Slicer

tiago_torre_do_vale

It would be fantastic if OS could have its own 3d slicer cause it haves all the geometric info that stl doesn't have.

bergdesign

Until then, I recommend Simplify3D. Well worth the $150 US price. The integration of slicing and printer controller make printing really easy, and the slicer is really really fast and generates excellent gcode. I can go from OS to STL to the printer in 30 seconds. https://www.simplify3d.com/

michael3424

tiago_torre_do_vale said:

It would be fantastic if OS could have its own 3d slicer cause it haves all the geometric info that stl doesn't have.

Onshape doesn't seem like a good candidate tool for 3D slicing to me; just my opinion but I'd rather they focus on 3D CAD features instead.

tiago_torre_do_vale

I use RAMPS/Cura/Octoprint combo and I'm OK with it except when it comes to round parts, the problem is that Simplify3D, Cura, Slic3r [your_favourite_slicer_here]  doesn't support G2/G3 codes. They all tried to implement it but always fail because of the STL format.
I already have a smoothieboard to upgrade my host with true arc support.

RyanAvery

It would be nice if there was a FS that could take my printers paramaters (0.6mm layer height, 1.2mm layer width) and represent the model similar to how cura does in the preview window. This way I can tweak it a bit to get rid of any small gaps or infills or places where a full layer width doesn't fit properly.

owen_sparks

HI.

RyanAvery said:

It would be nice if there was a FS that could take my printers paramaters (0.6mm layer height, 1.2mm layer width) and represent the model similar to how cura does in the preview window. This way I can tweak it a bit to get rid of any small gaps or infills or places where a full layer width doesn't fit properly.

The problem with that is all the different brands of slicers handle things differently and have user configurable parameters within them, so unless it's a very complicated featurescript it'll only be of use to a very small user-base.  Simplif3D for example can do some clever stuff on the roofs of parts to say thicken the width of a single extrude in cases where a pair of extrudes won't fit side by side.

I'm all for more of everything but in this instance I think looking at your particular slicer with your personal settings will be more reliable.

Cheers, Owen S.

MBartlett21

@RyanAvery
Here is a FS i just put together.
It does not take account of the nozzle width or a part being too thin.
https://cad.onshape.com/documents/2c5bf4541f8a54d3ca943e8f

Jake_Rosenfeld

@MBartlett21

I think you may not have made that public.

MBartlett21

@Jake_Rosenfeld
Done

ArtmAkim

@MBartlett21
Can you increase upper limit of initial and standart layers up to 10?
I used yor script to slice a detail for laser cutting, and sheets are 10mm height

MBartlett21

@ArtmAkim
V 0.1.6 changes the limit to 10cm.
Please tell me how it went.

ArtmAkim

Thank.
Everything works well

fredrik_falkman

@MBartlett21
Thanks for this nice FS! If I could suggest an improvement it would be the ability to choose if (as now) a slice should be centered or if all of it should be inside the part, or if the whole part should be contained within the slices.
For my use case, I would use this to cut foam sheets to make a liner that would fit inside a 3D shape, so I would choose "Fit slices inside part". 

Thanks!

NoFear

Hi, I am new to 3D printing and have been sending my stl files to the library for a print. Now I am looking into buying a printer. Did you use Onshape to generate the slicer whatever thingamajig files?

MBartlett21 said:

@RyanAvery
Here is a FS i just put together.
It does not take account of the nozzle width or a part being too thin.
https://cad.onshape.com/documents/2c5bf4541f8a54d3ca943e8f

wout_theelen541

tiago_torre_do_vale said:

It would be fantastic if OS could have its own 3d slicer cause it haves all the geometric info that stl doesn't have.

I asked a similar question once, I'm sure it's on there radar but not a high priority right now.

wout_theelen541 said:

Kind of a tangent but I was watching the CAM workshop today pretty cool stuff and I was wondering if additive manufacturing would be something that would eventually be developed? Jon Hirschtick mentioned how important additive manufacturing is to companies now.

