Help with Darth Vader Salt Shaker

[spacevan]

This salt shaker is from thingiverse http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:792239. I used design spark mechanical and merged the top part with the body of the shaker. I want to add a threaded plug into the bottom of the shaker to fill it. I have tried off and on for weeks to figure it out and I cant. I'm teaching my self as I go and I cant get this to work. Any help or advice would be great. Thankyou

[curious aardvark]

well it would be fairly easy in opesncad (as long as your original .stl files are manifold) - but anything else. Not a clue :-)

[spacevan]

Thankyou i will try that

[curious aardvark]

you'll need a ready made plug. Not sure how easy it is to extrude a screw thead as I've never tried and recall reading somewhere it couldn't be done.

Then simply import both. make the screw slightly larger (to ensure a good fit) by rescaling and remove from the base of the shaker.
Then shrink the original shaker by rescaling and remove from inside the original file.
render and print.
Use original plug file as the plug.

There are add in bolt and screw modules - could probably use one of those to make the screw plug.

[spacevan]

Thanks again i tried open scad and couldent get it to load file. i will try your other suggestion. Thanks again.

[Roxy]

Table the salt shaker for a little while (Pun intended). Go figure out how to use OpenScad to make threaded bolts and nuts. There are standard library modules to do that. You will be able to make a short (but wide) threaded bolt and nut. Then you can figure out how to merge that with the salt shaker.

And when you do, post the .STL file. I want to print one.

[curious aardvark]

openscad won't directly open an stl file.
you have to start a new project and then import the file into that.

best option is to make the imported file a module. Then it's much easier to use it.

I know it sounds complicated - but run through a few openscad tutorials and you'll soon get the hang of it :-)

If I get time I'll have a play.