Greetings,
I made a very nice and very complex design in Fusion 360 using student edition. I tried to export the model to Bambu Studio using the “Save as mesh” option with high refinement quality. When I import the .3MF file into Bambu Studio, the main structure is accurate, but the text that I embedded into the object via the extrude function is blown out of proportion and misplaced. I do not know how to fix this. Please help!!
Welcome to the forum. You should start describe your problem in detail.
Important: Please also check your forum inbox, where you should have a message asking you to confirm the rules, as well as a short 5-minute tutorial. Then you can also post photos, which is very important with problems like this.
Then think about describing the problem in detail and you’ll definitely will get help. 
Edit: Topic was moved by moderation. Text adapted.
Export as a .Step file. Should
Import w/o issue.
I have had the same problems, trying to export from Fusion 360. What was the worst was waiting for an export and then still not getting what I designed. Thus I no longer use Fusion 360. An d I did not use it that much to pay for a yearly subscription.
use export instead of save as, and export as .3mf, .Step, or .stl.
I had this same problem. As people said Export as a STEP File. You need to Export the model and not save it. Right click on the model name on the left, If you did not name it it will say Untitled. Then go down to export and change the format to step file and download. When you open it in your slicer it should be ok.
“Save as mesh” should work just fine, I use it all the time (mostly STL and 3MF formats, though OBJ works OK too). What exactly is selected and what is visible at the time does matter, but that also makes it very flexible (export one body, a whole assembly, etc). And I’ve never had any alignment problems between different parts/bodies of an object after export/import, so I can’t guess what that issue may be.
More information is needed to help, as 'Sharky said.
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I’m not sure why people recommend STEP as an exchange format? With STEP the tessellation is done (slowly) in the slicer, with 2 basic accuracy options and no preview. Doing it from CAD is typically much more powerful, faster, and gives one a chance to preview the result. 
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Random tip: Get finer resolution for small details and rounder curves when exporting models with high refinement settings by adjusting the slicer’s Quality → Precision → Resolution lower than the default 0.0012mm, say to 0.0008 or even lower (I noticed once that .0008 is the default in PrusaSlicer). You can literally see the difference in the sliced preview on curved surfaces, especially ones with smaller diameters. It can increase slicing time a bit, maybe depending on the hardware being used, though not much in my experience, and is well worth it.
Cheers,
-Max
Happy to be corrected if I’m off base here! But if I understood the original post, the issue was mesh import accuracy in Bambu Studio — and that’s really where STEP shines. It hands BS the most accurate geometry possible, including tolerances, and lets the slicer handle tessellation on its own terms.
On the speed question — that’s actually tied directly to your accuracy settings (deflection values), which control how many triangles get generated. So you have more control there than it might seem at first.
My personal preference is STEP for a few reasons beyond just print accuracy: I can reuse the same file in pretty much any other tool — Bambu Studio, OnShape, whatever else — without having to think about what quality setting I happened to use when I exported from Fusion. One file, works everywhere. That flexibility alone makes it worth it for me!
Hi Otis, thanks for your response.
First I must apologize – I didn’t mean to challenge you in particular, but I realized later it could appear that way. I should have, at least, added that I’ve seen this recommended in other forum threads as well, and my question/comment was more in general. Sorry, and I appreciate your gracious handling of this.
I’m not sure what you mean by tolerances, though you’re right of course that STEP is going to be the truest representation of the original model. But what do you think the slicer does with that when you import it? It turns it into a mesh, then stores that mesh, in 3MF format. The original STEP file isn’t preserved anywhere. The mesh accuracy/detail is determined at the time of import. Which is the same as when you export a mesh format from the authoring software in the first place (except it has to be done/repeated with the exact same settings every time it is imported into the slicer).
From my POV there is more control when creating a mesh from a “real” CAD/CAM program (or even a dedicated converter program) than the 2 sliders available in Studio.
Fusion:
vs. Studio:
That’s also the case with STL, and to a large part 3MF (seems very widely supported these days). I’d argue that from a consistency standpoint, using the same exact mesh, generated by the original design software, would be more consistent than relying on any particular slicer’s meshing implementation or settings used during import/conversion.
What I don’t know is if any slicer works from original STEP files, w/out converting to mesh first, in which case using STEP may indeed have some advantages. But I know Studio and all the other Slic3r derivatives do not.
Cheers,
-Max
PS. I didn’t realize it before, but my screenshots show an interesting, I think, point. The model doesn’t really need 500K (!) triangles to be accurate (like in the Studio import dialog), but I really have no way to determine that since there’s no preview. (Are those even counting the same thing?) So I’m likely to make it more complicated than it needs to be, which will slow down every plate slice. OTOH in Fusion I can see that 11K trangles is plenty. I know there’s some way to show a wireframe in Studio, but I can never find it… something with boolean operations I think.