The reason I ask this is that I the collision avoidance tools in CAM studio of a 3D printing project I had once thought of which was to adapt a regular 3D printer into a printer farm. The way I imagined this to work is that each part is print individually instead of the traditional layer by layer approach. In that way if something goes wrong and you have to stop the print you don't have all of your parts incomplete and have to start over. The reason that I was remind was that the collision avoidance tools could be quite helpful in this. Once you print a part it becomes a new object to avoid. With that done you could maximize the number of objects on the build plate.

I can share a little experience here. When we started Onshape in 2013.  We too expected to have additive, 3D printing capabilities built into Onshape.  As time went on we found market demand low.  Regardless of which 3D printing company you think of (I talked to most of them).  Each viewed file based STL was good enough..  I think the raw capitalistic view is they did not think they would get an ROI on more direct CAD integration.  They would rather focus on STL. Today each hardware vendor is invested in their own software solution, slicer etc...  of course there are few generic solutions like Cura or simply3D. 

Onshape is going to have some really cool capabilities coming that are tangential to this. Like generative design.  I am sure you will see more additive capabilities, built into Onshape over time.  Its going to follow the market demand.

Of course these are my personal observations and opinions. 

Joe

michael3424

Looks like Prusa Slicer now accepts STEP file imports, perhaps others do as well.

nick_papageorge_dayjob

NoFear said:

Hi, I am new to 3D printing and have been sending my stl files to the library for a print. Now I am looking into buying a printer. Did you use Onshape to generate the slicer whatever thingamajig files?

No, onshape only generates the geometry of the part. From onshape, you'd export that as stl, smf, or step, depending on what your printer accepts. The newest ones seem to work great with any of the 3. The older ones usually only take stl.

Every printer comes with its own free software. That software will open up the onshape export. Then you'd position it how you want on the print bed, set the speed, set if you want support on or off, etc. The whole process only takes about 1-2min once you get used to it, before you can press the print now button.

Happy modeling and happy printing.

joshua_wise822

This is something that I had been thinking about for a while when I was modeling for SLA printing on hobbyist printers.  (I find this a little less critical on FDM printers.)  I *really* wanted Onshape to be able to help me close the loop for design-for-manufacturing, without having to send a STL back and forth between Onshape to some extremely mediocre slicer software.  Basically my workflow for iterating looked like:

• Model up a first draft in Onshape.
• Export, feed it to the slicer.  Orient carefully in slicer.
• Begin adding SLA supports in slicer.  Wish I could reference SLA supports to vertices that I had in Onshape.  Wish that I could tell the slicer about a specific edge that I had on Onshape, and ask it to add supports spaced evenly along the edge.  Wish that I could write a feature to place supports along a plane in a pattern that I liked.
  
• Discover critical DFM issue in slicer (cupping violation, or resin trap).  Make changes to model in Onshape.
• Export, re-import to slicer.  Cross fingers that supports in slicer would correctly translate to new model.
• Slice.  Print.  Fit check part against target.
• Realize that carefully supported plane needs to move 1mm.
• Make change in Onshape (~15sec of work).
• Delete slicer project because slicer is now very confused about supports on plane that has moved.  Support entire project again (30min of work).  Slice.  Print.  Fit check part against target.  Change diameter of hole...

You get the idea.  I think in the Formlabs world the slicer story is less terrible (and maybe non-hobbyists shell out for Formlabs boxes instead of Anycubic crap?), but for supporting things with Lychee / ChiTuBox, it's quite bad.  There are a *lot* of ways that having integrated additive manufacturing DFM in Onshape would have meaningfully improved my experience!

(Coda: these days I own a Bambu FDM printer.  I click 'export step file' from Onshape, then I click 'print', and I get the result I want.  I sold the Anycubic thing, in part because of how much of a pain it was to support iterations of models, but mostly because the thing was a freaking hazmat factory.)