Making It Watertight
In the early days of 3D printing, the term “watertight” did not mean a whole lot. Â There was (and still is) this fabulous slicing program called “Skeinforge” that was very tolerant of less-than-perfect parts. Â Meaning, you did not have to dot all your i’s and cross all your t’s when creating your part. Â Skeinforge would usually take what you created in STL (or alternative) form and turn that into gcode for printing.
Fast forward to today. Â Not everybody has the patience to slice with Skeinforge. Â For one, it is very complicated to the inexperienced (as well as experienced in some cases) 3D creator. Â Second, Skeinforge tends to take a comparatively long time to “slice” parts. Â The most common alternative is a great program called “Slic3r.” Â With Slic3r, one can quickly set their printer up and have printable gcode in a matter of seconds.
Only one problem – manifold edges. Â In exchange for speed, Slic3r tends to prefer perfect, or near perfect, parts. Â Meaning that if you were to fill your part up with water, a proper part would not let any water escape. Â In the real world, this can be very difficult to accomplish, especially if you are new to CAD or using older software. Â Without a watertight part, Slic3r may simply reject the part, creating abstract gcode that does not print with your printer.
This is where Netfabb (http://www.netfabb.com/) comes in. Â Netfabb is a wonderful (and free) program that can easily repair meshes to create “watertight” parts. Â Once the part is watertight, Slic3r will tolerate it and create correct gcode. Â Here is how to do it:
Open up Netfabb and add your part:
Once the part is viewable, you may notice a caution sign. Â Other times, you may not. Â Either way, select the “+” symbol from the top menu bar (for “repair”).
Now click “automatic repair”, choose “default repair” and click “execute”:
Now click “apply repair” and then “Yes” to remove the old part:
Congratulations, your part is now fixed! Â The last step is to export your part by selecting “part” from the top menu bar and exporting as an STL (go ahead and click repair if you get a second window prompting you to do so):
Your part should now be ready for slicing!