Hull wall thickness?

[Thorbrandr]

How THICK are you printing PLA hulls for the larger (6') models?

Sorry guys...autouncorrect got me....

Thanks
Chris

[SubDude]

My 93" long Columbia hull is about 3.5mm thick just as a reference.

[rwtdiver]

My 38" to 44" boats where all done at 2.50mm thick.

Rob
"Firemen can stand the heat"

[RanSan]

2mm - 2.49 mm or 5-6 perimeters with a 0.4 nozzle for sub 36” and up works well for me. .

Randy

[RCSubGuy]

Yikes... I tend to go thicker myself, but if it's working for you guys..

I go at least 3mm on larger prints.

[Thorbrandr]

Thank you!

printer arrives tomorrow

chris

[rwtdiver]

I have a question?

I have a project were the STL files are 100% in size. Now I increased the size of the files to get a larger project, but in doing so the actual wall thickness increased as well. This increase in wall thickness is way to thick and heavy. I have never changed the wall thickness before so now I am not sure where to go in my Edit Processing (Dremel Digilab 40 printer) to decrease the wall thickness!?

Almost 20 years of 3D printing and I have never come across wall thickness issues before (Embarrassing to say the least)

99.9% of my sub builds, the wall thickness has been at 2.50mm This project has wall thickness at 5.00mm! Way to thick! I need to reduce it down to 2.50 or 3.00mm at the most!

Could someone guide me in this process please? Thank you very much!

Rob
"Firemen can stand the heat"

[CC Clarke]

The hull thickness is determined by the STL file. A slicer cannot change the geometry an object (yet).

Without the original CAD file, to change the hull thickness, the STL file has to be opened and repaired inside a dedicated modeling program.

One of the many ways to change the thickness of the original object is:

Subtract an object that follows the interior contour of the hull, and is 2.5 mm larger than the original mesh.

Select, cut and paste the polygons of the interior mesh into another layer.
Extrude the mesh 2.5 mm outward.
Flip the poly normals of the inside faces and extrude them inward just enough to be slightly larger than the original interior.
Stretch the ends (the X Y Z axis depends on your object’s orientation) to exceed the original mesh length.
Subtract the slightly larger (2.5mm) cutting tool from the original mesh to remove 2.5 mm from the interior.

In a perfect scenario, you would have the file in the original CAD format, go back in the timeline to the point where the hull thickness was created and just edit the desired thickness.

5mm is pretty thick!

CC

[rwtdiver]

Thank you CC!

The process you describe sounds above my skill levels! I already have 4 of the hull sections printed so I will just go ahead and finish this project out the way that it is. I am kind of at that point of no return. Lesson learned again! Build the project as per design! :-))

Thanks again for your help and suggestion CC, I appreciate you taking the time to post it up!

Rob
"Firemen can stand the heat"

[RCSubGuy]

There is another way to adjust wall thickness, but only if the files you're using are not hollowed, IE: you have a solid model of a submarine with no internal void. In that case, you can adjust wall thickness via the slicer settings. Typically this is a variable known as "perimeters". You set the infill at 0% and then set the perimeters at something like 7. This gives you a hollow part that you can adjust hull thickness on by simply increasing the number of perimeters.

Again, this does not work if you have a hollow part already. Adjusting the settings as I mentioned above will simply make the walls of the boat hollow, not adjust the wall thickness itself.


Bob

[rwtdiver]

There is another way to adjust wall thickness, but only if the files you're using are not hollowed, IE: you have a solid model of a submarine with no internal void. In that case, you can adjust wall thickness via the slicer settings. Typically this is a variable known as "perimeters". You set the infill at 0% and then set the perimeters at something like 7. This gives you a hollow part that you can adjust hull thickness on by simply increasing the number of perimeters.

Again, this does not work if you have a hollow part already. Adjusting the settings as I mentioned above will simply make the walls of the boat hollow, not adjust the wall thickness itself.


Bob

Hi Bob,

I am already at a point of no return on this build. I will finish it out as is! But I will defiantly try what you have suggested. This 36" long Ictineo boat will certainly be robust to say the least!



Thanks for your suggestion. :-))

Steve Hodges would sure appreciate the wall thickness! :-)) 34" Boat and I am into my 2nd roll of PLA (Most likely finish out to 3.5 rolls of PLA)

Rob
"Firemen can stand the heat"

[Sinksalot]

For my subs I print with ASA or ABS, 3 to 4mm thick. For subs I print with resin, 2 to 3mm due to how heavy the hull would be if you make the hull to thick using resin.