No offense taken at all, and I never felt you were being challenging in any way! And I wasn’t the only one who said STEP, so we’re good there 
You’re absolutely right that Fusion gives you much more control over mesh output. My thinking with STEP files is that having one gives you the flexibility to generate a mesh in pretty much any way you want, at any resolution. Whereas if you only have a 3MF or STL, you’re locked into whatever resolution it was originally exported with — which is probably overkill for most prints anyway I guess!
I was using “tolerances” loosely to describe the deviation between a true CAD curve and its triangle/mesh representation. I honestly don’t know the proper term for that either, so I just went with what felt descriptive enough!
And your point about triangle count is spot on. Practically any modern FDM slicer can handle a 500k triangle mesh just fine, but honestly you won’t be able to tell the difference in the final print compared to a 50k mesh in most cases — scale and detail level aside. I don’t really have a great feel for the sweet spot in triangle density, so I tend to err on the side of too many rather than too few.
Getting back to the OP’s original issue — when mesh exports are producing weird results, it can really help to let a different program’s mesh engine (like Bambu Studio) handle the CAD-to-mesh conversion and see if that clears things up. Fusion is a fantastic tool but it definitely has its quirks and little gotchas.
When it comes to topics like this, I always say the same thing, when it comes to quality:
It doesn’t matter whether it’s a mesh or a CAD file. It doesn’t matter if it’s STEP, 3MF or OBJ. All file formats support outstanding quality that meets industry standards.
If the quality is lacking or errors occur, it’s never due to the file format; it’s always due to wrong settings.
The original poster needs to do sone investigation here. Make some more models, save them as mesh (usually perfectly reliable) can you repeat the issue? What triggers it? Screenshots. You’ll probably figure it out yourself if you document properly.
Any other tips? I will be trying this shortly.
I apologize for the lack of information on my end. Let me help you out a little. Attached
is an image of what I am trying to export. Everything in it is bodies. Somewhere along the way, Fusion or Bambu has an issue processing or exporting the design correctly.
Now back to the most fundamental question:
Why don’t you just use the completely normal export path for 3mf format, which is pretty compatible with Bambu Studio?
Why do you use the mesh export? What you are doing is not really necessary, as it is intended for Blender. That’s how you do it, right?
Above all, you will need to configure and understand a lot of settings yourself. However, this only works if you go to the advanced settings and set them correctly. Do you understand all these sliders and settings?
If not, then use the first method I mentioned.
Otherwise, please post a few photos showing us how you export or save your file.
IMHO “Save as mesh” is quicker and simpler than exporting. In many tutorials this is how people recommend exporting for 3D printing. With Autodesk’s own “3D Print Tools” extension that is available in their marketplace, “save as mesh” is right on the toolbar. And at first there’s not much to understand besides “high, medium, low” and the nice preview that tool can give you (unlike export, IIRC).
To each their own of course, but I know it can get confusing when one source recommends one thing and another something else. There’s no reason “save to mesh” shouldn’t work for export. The real issue is elsewhere.
-Max
I’m sorry, but I must strongly disagree with your entire comment, as a mesh is completely different from a CAD file. The export is fundamentally different, as well as what you get. You have a fundamental error in your thinking.
A CAD file is completely filled. A cube is not hollow, but completely solid.
A mesh file, on the other hand, as the name suggests, is a net and therefore hollow. Nothing inside. Therefore, mesh files must also be mainfolded in order to be understood by the printer.
This is what each mesh looks like from the inside: Hollow
In theory, a CAD object can also be infinitely spherical, whereas a MESH is limited to tiny surfaces:
You also have to understand this: Solid bodies are used for 3D printing. Mesh is used for Blender, for example, because you work with hollow objects there. Even though Bambu understands Mesh, of course the program has to, there are fundamental differences.
So, to clarify once again:
Mesh = Hollow
CAD = Solid - (Hence the company name: SolidWorks)
That’s why there are always problems when inexperienced users want to cut a mesh, for example. Why? What happens when you cut something hollow, like a sphere? You end up with two open shells or bowls instead of two half closed spheres. Unless you manifold.
I’m confused since I thought you were talking about exporting to STL or 3MF mesh/surface formats. Which is what I was talking about. Maybe I misunderstood. Studio (Slice3r) slices from a mesh format, not solids.
-Max
OP uses Fusion 360. It can export both solid or hollow (mesh).
If you export as mesh so hollow, you have to set everything up:
If you want to export solid, use the normal export method.
I feel like we’re talking about different things…? The format of the exported file determines if it’s a solid or mesh/surface. STL can only represent a surface mesh regardless of how it’s exported. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/STL_(file_format)
-Max
