3d printing and SketchUp help please

Hi all,

I have just helped a mate by building a 3d printer with / for him. It's a MendelMax 1.5 (with dual extruders) and whilst it took quite a while to build (assemble from a kit) ... mostly because the 'instructions' were written by someone who knew what the bigger picture was.

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Now it's done I think his wife made a good choice (she did all the research) hopefully guided by my more generic advice like, 'the frame should be as rigid as possible, ideally bought in the UK, should be Open Source Hardware and have good reviews'. ;-)

In return for my assistance he is letting me print what I want and I have slowly been making bits for what I hope will be my own (Kossel / Delta style) printer.

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Anyway, and re that end, I've downloaded from Thingiverse a case that sits on top of a std ATX PC PSU and holds the electronics (Arduino Mega + RAMPS)

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... but the aperture in the front panel didn't quite line up with my particular LCD. I've opened it up in SketchUp and should have now resized the window but I'm not having much luck re-sizing the hole that takes the 'Stop' button (printed) extension or making the hole for the rotary encoder knob bigger (not much of the encoder spindle sticks through the panel so I was going to allow the knob through).

However, the main thing is I can't (well, atm and with my levels of frustration with such things and I'm not alone it seems) I can't re-orientate the object in SketchUp so that it would sit square on the bed. I can lay it flat with the output program, Repetier-Host but can't square it up. Whilst that shouldn't be an issue re actually getting the printer to work, I'm guessing it would be easier for the printer if it was aligned with the natural X and Y axis?

So, if anyone is familiar with SketchUp and wouldn't mind lending a hand please ... (the email address works) this should be the file with the corrected aperture position ...

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(I'm Prin_Ter on Thingiverse and did ask there but nothing forthcoming so far.)

If whilst you are there and could open up the middle round hole to

16mm (to accept the knob through the panel), and the stop button hole to 4.5 and 8mm diameters (it could even do to move the stop button hole / tube towards the encoder spindle hole and away from the mounting leg a couple of mm) I would be very grateful. ;-)

Unless I can find some other more intuitive 3d drawing program (intuitive to this hardware guy that doesn't use *any* graphics / layup application atm) and do want to modify or even create my own 3d objects, I will need to get a bigger screen, better glasses and a good supply of Valium (or Special Brew) ... ;-)

Cheers, T i m

p.s. I know of at least one person on here has been involved in 3d printing but I wondered if any others have any experience?

Reply to
T i m
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That is certainly a unique design.

2 comments:

1) Any slop in those conrods is surely going to lead to quite bad errors of head placement?

2) The drive mapping function (motor steps on risers 1,2 and 3 to x,y,z of the head) looks like a complete bitch :)

Am I missing something?

Reply to
Tim Watts

That's not a sketchup .skp file...

Sketchup is probably the easiest 3D prog to get started with IME. Finding video tutorials on you tube tends to help I find.

Reply to
John Rumm

Yeah, it is 'unconventional' compared with the traditional x,y,z systems.

Yup, I would think it would, which is why they seem to go to reasonable lengths to minimise such slop. You only have to see the sorts of things people are printing to see that it does actually work. ;-)

Nope, you think of it just as I do! ;-)

Ok, even with my (very) limited programming abilities I can see if you move the x and y axis on a 'conventional / linear' mechanism you will get a diagonal line or if you apply a sine wave to both you will get a circle (or some such) but with the Delta type, wtf would you start!

I agree it does look like something that would be doomed to fail but there do seem to be plenty of people out there using them and with good results.

I think I understand that this Delta design does call for more processing power and so I have put aside the 'Full graphics display' that works well with the Arduino Mega on the std x,y,z system (like the MendelMax) for a more simple display ... to reduce the overhead.

I think the Delta design of printer is derived from the industrial handling robots, like these:

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Or

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I love the way you see (at about 1min) how the robot has to pick all 5 biscuits up separately. ;-)

So, I think the revised action of the Delta printers is down to the cost of the sorts of high torque stepper motors required without the advantage of some gearing.

Cheers, T i m

Reply to
T i m

No, but one that can be imported into SketchUp as easily as opening a .skp file?

Feck. It's strange that I have been able to cope with all the other 3d handling stuff I have played with along the way so far? Whilst it may be what you say, there are still many people asking the same question re the ability to *easily* get the object back on a flat plane and why some have even written scripts to deal with it?

