Started to create a build of multiple parts on the build plate. On opening the STL file PF says it needs repair so I say OK. With that it plugged the drain holes. Went back to SketchUP 2017 and imported the STL file which showed all kinds of errors? I then talked with a friend who also does 3D designs for me and he sent me a photo of the part in MeshLab which showed no errors.
So, I started over opened the same STL file and told PF to skip the repair and sure enough the piece was perfect, no errors.???
With that I will double check any STL files coming into PF by reopening and not having the STL repaired to see if that does the same thing again.
i get broken file warning all the time over files I know to be perfect.
tech support says its related to file sizeā¦ apparently, preform can only handle about 300mb of geometry, total- per build volume. In my case, any file that bumped the build near or over 300 was rejected as ābrokenā- regardless of whether I tell it to repair- or ignore- NOTHING gets imported.
Check for this weird behavior- if I get the file broken alertā¦ try saving the PF fileā¦ then quitting PF entirely, and then relaunching PF from the SAVED FILEāS DESKTOP ICON.
suddenly, the same file PF claimed was ābrokenā imports without issue.
I do too, broken file warnings a lot. I will first ignore them and check to see how good the piece is in PreForm before letting it repair. Yes, my items, even the smallest, are quite complicated designs and will get even more so as I add new products to our line.
The Windows version is still 32-bit, and iām willing to bet the amount of RAM it can address being limited is the cause. Same issue doesnāt occur on Mac version (which is 64-bit, of course).
Hereās the thing - iāve got huge files (scans of some archeological artifact castings, the rough stone texture had to be preserved in the printed repros, so i didnāt decimate much) that will load fine on first attempt. If i remove the object and load again, it will report the model needs repair and attempt to ārepairā it (and fail). If i repeat it the third time, it fails immediately, as soon as the progress bar starts filling up and doesnāt even load.
Restarting PreForm āresetsā this, so first one works again, second repairs, third and subsequent ones fail.
Which indicates thereās a memory leak in newer PreForm versions as well.
Iāve had an open ticket about this for a while now, supportās aware, and i occasionally (when PreForm updates) poke the ticket and they re-poke the engineers in turn. Hopefully we get a memory-leak free PreForm and/or a 64-bit Windows PreForm at some point.
Sounds like you need to get a more robust computer if youā're going to be doing such large files.
I had a similar issue with my laser cutter not excepting certain files that use the āvector sortingā to optimize the cutting. Before it would hang the entire machine and Iād have to shut down and restart . I upgraded to 256 GB of RAM and all was solved.
Problem we had with the Preform Repair wasnāt memory related. Itās the Preform that has the issue.
You misread what i wrote. Reread it without glossing over the key bits, please.
Iāve got 64 GB of RAM.
The same files open fine on a Mac with 16 GB.
It has nothing to do with āgetting a more robust computerā, PreForm canāt address more than 4 gigs, because itās a 32-bit binary (on Windows). On top of that, it doesnāt deallocate the memory completely when removing an object, which is why it works for you when you close and reopen the .form again.
Sorry on that. Iām having more questions about PreForm in that I have a part that I was printing solid but that used too much resin so I hollowed the part. PF is now telling me that the hollow pieces use more resin than the solid ones???
I ran some solid and Iām now running some hollow. Iāll measure 4 of each against each other but expect the hollow to the the lighter by half at least. That then raised a big question on PreFormās ability to calculate how much resin is actually being used.
I rely on the PreForm calculation of resin used to come up with the price of a product and this issue puts that all in question.
Just tried that, PreForm definitely reports less resin used for hollow, and the amount seems about right.
Try it before adding supports - if your objects are very small, the volume of resin used on supports might actually outweigh the resin required to fill out the object.
I printed 4 of the hollow pieces and they were solid. This is strange as when they were in preform I did a close up and scan around through one vent hole and I could see the open vent hole at the bottom.
Still, if they were going to be solid they should have used the same amount of resin as the ones I knew were solid! But according to Preform they used 50% more resin???
My guess is, either the original geometry was mangled, or PreForm mangled it.
Self-intersecting, non-manifold geometries can really screw up things like measuring volume.
Itād make sense for a messed up mesh to both, end up as solid (even though it was supposed to be hollow), and measure as greater volume than it should be.
When youāre in PreForm and use the slicer, do you see the hollow interior? My guess is that PreForm āhealedā the hollow out of existence. The mesh repair makes some guesses about whatās inside & whatās outside. If the hollowing shell had backwards orientation, then it might have guessed incorrectly.