Trying to create a mesh for my spool.
I thought I could fill the bed with cylinders and convert them to a negative part - looks like this doesn’t work that way.
Probably there’s an easier way to create a mesh like on the SUNLU spool?
Please advise, I’m a newbie here.
Ha, that’s a clever idea.
“Negative” parts don’t seem to have any effect until you slice the plate. Then they should create voids, as one might expect.
What you may be expecting could perhaps be done with a “Mesh Boolean” operation (the toolbar button with intersecting squares) , which cuts things in place. Worth a try perhaps. There are some bugs in that regard in the current Studio versions, but not sure it would affect this.
However you may also wish to try some other ideas, and not necessarily in Studio. Is this a spool you have the source CAD files for, or at least a STEP?
Even with just a mesh to start, there is other “infinitely” more powerful software out there for working with them… MeshMixer comes to mind, not overly complicated but still powerful, & free. But yea creating the patterns for the meshes isn’t always simple, and as you see getting the holes lined up nicely with edges and such is tricky.
One related technique I’ve picked up for something like this is to use infill patterns on parts of the model w/out top/bottom shells. Requires the model separated into “outer” and “inner” parts. So here “outer” would be the outside rim and core sections of the spool, and “inner” being the spool walls, if you will. Then the walls can be set up to use zero top/bottom surface thickness, but with some kind of infill that makes a nice pattern with some inherent strength, like honeycomb for example.
Not sure how clear this will be, but in the screenshots here I have the “Base Inner plate” and outer plate separated, along the highlighted line, although they’re actually joined together once printed (no gaps). Then I adjust the “inner” part to have no top/bottom, while the “outer” frame is more typical and provides most of the strength for the part. Ignore the other parts, they’re not relevant to the example.
-Max
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You should use a real CAD program, not a slicer.
There are many options; free versions of Fusion and Onshape are both very powerful, and both will easily create circular and rectangular patterns. The time spent learning a CAD program will be repaid many times because the design tools are faster, more precise, and much easier to use.
Designing with Studio is like doing brain surgery with a brick.
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@MaxThreeD @lkraus Thank you both for your advice!
I tried Mesh Boolean, and it was exactly the approach I had in mind. I used it to subtract the cylinders I added, but performance was very poor. The app could only process a few at a time. I had to do 5 cylinders, wait around 2 minutes for it to finish, then spend another minute fixing the model afterward.
Considering there are about 200 cylinders total, that workflow is not practical.
I also tried using infill patterns on parts of the model without top/bottom shells. I experimented with the settings from the screenshot you provided. It was a neat trick to learn, but it did not work for my use case.
In the end, you were both right. I should use proper CAD software for this. Since it is an STL file, I can open it in Fusion. Now I just need to learn how to use it. That will be new territory for me, since I am more used to Bambu Studio and usually only make simple modifications with infill modifier parts.
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Good to hear!
I actually also modified a spool model mesh in Fusion once, wanting to punch through some embedded markings on the sides to make them holes. Ended up doing basically the same thing you were trying in Studio… creating new objects and using them for boolean operations with the original mesh. IIRC the new objects have to be of the same type, eg. meshes for operations with other meshes, or all solids. In my case converting the spool mesh to solid didn’t have any particular advantages.
The “Create Mesh Section Sketch” tool (in Mesh workspace) can be really useful here… get a copy of a spool reel side, then add sketched hole(s), extrude symmetrically, & make a pattern (and/or make patterns first in sketch). Then subtract all those objects from the spool mesh. As one approach, anyway.
Cheers,
-Max