Trust me, I have watched more tutorials on SketchUp than pretty well anything else I am trying to get grips with and none so far have helped me with that particular issue.

What was easy though was opening a .stl file, it was even fairly easy (once pinned down) to adjust the size of the LCD aperture but that's as much as my patience has allowed so far.

However, if you can't do it either then it can't be that easy eh. ;-)

Cheers, T i m

Reply to
T i m

AFAICS there's no way to open it with my copy of SketchUp.

Reply to
Mike Barnes

It is, but is it the right type of CAD program to use for 3D printing, I'd have thought you'd want a program with more of a concept of solids rather than just planes and vertices?

Reply to
Andy Burns

Not here, currently running v15 within the 30 day "pro" evaluation period, Sketchup won't touch it ...

Reply to
Andy Burns

Not in my version (Sketchup Make 2015)...

hang on a mo...

OK Extension warehouse, download and install a STL import filter. Right that seems to do it.

Bleurch... I can see why you were having difficulty - that is just a horrid mass of vectors. Let me see what I can do.

Reply to
John Rumm

Maybe maybe not... for most CAM applications you will be converting to a tool path ultimately, so it does not always matter.

Reply to
John Rumm

Yeah, (very) sorry John (n guys), I was reminded that is what I had to do when installing SketchUp on another PC elsewhere, after I posted. ;-(

Ok thanks. Again, that may have been down to me and my attempts to re-size the LCD aperture. If you compare that with the original on Thingiverse you may see a difference (or not etc). I initially imported it from Thingiverse into SketchUp and exported it to a .stl to be able to print with Repetier-Host.

I did try again to reposition the panel in SketchUp but just got in a worse mess and then couldn't even find where I was able to lay the object flat. Oh the joys of getting old ... ;-(

Cheers, T i m

Reply to
T i m

I don't think it is (so far), unless you can print with it directly but it's certainly not for the 'non graphics' people (like me).

It is as connected with all my other PC / electronics / electro-magnetic experience as building a website. ;-(

That said, there is a good chance that of it's breed, it is one of the more intuitive and friendly (I was shown AutoCAD once and it might as well been calculus) it just doesn't seem to follow all of the more typical GUI conventions where some of the more basic things are concerned (like getting the object the right way up).

And like I said, I'm not the first to ask about that ..

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And the solutions don't all look like the people asking have missed the obvious.

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Etc.

And of course I make very good use of the 'Undo tool but there is only so many time you can open the last_known_good version and f*ck it up before you give up and do something more productive (and certainly less frustrating). ;-(

All that said, I'm sure the process or penny will drop at some point when I realise that SketchUp doesn't use the mouse like every other GUI app does or somesuch but until then, I would just like to finish this box! ;-)

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Black bits are the panels for the RAMPS box and display. Orange bits are the NASA ratchet spanner and the hotend effector. Blue and red parts are the remote geared extruder. The smaller blue bit with bearings is the lathe tool post holder for making an 8mm 'hobbed' bolt for the extruder to drive the filament.

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There is plenty of d-i-y to be had and some of it using grinders. ;-)

Cheers, T i m

Reply to
T i m

Import not Open, STL handling lot better in more recent versions.

Reply to
Adam Aglionby

I did try import, but .STL was not on the list ... seems like a plug-in is required.

Reply to
Andy Burns

hmm, just updated to 2015 Make this afternoon, don`t recall having an stl plug in installed before , mebbe I did, it was quite happy to import an .stl file, .stl export used to be very miss or miss, works well now.

Reply to
Adam Aglionby

Looking at it , for some reasone object when grouped is at an angle within its bounding box, makes it a pain to line up.

Select all with cursor> right click > explode

Use pencil or rectangle tool to draw a bigger box in same plane as object.

cursor select all>right click> make group

now got a big box with sensible edges that will try and snap to axis when you move and rotate, holding mouse wheel in allows orbit whilst other function selected.

Reply to
Adam Aglionby

I will talk you through what I did in case its of any use to anyone...

The orientation problem I fixed by selecting *everything* and making it a group. That then contains it in a rectangular 3D box that you can use the rotate tool on. Its easy to fix the first couple of axis, but since you are working on compound angles its difficult to do them all at once. To make it easier - periodically explode the group and then select and re group it. That gets is more aligned with its box as you get closer to the desired origin.

