I am trying to modify a telescope mounting ring to have a built-in extension. I need to know the best way to make the extension and how to put a reinforced hole through it to lineup with the existing hole. I would also like to modify the existing hole to a hex shape to accommodate an M6 nut from the round side.
If you have a .STL file for the part, it would be easy to do in TinkerCAD.
For reinforcing the area, you can use a 'modifier in Bambu Studio to increase the # of walls and/or increase the infill density.
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Welcome to the community.
The workaround is to use a shape modifier and then edit that object.
So as you discovered, the number of walls is all or nothing. This example shows 2.
But you can add a modifier in the shape you want to reinforce and then act on that modifier shape. For holes, this is easy because cylinders are one of the supported primitives. Right click on the object and select Add-Modifier/Cylinder
This creates an assembly with Generic-Cylinder as an object. Note that I am using Orca slicer but the same is still true in BS. There will be a special symbol to note that the object is different from the other parts in the assembly.
Now click on the cylinder and scale it to the size you want that is larger than the hole you want to reinforce. In this example, it is a 6mm hole that I am going to reinforce to 12mm. Then move it to the location above the hole. Since this is not CAD, you have to eyeball it and before you ask; NO, Bambu will not add CAD functions such as alignment tools to the slicer, we’ve been asking for three years since Bambu Studio 0.1 Beta. You will have to center the cylinder by eyeball.
Next click on the object menu and click on the modifier in the assembly. Click on Strength and change the wall thickness there. It will operate only on the modifier not the entire model.
before and after
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BTW: This same trick works for odd custom shapes too. This can come in handy if you want to reinforce something like a sculpture where let’s say you are building parts like arms and legs in section and then want to attach them by screws. It allows one to reinforce only parts of the irregular shape.
- Just clone the original model
- Scale it to be smaller than the original model so it fits inside the original model geometry.
- Add both parts to an assembly. Right click on the smaller part and change type to modifier.
- Operate on the modifier like the example above.
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I was able to get 90% of the way to my goal in Tinkercad. I now can’t figure out how to make the union between the new extension and the original component.
I assume your second picture has the two parts laying next to each other and are not one piece? If so, I find it easier to do in TinkerCAD. You position the two parts in TinkerCAD and have them overlap by 0.05 - 0.10 mm. Have both parts selected and the “merge” them.
No, they are in fact joined together just not smoothly.
I misunderstood what you meant by making a union to the original component. Is that going to be a new part?
Two primitive cubes, randomly pushed together
Sliced:
OR
Select both objects, right-click, Merge, slice:
But aligning modifications like this will usually be much easier and accurate when done in your CAD program.
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I finally got my design as good as my skills can make it but one of the pieces is not printing correctly and I can’t figure out why. It’s laying down supports for the whole piece as it shows in the slicer but it’s only printing about 2/3 of the part when it lays down the first layer. Any ideas of what to check?
Is the area where the print is missing an area that you have modified? If so, your modification may not be on the build plate, it may be 0.1mm or so above the plate.
Not sure what happened but I redownloaded it from TinkerCAD to Bambi Studio, sliced it and it was printing correctly when I left for work.
I have had some files get corrupted when exporting from TinkerCAD.