Garden Railway Forum

I am printing points for use on my inside section of my railway extension.
I have 2 models that I am using these
https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:976643
https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:730499

I wanted to combine the turnout lever with part3 of the points.
I originally did this in Tinkercad but when it came to exporting it into Cura there were gaps in some of the sleepers.
A bit of search on Dr Google said that it was caused by the way Tinkercad handled the models and a recommendation to use Windows 3D Builder from Microsoft was made.
I downloaded 3D Builder to have a look and found that when points model was imported the gaps were no longer there.
I then loaded the throw lever and after a bit of a play I was able to split it into its components using the "split" command(it had previously been grouped by the designer).
I was then able to reconstruct the base from its components and group them together.
This then let me put it on a base attached to the sleepers of the points model and reconstruct the lever so I could print it at the same time and the points. To do the same in Tinkercad would have required me to open 2 examples and then cover each part I didn't want with a hole.
I have found 3D Builder to be a bit limited when compared to Tinkercad but the ability to split models is a very useful feature for me.

This is the stl of the combined models that has printed well.

Thats a brilliant job there Graeme, and it looks superb. although for my printer unfortunately it won't fit on my bed even if I rotate it, it's hanging in the air and would need that many supports it wouldn't turn out as neatly if it was printed flat. I even reduced the x axis, but hen I suppose it wouldn't look right and also I had to rotate it so it was still hanging and needed supports. Oh well the plan didn't work out for me, I need some points that I can move by hand easier that those little things that are on the Peco points that one can hardly see, especially by people like me who are optically less sighted......

GAP wrote: Sun Jul 14, 2024 6:20 amI originally did this in Tinkercad but when it came to exporting it into Cura there were gaps in some of the sleepers.

I've noticed a similar issue with files downloaded from Thingiverse too. They look fine in a 3D viewer, but transfer them to Tinkercad and gaps appear.

At a guess I'd suggest that Thingiverse may have some sort of automatic correction for (what it thinks are) faulty files that doesn't fully work and the exported files retain the fault and is revealed by other software. Another possibility is that whatever software was used to create the original isn't exporting correctly and is leaving edits buried in the STL somehow, but is only revealed by some other packages.

Edit
<having now been prompted into looking into this further>
The part (from Thingiverse) I'd had problems with in Tinkercad when loaded into Windows 3D builder gives an error message and an offer to repair. After the repair and a 'save as' all is as expected in Tinkercad.

Wish I known that two months ago

Word of caution when using 3D Builder if you use the save button (with disk icon)it saves it with a file extension of .glb
The save as a .stl you have to use the drop down menu (3 horizontal bars on left) and choose "Save As" then you can use the .stl extension.
I only found this out when I saved some prints and found I could not import them back into Tinkercad.