Most .stl files aren’t immediately ready for printing – learn how to easily clean them up and prepare them for the slicer.
Fixing stl files with netfabb
I’m Tom, and today i’m going to show you how to prepare and fix stl files that would otherwise probably crash your slicer.
So stl files are the basic file type that represent the physical part that you want to print. All big CAD suites like Solidworks or Inventor, but also Sketchup, OpenSCAD and Blender can export stls. An stl file simply is a bunch of triangles that define only the surfaces of your part. And the more complex your parts are, the more can go wrong when your program tries to decide how to arrange those triangles to make them as similar as possible to the original part. Modern slicers can automatically work around some of these errors, but you’re usually better off doing these repairs by yourself since these can often introduce artifacts that will only show up once the part is printed. Another common problem with printable files is that they are often not oriented properly – so unless you want to make heavy use of support material, you should check that the part you’re going to print has a large, flat surface that can stick to the build platform and is oriented in the right direction.
For this job, we’re going to be using netfabb Studio basic, which is a popular free tool made with 3D printing in mind. In fact, the professional version also includes a slicer, which is what the first Ultimakers used.
So let’s get started. If you haven’t installed it yet, you can download netfabb from the link in the description below. After installing, you will need to register it using a valid email address. When you open up a file, it’ll look something like this. You can rotate the view while holding the right mouse button and zoom in and out with the mouse wheel. You can select a part by clicking on it. Well, this is how it works on Windows, if you’re on a Mac, i suppose you can figure out the equivalents to those buttons. In the bottom right corner, Netfabb will show you the dimensions of the part you just opened. This is an important spot to check if you’re using parts that were imported from imperialistic programs. Stls only store dimensionless units for the sizes, so RepRap tools generally assume those units to be millimeters. However, some programs use inches or centimeters when exporting, which will result in parts that appear way too small. To fix that, we can use the scale tool, which is up here. Use a scaling factor of 25.4 if your part was exported in inches or 10 for centimeters, then hit scale and double-check that the reported dimensions are now correct. Now, you might have noticed the little warning icon down here, which indicates that your part still has errors in the data. You’ll often see these errors as red spots on your part. The best way to deal with these is by using the automated repair, which, for me, has managed to get almost every mangled file back into a printable shape. To start, click the red cross up here and select automatic repair, then choose the default repair and hit execute. At this point, the file will usually print just fine. If the automated repair didn’t pick off all errors, you might want to try the remove degenerate faces option in the actions tab. Choose a tolerance of about 0.01 and hit ok. This will completely remodel your file and give you another chance that the automated repair picks off all errors, so run that again. When you’re done, hit apply repair, remove old part.
The last step is orienting the part, which is super simple in Netfabb. Use the align to bottom plane tool and simply double-click the side of your part that you want to stick to the build platform.
To save the changes you made, using the save command in Netfabb isn’t going to be much use. Instead, make sure the part is selected and green, then click part, export part, stl and choose where you want to save the stl.
And that’s the whole process of preparing a file for the slicer! I run through this process for every part i print, and once you’ve figured it out, it’s super fast to do as well. Let me demonstrate.
And the part is ready to print!
So, as always, thanks for watching!
netfabb basic for Windows, Linux and Mac is available for free
Marvin by 3dhubs.com