# 3D Design / 3D Scanning / 3D Modeling > 3D Printing Slicer Discussion >  Scaling Question

## Wingnut

If I have an item thats in HO scale (1:87) and I want to print it in N Scale (1:167) how much do I put in the slicer to reduce it? 80%?  I got tired head trying to get my head wrapped around this!  Thanks!

----------


## fred_dot_u

87 divided by 167 is 0.52 or fifty-two percent.

----------


## Wingnut

Great! Thank you! There is a lot more HO STLs than N scale.

Wyndell

*EDIT: I miss typed N is 160 not 167 so Fred's math would show 54% if I entered it right. My bad and thanks again!*

----------


## curious aardvark

just remember that reducing size by half reduces ALL axis by half and gives an item an 1/8th of  a size of the original. 

Here's a way to visualise this: 
The small fidget cube was printed at 50% the size of the larger fidget cube (both with a 0.25mm nozzle).
50%_800x520.jpg

50%2_800x463.jpg

So it might be best to measure the same item at 1/160 and at 1/87 and work out the actual percentage difference. It's unlikely it would be 8 times smaller - but you never know :-)

----------


## airscapes

Yum.. well.. it is 1/160 smaller than whatever the real thing is vs 1/87 smaller than the real thing.. they are not 54% smaller than each other, one is 54% smaller than the real thing... I could be wrong but that is how it works in my head.. Not something I know anything about and  I never scale an object in the slicer as it never works for things I print. Good lucK!

----------


## fred_dot_u

100 meters at 1/87 scale is 1.149 meters or 1149 mm
100 meters at 1/160 scale is 0.625 meters or 625 mm
625 mm divided by 1149 mm is 0.54395 or 54.395 percent

Elsewhere on the 'net:
https://www.nmra.org/beginner/scales
Someone wants to convert N to HO, the answer says multiply by 1.84, the reciprocal of 1.84 is 0.54348: https://www.trainorders.com/discussi...d.php?3,437132

If there's any 3D printing going on here, I'd expect that resin based printers will provide best results for detail.

----------


## Wingnut

No wonder I get tired head lol.  At 1:167 and 3' away most detail is lost to me anyways lol.  thanks again!  I used this math today to scale a HO picnic table to N scale.  Worked great but printing was a fail because the STL I used had too fine of connections and werent very stable.  CA fixed it  :Big Grin:

----------

