Common Issues
This is a list of common issues students have had when submiting a file for 3D Printing. Each issue has a small description which will include a suggestion for how to resolve the issue.
Overlapping solids
Description:
Overlapping solids that are not booleaned together into one surface are considered a non-manifold 3D Object when grouped together.
Reason:
Overlapping solids can cause errors in slicing software used to create the gcode for the machine to fabricate your file.
Fix Suggestion:
- ungroup overlapping solids and booleanUnion command
Non-Intersecting Surfaces/Solids
Description:
Non intersecting surfaces/solids are two surfaces or objects grouped together but are not overlapping at anypoint. This is considered a non manifold object. An example of a non-intersecting surface/solid is if some one exports a 3d object comprised of grouped solids and surfaces that have not been properly booleaned together.
Reason:
Non intersecting surfaces/solids can cause errors in slicing software used to create the gcode for the machine to fabricate your file.
Fix Suggestion:
- ungroup non-intersecting solids and surfaces overlap surfaces by 1-5mm. BooleanUnion can be tempermental. If failure occurs at first, adjust overlap by increments of 1 unit until its joins. This may deform original shape of object. If issue persists a self intersection or other degenerate geometry could be present in the meshes you are attempting to boolean.
Non-Manifold Polysurfaces/Meshes
Description: Manifold in regards to 3D printing means a 3D Object that is manufacturable and non-manifold refers to an object that is not manufacturable.
Reason: For an object to be 3D Printable it must be manifold. Various things can make a model non-manifold.
Examples of Non-Manfold Geometry:
- a surface with no thickness
- uncapped piped polysurfaces
- a seemingly solid geometry with opposing normals
- two boxes that share only one edge or vertex
- three faces that share one edge.
Fixes:
- attempt to seperate geometry from components you want to save.
- If a mesh, use mesh repairs vairious features.
- reconsider how your object has been modeling if a simple boolean union does not work
- try manifold groups of different objects together
- self intersecting polysurfaces
- overlapping geometries of seperate objects.
Wall Thickness Needs to be Resized
Description:
a common issue when creating scale models for your projects is that the scaled down model may have features that exceed the resolution limitation of the 3D Printer.
Reason:
The 3D printers xy minimum resolution is .45mm and its Z minimum resolution varies between .3 - .06 mm. So its important to consider your wall thicknesses when 3D exporting your files for 3D Printing.
Fix Suggestion:
- keep your wal, roof and ceiling thicknesses above 1mm.
Measurements of the file do not correspond with file description
Description:
The file attached to the submission does not reflect measurements found in the description.
Reason:
Our file description asks for measurements so that we can double-check the file before printing. Often when we import the submitted file into our slicer we need to convert it into a different unit of measurement and this can cause resizing issues.
Fix Suggestion:
Before exporting your file, take a boundingBox (Rhino) measurement of the individual parts included in your submission.
FIle not comptatible
Description:
When exporting a file model for 3D Printing students will often choose a .3dm or dxf file
Reason:
3D printing slicing software will only accept .stls and .objs
Fix Suggestion:
- export your file in one of the approved file formats.
File needs to be reized
Description:
When importing a file into our slicing software for review, many files are too large to be 3D Printed.
Reason:
Students will not double-check the max work volume for our 3D printers.
Fix:
- You can find the build dimensions for each 3D printer here.