Hey man, any chance you can split those big stencil files for me into quads?

yeah, I can break up a few more for you. I'll let you know when those are in the mega folder

Hey what are you using to break up the images? I'm using lithophane like you suggested for modeling. Are you just cutting it up in photoshop and uploading to lithophane?

Want to learn myself so I don't have to keep pestering you

I use Blender to break up those files. I can talk you through it on mumble sometime if you want to get a base-line understanding of that program by following this guide. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HqDnLg3o9WE

Got blender set up. Went through that video and one more in his series on using the program.

Nice! In my opinion, if you own a printer, you should know how to design your own stuff to print. Want to mumble at 9:00pm EST which should be 6:00pm your time? I can do later if you need to.

Sure.

This is the mouth guard case btw. The lid requires a pause in the print so I can change from red to white filament. I can show you how to print these if you want. I'll be selling/giving a few away in December.

That’s really cool. I’ve never had good luck changing filament mid print. I’ve had multiple prints fail at the layer where I changed filament. I figured due to temperature change it must not have bonded well

I have similar issues. Sometimes a few lines of the white don't stick, I slowed the printing speed down a lot for that first white layer, and that helped a little bit.

I fixed the America First stencil and split it up into sections. Those are in the mega now.

Nice. I’ll check it out when I get home from work

Editing the eagle square. I got all the cubes made over the stencil, but when I go into Boolean the stencil disappears again

Don't know how to get those round edges on the corners either

make sure your cubes are overlapping the stencil. Yours are too high on the Z axis. It's ok if your cubes have sharp corners. The "intersect" operation on the boolean modifier will only include areas where both meshes overlap so the curved corners will be preserved.

how is it supposed to look after intersecting? I put the cubes on the same z axis as the stencil

oh wait, I think it worked. The rest of the stencil is gone, but the base is cut to the shape of the cube

Yes! That's what you need. Now there's the last step that I never got to last night

select that stencil piece in object mode. Go to the "3D Print" tab on the right. In the "Export" section, click the "Export" button.

Find where that saved to (it may say so at the bottom of the screen). Open that folder and rename that STL to something like "Eagle-1.stl".

got it

Then, change the modifier to point to your top-left cube instead of the top right cube. Repeat the STL export process, but this time, rename it to "Eagle-2.stl". Do this for each section

You should then have your 4 STLs

Send me a mega link once you're sure the stencil was properly split and will print fine. I'll add them to my mega folder.

Ok. I don't know if it's the best way to split it. I probably won't have time to print it tonight, but I can upload it to mega if you want to check it out

The only concerns I would be that the stencil has to be weldable, and you want to avoid loose pieces. Also, you want to make sure a slicer will properly interpret it, which it should it you made it that far.

https://mega.nz/folder/C9NlAa5I#JhxBfU2lrM6jF4T0GE0BzQ

oops gotta redo 2

https://mega.nz/folder/C9NlAa5I#JhxBfU2lrM6jF4T0GE0BzQ

there we go

They all loaded in cura

The problems in the slicer are often noticed after previewing the slice, but these files should be fine. Good work!

I did it!

Thanks for your help bro. Have to start learning how to design them next

No problem. That's a bit more involved, but it mostly comes down to basic manipulation of vertices. You almost already have all the knowledge to start that.

how do you turn on xray again?

Alt + Z or there's a button in the top right of the screen

Ah I see it

thanks

Doing the united we stand2 now. I noticed that the bottom of the top arrow doesn't line up with the point of the star. Doesn't really matter I suppose, but looks off center in 3d model

I think i remember some minor weirdness like that with that one. It's subtle enough that it shouldn't' matter

didn't work :confused:

I fixed it

I raised the z axis of the cube

Ok, that's still an odd symptom, but yeah, it looks like you got it

hmm it's saying my z dimension is 0mm in cura

And you're sure the stencil and the cube you made are occupying the same space? it could be that the stencil has invalid geometry like the America First one.

The cube is 2mm higher than the stencil

The cube doesn't have to be the same height as the stencil. The important thing is that 100% of the stencil's height is inside the cube

Because that intersect "boolean" modifier will only keep the parts where the two meshes overlap

2mm above* the stencil

the stencil is located at 0 mm

on all axis

Yeah, so you just need to move teh cube to make it overlap. select it in object mode. G to move. Z to restrict movement to that axis. then move it down. Or change the z axis value for the location on the cube to match that of the stencil

you may need to right click on each object when selected in object mode and click "set origin" "origin to geometry"

did that

I think something is off in the stencil

Can't get it to overlay

if I raise the z axis of the cube, it appears to mesh perfectly

but if I set it on the same z axis as the stencil, it gets all buggered

I got it to work. Then again, we have different versions of blend so yours might be pickier

Show me a screenshot of your cube on and the stencil both showing