For the bigger hole, I decided to try and make that before getting rid of all the extra vectors and edges that were there. So I made a circle of the right diameter, in the plane of the required hole. Extruded that into a cylinder with push pull. Then deleted the top and bottom faces making an open tube. Grouped that into a group and positioned it through the model where I wanted it. The on both the tube and the model did and "intersect faces" to make the intersections create vertices on the model and the cylinder. That then made selecting stuff in the middle of the new hole in the model doable, so I deleted those. This left a hole but with open sides through the model. I patched these with the section of the cylinder that I cut out using the vertices created on it from the model.

The other hole was a bit more complex due to being embedded into the side of another spigot and the mass of vertices. So I partially selected most of those and deleted them, tidied up all the spare bits and redrew any faces missing form the spigot. I then modelled the new hole and spigot from scratch and merged it into the model.

(with 20/20 hindsight it would have only taken 10 mins to draw the whole thing again from scratch!)

Well it was not a good place to start, so I would not worry to much about that one.

Reply to
John Rumm

If by that you mean click on the object until you see it all selected with blue lines in a box then check, that was what I was doing.

See above.

Check.

Well, whilst it may be for you I still had massive issues getting that whole process under control. Whilst I could seem to rotate an axis (and by watching the protractor I could predict which one that was going to be), I could never do any of it predictably.

I didn't even try to do more than one at a time! ;-)

Ok, I'll try that.

So this was away from the actual model?

Yup, I found that easy, as long as you grab the right face. ;-)

Ok.

?

Ah, but how did you know where you wanted it? I considered erasing the original hole and re-creating it but wasn't sure how I would put it back in the right place (so I just tried re-sizing it before giving up). ;-(

Ok, I generally understand the words you are using ... ;-) (but don't bother trying to explain (to me anyway)).

So basically (as you mentioned elsewhere), someone like me wouldn't really of had a chance, certainly not doing it cleanly as such?

Quite, and that's the frustrating thing (for me), that leap between trying to make use of what is already out there (because I'm a willing user of this particular technology, not an innovator / designer) but at the same time I would love the freedom / ability to be able to make what I want / need. Like I've just noticed the plastic door handle on the fridge is broken at on end ... Maybe I'll try 123Catch on that (where you take a series of picture all around the object, submit it to their web site and they send you back a 3d model). ;-)

Ok thanks (and thanks for emailing the 'fixed' item through). As promised, if you need something printed it's on me and I'll let you know how this panel works out.

Thanks again, T i m

Reply to
T i m

Yup, that's exactly the problem. It wasn't like that originally so it's whatever I was doing when floundering about that made it that way.

Whilst that sounds easy, is it? I ask without actually trying it because I really don't find the 3D manipulation in SketchUp very intuitive. I don't like the 'sticky' tools either but they are probably best like that, once you know what you are doing.

Ah, I think I saw mention of holding in the mouse button on one of the many many tutorial videos I watched. Using the wheel as a button isn't something I do for anything else so it wouldn't come to mind to just try.

I'm sure I would / will be able to get to grips with SketchUp, once I get a bigger screen, better glasses, more patience (for such things) and at least 2,000 jobs off my 'To-do' list. At the moment and for my interests, I think (and this is quite unusual for me in most subjects), I'd rather pay someone who actually *enjoyed* doing that sort of thing, to do it for me. [1] ;-)

Cheers, T i m

[1] It constantly amazes me (but it shouldn't of course) how many people seem totally unable to do (what I would consider) to be the most simple of things. Change the oil and filter on their car, fit a mains plug, put up a shelf, build a PC, rebuild a motorbike, fix their washing machine etc etc. The thing is they don't even try, or haven't ever tried and that's fine (although alien to many of *us* etc) because if everyone could and did everything, there wouldn't be people earning a living doing it for them. ;-)

Like with this 3d printer. I'd never built one before but I had played with the Arduinos, I was comfortable with electronics, electrics, electro mechanics and mechanics (I even nodded out a problem on my lathe) and understood the concept of accuracy re getting all the mechanics aligned if I wanted a good result.

Reply to
T i m

The slicer software will check that, since it needs to convert your model into something it can print.

I found DesignSpark Mechanical as easy to use as Sketchup but better for dimensions, which are critical for 3D printing but not something Sketchup particularly focuses on,

Theo

Reply to
Theo Markettos

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