything except the bottom surface. Meshlab Decimation processes the file OK, but crashes when trying to save the results.

My systems is Win7-64 with 16GB RAM and an i7 CPU.

I'll give it a go :-)

Well simplify3d won't load it - gives the message: 'error parsing obj file: non numeric data detected at line 820'.

Can't slice what won't load.

I did not slice it for you, but I imported it into Zbrush and then exported with the 3D print exporter. I could not open your file in Simplify3D by default, error at line 820 or something. Here is the STL for you.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B9k...ew?usp=sharing

It doesn't fit on the bed in Cura so I reduced it to 80% rather than mess with my bed settings.

It slices fine but with a print time of 17 hours I aint about to print it. The gcode even at 80% is still over 70 Mbytes.

aardvark: Thanks for that info. I've been very wary of Simplify3D simply because there is no way to test it.

Bassna - thanks for the effort. I have not tried ZBrush before - but will check it out.

MJoliner - what slicer did you use? I've got several models similar to this that I'd love to slice but have been unable to.

The model does fit on my printer (it's a delta) and I have done a couple of prints that take 24 hours or so, so if I can slice it I;ll print it.

Hmm sounds like slicing isn't isn't the issue. You're simply generating dodgy obj files.

Okay this is weird. I got the can't load message from s3d - just went back to load bassna's stl - and it's got the original model loaded. Weird.

Pretty big, but fits in my build volume without a problem.

Took a couple of minutes to slice. Which tells you something as s3d usually slices most things in seconds.

Setting up the preview data is taking longer.

Ah okay - yeah stops slicing about a quaretr the way up that'd be that line 820.

bbinnard, as almost everyone around here will tell ya, Simplify3D is worth the price in how much time and effort it saves you. Also the file size of that STL I gave you was much smaller, and if you prefer I could get you the .OBJ which would be smaller if you needed.

Bassna - I appreciate your feedback and effort. I was able to slice the STL file you posted OK with Kisslicer. It says it will take 21 hrs. to print so I am going to start that now.

Up to now I've been using Craftware as my primary slicer because it has, in my opinion, the best user interface and provides the most detail about what the results of slicing actually are. Craftware has known errors which are supposedly being fixed in the next release so hopefully I will be able to slice my models when it comes out.

As I said in the post I used Cura. There were no errors but it was at 80% size so maybe it missed the bad bits, I don't know.

Just download Cura, it's free and fairly small.

Well, I did try Cura (Ver. 15.06) - twice. And both times I had 2 problems:

(1) I could not find a way to set up the geometry for my printer

(2) When I tried loading the OBJ file Cura never came back from the "loading" message.

This is the log file Cura generated:

Exception in thread Thread-8:
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "c:\dev\python34\lib\threading.py", line 921, in _bootstrap_inner
File "c:\dev\uranium\UM\JobQueue.py", line 114, in run
File "c:\dev\uranium\UM\Mesh\ReadMeshJob.py", line 33, in run
File "c:\dev\uranium\UM\Mesh\MeshFileHandler.py", line 31, in read
File "C:\Program Files (x86)\Cura_15.06.01\plugins\FileHandlers\OBJReader \OBJReader.py", line 33, in read
normal_list.append([float(parts[1]), float(parts[3]), -float(parts[2])])
ValueError: could not convert string to float: '\\'

A friend of mine was able to slice the model with Cura after performing a Netfabb repair, even though Netfabb said there were no errors with the STL file. SO I did the same thing - ran a Netfabb repair and saved the results as bot STL and OBJ format. Interestingly enough the STL version was smaller than the OBJ version: 19.87 MB vs 40.55 MB. I've never seen a situation before where the OBJ version was larger than the STL version of a model, but oh well.

At any rate I was able to slice the part with Kisslicer so I'm printing it now. Craftware failed to slice it, presumably due to the known bugs it has.

I am using Cura 15.02.1, it is the latest version I can download without compiling it myself.

I set up another printer that would allow it to be sliced at 100% and it slices fine with no error messages, takes it a couple of minutes to slice and is a 29 hour print but no errors that I can find.

The Gcode file is 55 meg at 0.3 layer height and it 539 layers.

I stopped printing the part after a little more than 8 hours. Here's the result:

Attachment 6575

I stopped the print for several reasons:

1. It was clear the slanted ribs were too weak to provide proper strength and support

2. I had a parameter error in Kisslicer that resulted in many strings and hairs; I removed most of them by hand for this photo

3. Even though I had a layer height of 0.200 mm the whole part looked rather rough

I broke off a couple of the ribs while using an Xacto knife to remove some of the hairs - even though I was being quite careful. I guess the moral to this story is: just because you can design something does not mean you can print it.

I've had excellent success printing more "solid" parts so it looks like I'll have to change my design ideas a bit to accommodate the limitations of printing in the real world.

Honestly that model look's very printable to me. I would more thing you had issue's with your printer/slicer settings or something....

Well...feel free to try printing it yourself. If I'm doing something wrong I'd love to know what it is. I use parametric software to make my models, so I can create any number of variations.