Object being changed when copied

[JohnSays]

I placed one object in S3D, printed it to my Raise3D N2 and it printed perfectly. I then duplicated it in S3D with the Duplicate command to make a total of 24 objects. The problem is that when I preview the objects they are no longer the same. The objects I surrounded in red are correct. See the picture below. The factory file is 371MB so I did not try to upload it.

When I tried to print the objects they print as they are shown and which won't work. So why are my parts being changed?

[dkightley]

I very much doubt the objects are being changed when being copied.......I believe the stl has issues that are resulting in the part being sliced slightly differently depending on the XY coordinates at which the object sits in the slicer's volume.

I bet if you adjust the position of the copies that don't slice correctly so that the XY coordinates match up with copies that do slice correctly...ie line them up in a grid....then the slice will be the same for each copy.

[CompoundCarl]

Why don't you just upload one single STL file? Perhaps there is a problem with the mesh?

[JohnSays]

Thanks to both of you. I can't upload an stl because the upload limit is 3MB and just one stl is 34MB. All objects are perfectly lined up in a grid and all are flat on the table. All I am doing is copying, arranging and making sure they are flat on the table and then slice. I have run the original stl through a repair process, imported it into IdeaMaker and then duplicated and then sliced. All the objects sliced perfectly. But when I brought the same model into S3D and copied it again, the problem persisted.

I have tried to upload this problem to Tech Support, but I get an error that states, "Failed to send your message. Please try later..." I have tried later and over and over.

At this point I will try to print using IdeaMaker instead of S3D.

[arhi]

The factory file is 371MB so I did not try to upload it.

that's the part with waaaaaaaaaaaay too much triangles then any 3d printer s3d can control will spit out I'd say you are around 9M triangles there .. if you have a source file for those parts export them in lower resolution (you do not need nothing more then 0.05mm when exporting to stl) .. you'll get smaller file, easier to manage (copy, parse, move, duplicate, upload...) and most probably s3d will properly handle it ..

[JohnSays]

Interesting. There is a setting in Fusion 360 that I set to a higher resolution because of the too low of a quality print I was getting. Since changing it, the print quality is much better. The actual number of triangles is 714,098 -- for one object. The object has some complex shapes inside it. Regardless, I think you are right. 24 objects is over 17 million triangles and I now must assume that is just too much. I will look into exactly how the the 360 settings work and try to find the right degree of refinement. Thanks for pointing this out.

[arhi]

Interesting. There is a setting in Fusion 360 that I set to a higher resolution because of the too low of a quality print I was getting. Since changing it, the print quality is much better.

older versions of simplify3d were notorious for not being able to handle too many triangles .. some other slicers do optimize the output but s3d would create a gzilion tiny moves to accommodate high res of the stl ... the latest version is doing some optimization and is producing waaaaaaaaaaay better code but it is still struggling with that many triangles from what I experienced so far (I just recently started using s3d) ..

dunno how fusion works but in solidworks for e.g. I can select deviation tolerance (between 0.4 and 0.02mm) and angle tolerance (between 30 and 0.5 degrees). The best values I found for 3d printing so far are around 0.2mm tolerance and 10degree angle tolerance, but on the "old" printers (darwin/mendel/prusa mendel/prusa i whatever/malyan/wanhao/hobiking/old makerbot/old ultimaker/solidudle/up!... ) even the 0.4mm and 30degrees makes almost no difference in quality while slicing speed (this used to be super important, if you ever used old versions of skeinforge, skeining a big file used to take hours) and printing speed are improved.

[JohnSays]

Well the problem was too many triangles. So thank you. I have reduced the the resolution type settings in Fusion 360. Thank you for pointing this out. My slicing is back to happening almost instantaneously rather than taking forever and getting the drawing wrong...