How to print a hole without a wall? :)

Hi there,
i want to make a hole printed without an internal wall, like on the sketch rather than what is normally sliced seen on the screenshot (a whole with internal wall).
how to get it done in Bambu Studio or any other slicer if Bambu is not capable to do it?
image

Welcome to the forum.

You may be able to use a modifier to do this. I wasn’t able to get it to work. It’s a bit of an odd request. Is there a reason you are tryin to do this?

i’ve put a modifier and tried various of settings, but wasn’t able to get it done.
what settings you think i should apply?

as you can see the wall is quite thin (2,4mm) and the hole should be around 1-1,2mm. I want it to be printed this way to keep the strength as high as possible. with this internal wall of the hole the print is notably weaker.

I’m usually up for a challenge and this one intrigued me. Bottom line, this can’t be done. The hole represents a geometry that the slicer has to deal with. I even tried to fake it out by making the outer walls 0 which can create some interesting results. However, that did not work either. All it did was change the outer wall to Internal Solid fill.

The only possible workaround is to cut the model at the hole. But in your example, that creates another problem because you’re doing it on a curve.

Now having said that. If I think I understand your objective, you’re image shows you want to make a hole two threads wide. I promise you that will not work if you actually want a hole. It will lay down the filament but the hole will close up at that resolution. I’m afraid you’re asking too much of the technology.

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Would it not be better to add a pocket ? in your cad software ? rather than relying on the slicer

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Another idea would be to print the hole undersize and drill it to size which would remove the outerwall of the hole.

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i found this on redit if its any use (ive not read)
How to cut a hole in a print with Cura : r/3Dprinting
thread also includes an additional link to autodesk forum

plus can you actually print any kind of hole without it having a wall of some kind ?

i would not worry about technology itself, as i would be able to adjust width of thread, but that would be possible only if slicer would not put any walls inside the hole.
adjusting various of settings led me to similar results you have just showed, but all of them finally gave me same results: wall in the hole and weaker element:(

it’s not a matter of adding a hole/pocket, it is there. it is rather the way slicer is processing it…

unfortunately the whole element is not giving access for drilling:(

0.16mm Optimal Preset with 0 walls seems to work ok:

It does alternate with a slightly different (potentially weaker) layout every other layer:

Should still be a bit stronger vs default settings.

Unfortunately, this must be a global setting because modifiers add their own wall around them regardless of modifier setting. And without modifiers, 0 walls is your global setting and you end up with a print that doesn’t have any walls, which may or may not be suitable depending on your application.

Alternative is to use default settings followed by annealing. If done right that should minimise any strength difference between having a wall around the hole vs it being just infill.

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Thinking about it, you may be able to create a custom modifier in your CAD software that would overlap your entire model at just the right points to get the wall back where you want it.

Proof of concept:

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I know I am old and have stupid ideas, but in the old days we just printed such areas solid and drilled out tiny holes…
No hassle and gives a really nice hole…

But of course if there is a will then there will be a bush a car back seat somewhere… :slight_smile:
Olias already pointed out the impossibility of the task, which is fine.
At work I always say I do the impossible right away but for a miracle I need a day or two to prepare…
And with a bit of extra work outside Studio it is possible to get holes without wall inside thin things >

I don’t usually do it for such tiny holes, as said I have drills…
But it goes like this:
You cut out this part of the model to get two individual objects.
Doing so in a CAD program and in place results on the imported files also ‘sticking together’ when imported as a model with multiple parts.
The key is to wreck this cut out section really badly.
First you offset and split what you need for the outer wall - e.g. 0.87mm for one outer and one inner wall with the standard settings.
Gives you two parts, one that is printed just as wall loops and one that is printed without wall loops just as infill.
To get the hole done you do basically the same.
The inner part you prepared gets the hole added either the normal way as we won’t print with wall loops for this bit or like before as a separate part to have more flexibility - like when you have to make a lot of holes this way and just copy and paste all in place from the first round.

So what happens in the slicer with files like this ??
You import it as one part - otherwise Studio makes a mess and you have a hard time aligning things.
Then you go into the object tab and set the print settings as above.
The wall part gets only walls, the inner part no walls and only infill.
I use this quite often for text…
Try to pat attention to the print order in the object tab and if in doubt move object up and down the list.
Keep in mind you worked on ( a copy of) your model in the CAD program to cut out those modified areas, create multiple parts from in and exported all individual parts while they are in the correct place in the CAD program.
But and that’s a BIG BUT>
You are NOT printing them in object mode, you print them in layer mode!
And if you have the same print order, e.g. walls first, then infill, it means it will be sliced as intended while a random order can result in wall loops being split, which can look a bit ugly.

I hope I got it over in a way you can follow, if not then let me know and if I can squeeze a bit of time out will make you a dummy 3MF file to play around with, adding the STL files here though will require some creativity.

So there’s a square hole in the model there, but the slicer is turning it into a circular hole? (And you want a square hole?)

my shape is circular, so your solution is not working well with any fill pattern. Even concentric is not correct. but thanks for discussion.
Finally i’ve managed to print almost as i was willing. solution was inspired by [user_3026326371] but still there is a question left…

as you suggested, i’ve created in fusion 360 body inside the other body, which allowed me after parts separation in bambu studio set only walls for outer body and only infill for inner body.
This gave me results as on picture. the only thing i’m struggling with is that the inner wall if external body is not printed in continuous way and i’m not sure how to adjust it.
Even though the orange line is a part of outer body it is printed separated separately…

anyway, i’ve changed my idea a little, so luckly i’m not going to be very worried if solution for that won’t be find. i suspec that if that inner wall would be thicker it would be printed continously…

thanks for all help!

I’ll be honest I don’t see what your issue is. I am able to do it with a circular shape without any issues:

i don;t get it how did you do it. could you please send me 3mf of that example?

I hope this link works:
HoleCircular.3mf (115.5 KB)

I have 2 plates for 2 methods, one is using multibody the other is using modifier.

there is only one plate, for multibody only. differenece between mine and yours is that mine inner body is with hole, while in your example hole is between two inner bodies. your solution is better, thanks.
could you please send the second plate?