Filling or moving holes AutoCad 2007

[Berzerker]

Ok I'm having to move some holes on my cover plate for a project to be printed on a 3D printer. I have plugged the holes but they still show up in the drawing as a circle that you can see.

Is this going to mess up my printing operation. I know it needs to be what they call water tight.

 

Here it is shaded  here it is not 

 

[Cad64]

How did you plug the holes? If you simply inserted some solid cylinders, that's not going to work for printing. You will need to Union the cylinders to the cover plate so it's one complete solid object.

[Berzerker]

I did union them and when you hover over the object it shows it as one unit but I plugged another hole and it doesn't look like that. Working on it now.

Thanks I didn't think so.

[Berzerker]

Found my problem. I made the hole .188 and made the plug .187

Thanks

[Cad64]

For future reference, an easier and faster way to fill holes would be to use the Solidedit command.

 

Command: SOLIDEDIT

Choose the FACE option

Choose the DELETE option

Click on the cylinder face inside the hole so that it becomes highlighted

Hit Enter and then exit the command

 

It might look like nothing happened, but once you Regen or Orbit around the model to refresh the view, you will see that the hole is gone.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Berzerker]

Thanks Cad64

I told you all I'm not very good at 3D But I am picking up speed and getting better. I will show you all the finished product hopefully sometime today unless I find something else wrong.

[Cad64]

10 minutes ago, Berzerker said:

Thanks Cad64

I told you all I'm not very good at 3D But I am picking up speed and getting better. I will show you all the finished product hopefully sometime today unless I find something else wrong.

 

Well, if you stick around here for a while and keep asking questions, you'll be an expert in no time.

 

Here's another way to remove holes or move them to a different location.

Command: SOLIDEDIT

Choose the FACE option

Choose the MOVE option

Click on the cylinder face inside the hole so that it becomes highlighted, then simply drag it off the model to remove it or move it over to a new location.

[Berzerker]

This is kinda crazy. I always try to figure something out on my own before I go asking others. And when I searched it up I kept getting "You have to fill the holes" then put more in.

Back when I first started learning, I had no help. It was all trial and error.

Thanks again Cad64

I'm putting the holes in now.

[Cad64]

33 minutes ago, Berzerker said:

when I searched it up I kept getting "You have to fill the holes" then put more in.

 

Well, you are using 2007 and I'm not 100% sure if the Solidedit options are available in that old version. You will have to do a little experimentation to see if those options are there or not. But if they are available, they will make your life a whole lot easier.

 

 

[Berzerker]

Sorry Cad64, I can't afford AutoCad 2020.

Edited August 10, 2020 by Berzerker

[Berzerker]

OK I think I've got everything right...."Not real sure". I want to load it into cura and see if it will accept it as a solid. But I don't see it listed in the files. I'm guessing it has to do with it being in a drawing file. How do you save it for 3D printing? Do I need to get rid of everything else in the drawing? Does it need to be from a certain view, "Top, Right, Bottom". I don't have the printer a friend of mine does and he's going to do it for me. I just want to make sure I have all my ducks in a row before I send it to him.

[Cad64]

The view doesn't matter, but the model does need to be in the positive X,Y,Z space.

You don't need to delete everything else in the drawing. When you export the model, you will be able to select what you want to export.

 

For the file format, export it to .stl format.

[Berzerker]

Does it need to be shaded or not. Why does it look so small? It's drawn to scale.

 

Edited August 7, 2020 by Berzerker

[Cad64]

8 minutes ago, Berzerker said:

Does it need to be shaded or not

 

 

When you export to .stl format, you're only exporting the information that defines the model. Things like texture maps, lighting, shading, etc. don't matter. That's just for viewing inside Autocad.

[Berzerker]

OK but it looks real small. I had to zoom in just to find it.

[Cad64]

2 minutes ago, Berzerker said:

OK but it looks real small. I had to zoom in just to find it.

 

In Autocad, where is your model located? Is it at X0,Y0? If it's not at the origin, that might be why you need to zoom in. Go back to Autocad and move your model if necessary so that it's sitting at the XYZ origin and then export again.

[Berzerker]

I reading about it has to be in the same units or I need to change something to mm.  I'm working on that too.

Thanks Cad64

[Cad64]

38 minutes ago, Berzerker said:

I reading about it has to be in the same units or I need to change something to mm.  I'm working on that too.

Thanks Cad64

 

I don't know anything about the program you're taking the model into, but typically when moving from one program to another, you need to tell the program that's importing the model, what the units are from the host program, so it can import it at the correct scale.

[Berzerker]

Thanks Cad64 I just figured it out. Just incase someone else reads this when you load it into cura it comes up with the dimensions in mm. Meaning that if you draw it at 4" when you insert it into cura/3D printer program 4" becomes 4mm. I found the scale button and times the 4mm X 25.4. entered that value in the first slot and it changed the rest.

Edited August 7, 2020 by Berzerker

[Cad64]

Looks good, now you just need to print it. Although, you might run into problems with that overhang. I think it would be better to print this as separate pieces and then glue them together.