How To Make The Connections Thicker

Discussion in 'My Work In Progress' started by 1474560_deleted, Feb 21, 2017.

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  1. Hi Guys and Gals,

    I am trying to create a set of cufflinks for a colleague of ours and I have gotten to the part where the model is almost acceptable except that the connecting elements are too thin (they are currently 0.5mm according to the website). Therefore, I would like to know if anyone knows a way to make them thicker (to 2mm or so for the stability)?

    Thanks in advance
     

    Attached Files:

  2. UniverseBecoming
    UniverseBecoming Well-Known Member
    Firstly, these are way too large for cufflinks. Take a look.

    Model info.png

    Well, that is, unless you're wanting 44 mm cufflinks! :D Did you design these yourself? If so, what software did you use? The reason I ask is because I might be able to tell you how to fix these up if I knew what software you drew these up in.
     
  3. Hi there, yeah we thought about the size and figured 4 cm in length seems about right, we could reduce it to 3 cm but wouldn't want to go much smaller. The way I made the model is to use the '2D to 3D' tool to generate the lower part (which includes the thin connections), loaded it into netfabb to convert to stl, then imported that to tinkercad and added the backpart (top part in your view).
     
  4. MrNibbles
    MrNibbles Well-Known Member
    There are several ways to thicken the lines.

    1. Use the the wall thickener tool in the 3d tools section of your model. This may give lumpy results so probably not the best solution.
    or
    2. Redo the '2D to 3D" step using an image having thicker lines.
    or
    3. Group the thin lines with thicker shapes (rectangles, round rods, oval rods, etc.) in Tinkercad. You're already adding stuff to your model so why not beef up the thin elements?
    or
    4. Use the imported shape as a template to create a completely new object using Tinkercad shapes, either standard or from the user supplied library. This would let you use elements that have rounded edges that aren't as harsh as sharp 90 degree corners, unless of course you want the sharper corners.
     
  5. UniverseBecoming
    UniverseBecoming Well-Known Member
    Yeah, I would just draw out the 2D parts in Tinkercad and then extrude it to the thickness you want. Also, you might want to increase the fidelity when you export out to STL format. What I mean by that is your current STLs are faceted looking and being that they are large you may see those facets on the actual tangible cufflinks. There will be a setting somewhere in Tinkercad for adjusting this. I have never used Tinkercad so I cannot say for sure exactly how to do that.
     
  6. UniverseBecoming
    UniverseBecoming Well-Known Member
  7. MrNibbles
    MrNibbles Well-Known Member
    You don't have a lot of control over facets in Tinkercad unless there's a geometry object in which you can set # of sides or how fine its mesh will be when you draw it. Tinkercad has also just had an "upgrade" so I'm not sure what has improved or gotten worse. There is no fine mesh output control as such - what you draw is what you get.

    Anyway, when you upload an stl file to Tinkercad I've seen the quality of the mesh change. You can't actually visualize the mesh in Tinkercad but I've noticed artifacts sometimes being generated. I assume the system is reducing the mesh for memory and efficiency reasons. One of the drawbacks of an online editor.

    You can "extrude" an image in Tinkercad, similar to the 2D to 3D tool, but the last time I checked this was limited to a .svg file. Generating the basic shape using the Shapeways 2D to 3D tool is probably the quickest method if you don't have other software to accomplish the task and you want to work with jpg, png, etc. image files.
     
  8. UniverseBecoming
    UniverseBecoming Well-Known Member
    From your explanation, it sounds like Tinkercad is too limited to do anything highly precise. I wonder if Tarskin might be better off learning how to do it in 123D Design or DesignSpark Mechanical? For DesignSpark Mechanical I could make a step by step tutorial on how to remake the cufflinks from scratch if interested.
     
  9. MrNibbles
    MrNibbles Well-Known Member
    I only mentioned Tinkercad because they were already using it. It is somewhat limited, kind of like Openscad but with a graphics interface and an ability to easily disassemble finished models and rework parts of it for relatively easy modifications. It also has a built in javascript capability for building custom models or elements but it is a bigger pain the patootey than using something like Shapeways's ShapeJS (and probably Openscad). It's not the greatest for mechanical component design or artsy-fartsy sculpting since things generally don't look very organic without post-processing using other software. But still, most of the stuff in my store is generated or touched in some way by Tinkercad. Just like everything else if you use it long enough you begin to get used to the little tricks that you need to use to do various things.
     
  10. UniverseBecoming
    UniverseBecoming Well-Known Member
    True true.