Face blends not printing correctly in 3d prints

ilana_kaye

I have designed a piece that used face blends to connect the rim with the base of a stackable tray but when I go to slice the file, it tries to fill in the entire tray from the blend up.

This is my file: https://cad.onshape.com/documents/c612f858021f6684e9e181bb/w/691d60ddd5d7d9122a174713/e/f9dcd2cd5e88d18614ce9905

And this. is what it looks like in the slicer at the layer the face blend starts at

glen_dewsbury

@ilana_kaye
Face blends are surfaces which don't print since they have zero thickness. They need to fill as solid by some means. They also do nothing for the Boolean of solids.
Attached is one idea to accomplish what your after.
https://cad.onshape.com/documents/2d27ee37ee7bae74baf92546/w/e913b39f99f33b6568c9386a/e/1cd33e6bf0a14ee943b6d102

ilana_kaye

Thank you so much.  I feel like every answer gives me an opportunity to learn.  I went and looked up the sweep function.  If I understand correctly, you draw a path between two sketches and when you sweep that path, the computer creates the join between the faces.  I looked at what you did.  I see Sketch 4 connects the two faces with the two paths. (took me over an hour to replicate it .) Can you explain what you did in sketch 4? I had to look up rho, and conic, and still not sure how they work. I looked up disable imprinting too and still don't know what it does here as I tried it on and off and don't see a difference. One last question, I replicated your design (see part studio 2 https://cad.onshape.com/documents/7650b84d74585ea3e01dba05/w/99a5eb5553797652f962803a/e/c5039c79468c4edf3b4d0837) 

but on Sketch 4 I was only able to select "face of sketch 4". You have "faces of sketch 4".  Can you tell me why  couldn't select faces?

glen_dewsbury

• For the sweep I simply selected sketch 4 to generate the profile from the 'feature list' and individual sketch entities for the path to follow. You can individually select multiple faces from the sketch or the whole thing. The sweep requires only one sketch not 2 plus a path which can be closed or not. see sweep 2 for the difference. I tend to disable imprinting because it leaves a selectable area over the whole sketch that can get in the way later. Not always needed. I used conics for the sweep profile because I thought I saw that conics in the face blend but when I look back I was mistaken. Conics give a nicer blend of curvature compared to a radius. Not required in this application. The reason for joining the outer edges of the sweep profile was to be able to make a solid that could make the sweep. If the inside corners were left just connected the would be an error from the solid modeler saying nonmanifold geometry. An issue for any cad modeler. See red arrow in bottom sketch.
  In sketch 4 not the use of the "use" command so that the so that the curves will update when other geometry changes. Blue cubes in sketch 4.
  https://cad.onshape.com/documents/e9ff561821a93fd4eae3737e/w/96b86fd8aadcf5fb88182b17/e/e932dc4ed2da6474db403da6