JNEWMAN
Posts: 5
Joined: Thu Nov 29, 2018 8:38 pm

Newbie Issues with Autodesk Inventor STL to print on Flashforge Creator Pro

Good Morning All.

I picked up my printer a Flashforge creator pro, only yesterday, and I am playing around with it made a few prints so far.
I am now looking to print my own designs. However I am struggling somewhat.
The designs that I produced were done so on Autodesk Inventor, and saved as an .ipt file. The dimensions of these parts were built using ANSI Metric mm. When I print these inventor designs, not on 3D Printer but on an inkjet using A4 paper, the designs are to 1:1 scale and have the correct dimensions when measured, so this confirms the designs are indeed correct.

The .ipt files have been saved as an .stl, when I attempted to import these into Simplily3d, it comes up with a dialogue box called Auto Scale Option stating the following message "Part appears to be extremely small and may be in inches format. Would you like to automatically scale to millimetre format? This is despite all elements of the design being done in ANSI Metric mm?

I have tried both options
Selecting Yes seems to scale this up from 10mm to 100mm!
Selecting no seems to think that 10mm is 1mm for the correct dimension, I am guessing?

So what I have attempted so far is to select yes, and then manually change the Z scale from its scaled up 100mm, to the correct 10mm, however despite uniform scaling being selected, it does not scale all features of the design correctly, for example, if there is a 10x10x10mm cube with a circular hole through the centre with a diameter of 5mm, then by imputing the correct Z scale of 10mm results in that hole becoming 4.2mm and not 5mm?

This is really causing me a headache and I would appreciate help.

Many Thanks
NitroXpress
Posts: 51
Joined: Sat Feb 20, 2016 1:14 am
Location: Germany

Re: Newbie Issues with Autodesk Inventor STL to print on Flashforge Creator Pro

Hi,
I tried it with a 10x10x10mm cube.
No Problems...

Can you upload your model ?

Frank
User avatar
dkightley
Posts: 2405
Joined: Tue Mar 10, 2015 4:09 pm

Re: Newbie Issues with Autodesk Inventor STL to print on Flashforge Creator Pro

If all of the work you're going to do from now on all need something doing to it....and it looks as if you're in the process of working out what needs to be done......there is a feature in S3D to always execute one or more changes to every model that is imported.

Here's a YouTube video that explains it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E8ytvwfCn5g

Its worth noting that stl files do not contain any dimensional information....such as being designed in mm or inches, or anything!. There are units.....but no definition as to what those units are. So you'll have to work out the scaling factor first.

Hope this helps....
Doug Kightley
Volunteer at the National Tramway Museum http://www.tramway.co.uk
Railway modeller and webmaster at http://www.talkingtgauge.net
JNEWMAN
Posts: 5
Joined: Thu Nov 29, 2018 8:38 pm

Re: Newbie Issues with Autodesk Inventor STL to print on Flashforge Creator Pro

I worked it out, its how I saved it as an STL.

There are 2 ways on inventor to save an .ipt as a .stl

The first method is to select export > export as > save an STL this method caused this inches issue.

The 2nd way is to save as 3D printer service this then creates a parameters box showing the dimensions of the part hit save and hey presto it works straight away in S3D. Thanks All
NitroXpress
Posts: 51
Joined: Sat Feb 20, 2016 1:14 am
Location: Germany

Re: Newbie Issues with Autodesk Inventor STL to print on Flashforge Creator Pro

Strange...
I use your first method without problems.
Have you adjusted the export options ?
inventor.PNG
JNEWMAN
Posts: 5
Joined: Thu Nov 29, 2018 8:38 pm

Re: Newbie Issues with Autodesk Inventor STL to print on Flashforge Creator Pro

No I did not use the export options, too complicated. I am merely getting up to speed with it, really helps having this community.

Thanks

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