Mesh Enabler Problem

[Anonymous]

Hi,

I recently tried to print and adjust slightly a scaled submarine but I came to some trouble. I found a submarine on internet that is created in rhino when I try to print it, the submarine disappears. I think it's due to lack of solids so I tried Mesh Enabler for Inventor (https://apps.autodesk.com/INVNTOR/en/Detail/Index?id=6950391119076900441&appLang=en&os=Win64&autosta...) but it doesn't want to convert the submarine entirely. I am far from a pro so if someone could help me it would be highly appreciated (the submarine comes from https://grabcad.com/library/red-octber).

Good day to all.

[johnsonshiue]

Hi! I would like to understand the issue better. I guess you would like to print the model you downloaded from GrabCAD. If there is already mesh, you should be able to print it directly. I am not sure why you need to turn it into a solid and then convert it back to mesh to print. I am not sure I understand what you meant by the mesh disappearing when print.

Is the image showing the mesh or brep (body geometry)? Inventor MeshEnabler only converts the individual mesh element to brep face. It the mesh is not watertight, converting mesh to brep would not make it watertight by itself. You need to add more faces or geometry to make it watertight. For your case, I think you would be better off editing the mesh in Autodesk Mesh Mixer (free download at www.meshmixer.com). At the moment, Inventor has very limited mesh modeling ability. I don't think MeshEnabler would help your case.

Many thanks!

[Anonymous]

Hi,

I didn't print it yet, I misspoke my bad for that. I meant that when I try to have an overview of what I want to print the submarine disappears strangely and I don't know what causes it. For the Meshmixer program I have it installed but not used it yet, I need to add some configurations and learn how to work with it properly. If you could link me to a good tutorial it would be appreciated. Besides from that I wanted to use the Mesh Enabler tool on Inventor to be able to adjust the submarine how I like it and print it when I'm done. I hope you understand what I would like to achieve.

Thank you for your response and good day to you.

[johnsonshiue · Accepted solution]

Hi David,

I think I know what you are after. I don't think MeshEnabler would help you in this case. You would run into a lot of trouble because the geometry in this case is very intricate and the mesh would be very fine in those areas. You might be better of importing the Rhino surface as surface bodies (instead of mesh) in Inventor and then design on the brep.

I still think you will be better of using MeshMixer. It is a very interesting free program. There are a lot of mesh editing tools in it. You should be able to find learning materials on Autodesk Knowledge Network or Youtube.

Many thanks!

[JDMather]

Why not model the geometry yourself?  It would be a good learning exercise and is relatively simple geometry to model.  You can use the mesh as reference.

You can leave out small details that are not going to print out in a small build envelope anyhow.

[Anonymous]

Hi,

Thank you for your response. Is it possible to avoid momentarily Meshmixer and do this with Fusion360? I heard you can do many things maybe will this help my case.

[johnsonshiue]

Hi! F360 is a good program but I don't use it myself. Please feel free to try. It may work better for your case.

Many thanks!

[Anonymous]

I will try like you suggested with importing the surface and design on the brep. If I have some other problems I will make sure to contact you again. Thank you for the help.

[Anonymous]

The problem with doing it myself is that I lack the time for this kind of work sadly. I hope you understand me. Good day to you.

[WHolzwarth · Accepted solution]

Hmm. In Grabcad 3 filetypes are accessible:

- 3dm

- 3ds

- lwo

Inventor only can read 3dm. I've tried an import to 2018, got 541 mesh features, but none of them was visible.

3ds and lwo are not on Inventor's screen for AnyCAD, that's my impression.

Meshmixer doesn't import 3dm, no way out.

What could be done?

Perhaps an export from Rhino to Obj, after that import to Meshmixer, and printing from there.

I could try import to Meshmixer. But no more today. It's late sunday..

15 minutes later: Upload of 3dm to Fusion 360 was possible. Submarine was visible, but editing seems to be a hair-loosing task. Taskmanager stopped it.

My opinion: Discard it. Printing of the tiny antennas will be a problem, and the result is not really impressive in the end.

[WHolzwarth]

Here's an OBJ set (Mesh + Material) in zip,  opening in Meshmixer.

[Frederick_Law]

You really need to scale it down.

I put it in Cura and the size is: 32772 x 187166 x 39115 mm.

Here is one in Thingiverse:

https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:892154

https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3181556

[Anonymous]

Hi,

I would like to thank everyone for your support. After many many hours playing with Autodesk's programs I have what I want. Everything is ready for printing. If I ever need some more support I know where to go.