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Modeling for printing with C4D?


Rectro
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Hi guys.

 

I'm faced with  making a two part press mold for 3d printing.  As it's hard surface, has lots of extrusions bevels, splines,  and booleans it's made a mess of topo. Unfortunately its just not clean enough for the slicer software.

 

Any tips for modeling for 3d printing would be most welcome.

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I have limited experience with this, I’ve  been modelling some plush toys that are being printed into 6 inch figures, although the they were fairly simple in design/detail compared to what you’ve been tasked with, I think some things to consider are, wall thickness. There’s a minimum thickness that should be adhered to, this may very depending on which printer and material you’re using, if the model you’re printing isn’t just a single solid piece. making sure there’s no holes or gaps in the mesh. Everything needs to be air tight, as you’ve seen with your current model, fairly decent topology so the slicing software can do it’s job and sort it into layers etc.

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I use Cinema 4D for modeling 3D printed molds etc. for years now. For me a key element is to keep as many parts parametric as possible. Bools are knwon to be problematic since there is not always a working solution, but if you can adjust subdivisions there is basically always a way to make it work. In general it helps a lot to keep subdivisions between booled objects on a similar scale. Roughly equal polygon sizes are the goal here.
I also try to create bevels parametrically using the bevel deformer, again keeping as much as possible of the model parametric.

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I am hesitant to jump into this one not having a 3D printer myself, and I wouldn't presume that I know anything you don't about this, but I was given to understand that as long as the mesh is watertight it doesn't matter what the topology is doing, short of actual error-state polygons that can't be interpreted as a viable surface properly by the slicer software.

 

In the absence of any pics or the file, f I had to predict what might be going wrong I would suspect the booleans first, especially if they are layered. But again, I am sure you know every trick I do to try and stop booles failing, and I imagine you can't get sharp enough results out of the volume builder, so it is difficult to know what else to suggest here. Bizarrely the thing that first occurs to me is to remesh it in Zbrush where the extended functionality of Z-remesher might be able to hold on to your hard edges in a way it currently can't in Cinema ?

 

CBR

 

 

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Thanks for your replies so far.  Visually for render its fine, although Im a all quads guy so its painful for me to see such a state, but the model in question can get technical.

 

Im starting with splines using the spine mask to combine them as I cant simply push one object into another, the printing software dont like that so it has to be joined at the vert level.  Im using the extrude for the spines, but have to use boole during the course.

 

This is a press mold for a client.

 

image.thumb.png.acefd2efd4345fa4c501a0b23e20a02c.png

 

All parts connect to form a single walk between each replicated shape.  Nothing is push into the other.

image.thumb.png.a9c6f98b592152b271a5f2cf10e3ed63.png

 

This part is the part that pushes into dough like material.

image.thumb.png.37be036ad1c862560adee7784869a15d.png

 

This part sits ontop and is used to push the dough out the cutter half.  The shapes therefore are a slightly smaller tolerance.

image.thumb.png.f03e03c07d9cb344ff95d3c0ae5e8737.png

image.thumb.png.b461f58f1e80505bbfe163449ad5ccc3.png

 

Thanks, Dan

 

 

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6 minutes ago, Cerbera said:

Does the slicer app give any indication of what it doesn't like / where the fail points are ?

 

CBR

This is the top part, iv fixed some areas which now shows no errors with this part, it had some internal caps.  Il try to get the error to show again and post it.

 

image.thumb.png.aa3b575739de6a7eebd780e6ab4c884b.png

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17 minutes ago, Mike A said:

A modeling job like this just screams MOI3D to me TBH.

 

Tell me more, does it allow to better outcomes for Boole operations?  My client is wanting to learn an app for design after I have completed this project as he needs it printed but will want to make the use of his new printer in the future for his own hobbie stuff.  I looked at Fusioin 360, its just overkill, Tilnker Cad looks the total other way, too simple.

 

Thanks,

Dan

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