Problem turning model to HO scale...

So as I was creating my model, a street lamp, I was aware of making it to precise scale. The original height of the lamp post and light is ~15' 4.75" and hoping I successfully figured out the correct measurement scaled down to HO (it should be around 2.5" in height now).

With SketchUp I'm using, I scaled the whole model down to fit the new size, and I zipped the exported model out and upload, but an error is telling me the "final model was empty" and to update it.

What can I do or how do I solve this?

LINK TO PHOTO: http://www.flickr.com/photos/73256214@N04/11559739074/in/pho tostream/
Not sure if the above will help.

Thanks.

Did you use the correct scale? 1 divided by 87 is 0.0114942528735632 or in North America 1 divided by 87.1 is 0.0114810562571757. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HO_scale
The other problem could be the units you used to upload.
Why do you need it to be zipped. is it a coloured model?

If you send me the model by PM I will look at it for you.

It appears that you exported with units of meters, and uploaded with units of millimeters, or something like that.

Unless it's full color sandstone you don't need to zip it. Are you converting the file from sketchup? Shapeways can't use the native .SKP files. You can add on an STL exporter to sketchup (it's free)

I have done quite a few HO scale models- there are many in my shop and more on the way. I have found that meshlab (it's free) does a very good job of scaling down the model. I design full size in sketchup. keeping in mind the minimum free and supported wall dimensions, as well as free and supported wire size- I actually have an excel cheat sheet I made up for different printing materials. If you want it PM me.

After sketchup I open the model in Netfab (free) and convert units from MM to inches as there seems to be some kind of bug in the Sketchup STL export function, then run an auto fix function and resave the STL.

Then it's onto meshlab where I center the model, multiply it by .0115 in the scale feature to make it HO, freeze the mesh, and save it again. There is a way to save macros in meshlab that makes this repetitive step much easier.

Sometimes I use the netfab website to repair the model after scaling it down to HO. I do not scale down with netfab as I find it does weird things to small objects.

Lastly, if I am assembling several models into one larger STL for upload I use Blender (also free).

Isn't that a straight forward work flow? And it only took a year of messing around to get here. I suspect there is a better way to do things, but so far I am sticking with my system because it works- and it is all free software. Of course at this point I might buy something if it made a significant difference.

And of course this is only for STLs. It's all different for full color sandstone.

I'd be happy to share any insights or offer any help I can. Send me a private message and we can either email, skype, or use an old fashion telephone.

Did you get this sorted in the end?
I use SkecthUp too.

I made a very basic pole shape thing to the same height as yours before scaling down.

What I did then was to select the whole model and resize it using the Tape measure, click on the highest point then click on the lowest point then type in 2.5" press enter and resize model.

I then export in mm using the free STL exporter which works every time.
I don't need to use a combination of different software to get successful uploads/prints.

Also is your model 3D printer ready?

Hope this helps,
Tom.