thank you a lot @ all who have tried ans especially
Dave R and kaas!

Upon another close inspection I found out that one edge consisted of only 10 faces while all 3 other "rounded-edges" had 12 rounded faces...strange.

Plus I could clearly see those "precision related errors" Dave was speaking about,
I must clearly have messed something up big time unintentionally by being a very few mm off without noticing it!

The red-axis for example does not run parallel to the objects outer edge.
maybe it is so slightly off, that it is "ok" for the object as it is, but once solid-actions are performed it just looses it.

Anyway. Am happy to have a working clamp now and will pay even more attention to those little details in the future.

thanks again to everybody who wrote in this thread.

best regards,
Alex

Hello guys,
thanks a lot! for the answers
really appreciate it.

I have been looking for my thread under the "sketchup-bugs" section
and since I could not find it there I figured, it must have not yet been reviewed.

Now, after little over a week I decided to look into my profile where it says "your posts" and was pleasantly surprised to find so many answers.

I tried to scale by factor of 2 - did not work.
I tried to scale by factor of 10 - did not work, also factor of 100 did also not work.

So I am not sure what else to do.

I am uploading the file as an attachment to this post, so maybe any of you could give it a try and see if it works for you.

clamp

All I want to do is subtract the rectangle from the clamp in such a way, that the left side of the clamp is open and can contract, when a screw is inserted.

best regards,
Alex

Hello guys,

I am using Sketchup on a regular basis to quickly model parts for my 3D Printer.
So far so good. Once I have finished my design I make it a "Volume-model" export it as .stl and print it.

Unfortunately for some models merging or subtracting even simple geometric shapes destroy their manifoldness, so the model is no volumentric-model/volumemodel?! anymore...

I am getting so frustrated by this random behavior, I could sometimes slam my fist through my laptop.

Sometimes I will sit here, design something for several hours but one final subtration will not work, whereas the subtraction of 9 similar cylinders worked perfectly finde before...

So today is such a day again:

I have modeled a simple clamp to print it out and test it`s rigidity.

It is a clamp block supposed to connect 2 15mm Carbon fiber rods.

here is a picture of it:

now in order for the clamp to work I need to cut out a 2mm thick slice -> so that the hole can be compressed slightly and hold the rod firmly.

Therefor I create a simple rectangle made in volumetric model, moved it to the desired position and start subtrating it from the clamp:

like so:

What happens now is, it loses part of its shell.

now I CAN close the hole, but it will never be a "volumetric-model" again, no matter what I try!

I spent an hour trying to make it a volumetric model again.
I use solid-inspector -> it always shows me some triangles marked red:

So if I delete that one whole face will disappear.
I draw a new line to make the face appear again, object is not manifold/Volumetric anymore.

I am close to insanity...

please help me out here or give the clue I need.

Something like this happens quite often to me,
usually on every other model.
It is a real PITA.

maybe I am just stupid and doing something wrong,
but in my opinion those Volume-body-functions should just work when every object i manifold...

anyways, hope somebody has already had similar experiences and can help me,
would really appreciate a hint here.

BR,
Alex