Hollow and fillet
Solid into shell, sharp into rounded — less material, better prints, nicer to hold
What this actually means
- 「2 mm walls, open at the bottom」 turns a solid block into a box that holds things.
- Fillets are one sentence: 「1 mm round on all outer edges」. Better in the hand and stronger at the same time.
- Hollowing runs as a 2D outline offset plus extrude — measured two orders of magnitude faster than the generic mesh approach, and topologically correct.
- Open the top, the bottom, or both: a box that opens upward or a cover that slips over something — one sentence either way.
Common questions
- What wall thickness should I use?
- With a 0.4 mm nozzle, 1.6 mm (4 perimeters) is a safe default for enclosures. Load-bearing wants 2.4 mm or more; a purely cosmetic part is fine at 1.2 mm. Too thin warps, too thick wastes time and filament.
- Why will part of it not hollow?
- Because the wall is thicker than half the local geometry, so it would self-intersect. Reduce the thickness or bulk up that area — it will tell you which region failed.
- Do fillets affect fit dimensions?
- They do. Leave mating faces sharp (or use a 0.2 mm lead-in only) and fillet the outer edges you actually touch. Say 「only the outer edges」 and it will leave the fits alone.