Solidworks STL settings for details in Strong and Flexible

Hi everyone,

So I made some parts with my projet and I ordered the same part from shapeways in Strong and Flexible. Now I fully expected it to be a bit grainy, but I am perplexed as to why the small extrusions are way smaller. In the image the projet part is on the right and the Strong and Flexible is on the left. I can see in the shapeways render that the lugs are not resized. The size of the nut is .05" and the bolt is .03". Thanks in advance for any help received from people in the future. The STL setting were done by the guy that installed my Projet. Please help! Thanks

View your STL with (free,cross-platform) netfabb studio basic - if all the nuts and bolts look correct there and you do not get a red warning triangle (bad mesh indicator) beside it the problem lies with either shapeways (bad print run or poor orientation of model in printer) or with your choice of material (Check resolution limits for strong&flexible as shown on its Materials page - your ProJet system is probably comparable to shapeways "frosted detail" or "acrylic" photopolymers, not the much coarser laser-sintered nylon). Try emailing service@shapeways.com with the picture to get an official statement.

Hi mkroeker,

I did in fact write the support email with this problem. I was also asked by them to install this program. But they want me to open and save the STL and try printing it again. This seems really a long drawn out way to do this. I pointed out that they (shapeways) have been doing this a long time and I thought surely they have known good solidworks STL generator values to recommend to their clients... I paid $5k real damn dollars for Solidworks and feel it's a bit silly to have to install a quirky free ware program to find a problem. I also went into great detail telling them this is not the only part that I have seen with this problem. All of my rim parts with lug nuts turn out this way.

So I installed the program and loaded up the STL file. It appears and it looks just like my projet part. I do not see any red warning triangle thingys. Do they just show up, or do I have to click test or something? Also if I open the wrong one, do you really have to open a new file in order to tell it not to save any changes just so you can load a different file? Where is the close button?

Ok so your comment about me choosing the wrong material. I chose Strong and Flexible for a reason. I just want to know if it's printing correctly or not. This is so frustrating because at this stage of the game, this far along, there has to be people who know just by looking if this is a problem or just how it works.

As a printing service they will probably not know optimum settings for particular software packages we the customers might use - especially for expensive, specialized programs like SolidWorks. (You could try asking your SolidWorks dealer if the 5k included a support contract). If the freeware netfabb is too quirky you could try their expensive commercial versions - which happen to be what shapeways uses, hence my recommendation to check your file with it. As you did not get the warning triangle, the file is in all likelyhood correct.
My gut feeling is that you should see better results than what you showed even in strong&flexible, hopefully service will offer a free reprint if you get back to them with the information that netfabb found no issues with your model. Nevertheless, print orientation - which is likely the culprit here - is still decided per print run in order to optimize volume utilization, so this problem may come up again if you order further copies at a later date.

Frustration has hit the roof.

Ok I opened the STL file with netfab. I clicked save and it mad a netfab file. I'm trying to upload it as requested. It says file format not supported.

Now I email them and wait a few days.

Why did I think working with a company that will not provide a phone number was a good idea?

Would someone please tell me what shapeways apparently thinks I should just know. What the hell am I doing?

In netfabb, try "Part->Export part" - there is a user manual on the netfabb site I believe, and you can find a few tutorials for advanced repair tasks on stonysmith' website under http://stonysmith.com/wired

I think your print has the same problem as the guy in this thread:
https://www.shapeways.com/forum/index.php?t=msg&th=29204 &start=0&
I.e. I would bet 29 cents that your file is fine and it is a bad print. It looks to me like it's too small all over, not just in the nuts. I think that's what you should be complaining about.

I'd guess they wanted you to look at your mesh in Netfabb so they can be sure you have looked at the actual triangles of your STL, not at surfaces before meshing, or a render mesh that's not what will be printed, or a mesh that has been smoothed and interpolated for display. This is a standard and useful practice any time you are exporting STL from any software which can't display it natively. You don't have to use a freeware viewer if it hurts your pride -- I use Magics -- but you do need to use something.

That said, optimizing the file settings is on you. There are no correct STL generation settings for Solidworks as such. The correct settings depend on what software you're using, what you're building, the material you're printing in and the machine you're using. Shapeways issues guidelines but cannot cover every case. If you want to use the technology, you'll need to master your own toolset.

Uploading the correct file format is also on you. The upload area is not, to my eye, unclear about which formats are accepted.

Luck with the project. Again, I think you have a bad print here.

Hello and thank you mkroeker,

"In netfabb, try "Part->Export part" - there is a user manual on the netfabb site I believe, and you can find a few tutorials for advanced repair tasks on stonysmith' website under http://stonysmith.com/wired"

I appreciate the info. I never would have expected export to be anywhere other than in a files menu. Now that I know how to export an STL from here I need to find out what else I may need to do or change. Such as STL or STL-ascii, and when doing the export I read "some file formats do not include enough information, This may result in errors." I'm certain that means something to someone. And I see "Degenerated Triangles (create holes) is 18. I was thinking 17 would be right! At least Manifold edges (gets split) is 0. Yay! I see Tolerance is .0020mm and an option to Optimize... When I asked for help I expected more information than "save it in netfab", not an expedition. I create the new STL without changing the default settings and not optimizing as I wasn't told to "optimize and save it in netfab" and I get a file that is within 4kb of the original 11mb file.

Bathsheba,

I read through your linked post. I had no idea there were so many problems with this technology.

Some notes. Solidworks does show the triangles when saving as STL. Solidworks creates very clean STL files. The fact that the same file created a good part on my Projet kind of backs this up. My pride has nothing to do with it. My problem is I am a somewhat intelligent human being, trying to work with a company to solve a problem with their service and I wait days to get these second hand single sentence hear-say replies that are never going to fix anything.

Optimizing the file setting is on me. With no clues from them. Perfect! As far as file formats as concerned, I was following their instructions. Save and upload. Their instructions are at fault not me.

Difference between "STL" and "STL-ascii" is just that the former is a much more compact binary format, while the latter is plaintext.
"Degenerate" triangles are those that have at least two identical vertex coordinates, so that they collapse to a line or point. Ideally this number should be zero, but they are usually trivial to fix for shapeways' (and others) site software. (All this probably has no bearing on the current problem, as Bathsheba reminds us, but may be useful for some later projects. If you reread the thread the original point was just to look at your stl in netfabb to
make sure there is nothing that shapeways' software could misinterpret in any way that would lead to the poor print you got. Shapeways service is normally quick to respond, but you cannot expect software usage instructions from them unless their workload happens to be exceptionally light.)

Finally I have received the reprint. It looks a lot better. I now know what to expect, and not to question my settings. Thanks for all the helpful comments.