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I just got a makerbot replicator mini. $300 with 8 rolls of filament. I am thrilled with it. so far its working flawlessly near 24/7 for the last week :slight_smile:

anyway I am finally starting to diddle around with 3ds to make my own stuff.

Mostly rocket airframe components.

anyway made some simple things to test scale fit precision etc… and am having a wee problem.

I made 3 parts. a small tube section. a “3d skin” to put on that tube section and a matching Nose cone.

the tube prints fine. Just the tube. but the tube skin prints with a top and bottom even though it SHOWS without either in the software (but shows the top and bottom in the preview)

what am I doing wrong? how do I make it prints just the wall no top and bottom as those are not even in the file the maker software is “adding” them once it does its thing when you click print.

suggestions?

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Ok let me understand this better, so you have a tubular piece, you open it in Makerbot Desktop and it shows up as a tube, but in the preview and the final print its putting a top and bottom on the tube?

Thats really odd… I tried this quickly and drew up a 50mm tube with a 45mm inside diameter, walls 2.5mm thick, opened it in Makerbot Desktop it looks like a tube, checked the preview and i don’t see the top and bottom there, i would guess if i printed it there wouldn’t be either.

For the bottom, are you printing with a raft? I don’t see how it could be adding a top on its own. Is the added top and bottom the exact size of the tube? Or does it overhang the diameter?

I’m stumped… There must be something in the STL file causing it. Could you attach the STL file here and i could take a look at it? Curious if it would do it on my end as well and perhaps i could figure out why.

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run your file through netfabb to check for and repair any holes. it works magic on files.

basic version is free, will end up saving you countless hours of trying to figure out what part of your model isn’t completely watertight.

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In the advanced settings you can choose to make the floor/roof thickness 0 and do the same for infill percentage 0%.

The only things that will then be printed are the walls.

Not the best solution, I’d rather see you correct the STL file somehow, but it can be used as a workaround :wink:

Good luck!

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Ok. Here is a video someone else in another post started getting comp k icated with manifolds and water tightness and inside facing walls etc… alien greek to me but i think i may have a glimmer conceptually what they mean. Its 2d so the 3d slicer wants it to me 3d. The discrepency is oe was a tube command so 3ds probably did the inside walls thing for me while the shape i extruded had no such thing done to it. I think i vaguely understand what is broken now i just need to figure out how to fix it. Here is a video 3ds tube problems - YouTube

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I think I got it !! it just hit me. its 2d so what I really need is to simply make it 3d ie add THICKNESS

found youtube video. right click convert to editable polygon. then modifier list “shell”

done. it now has thickness and so far its appear properly in both maker bot desktop and preview and SEEMS to be printing (it left a hole in the center of the raft. will know for sure in 103 minutes :slight_smile: but its looking good and that is EASY to do as well. Nice !!