Dragon Plumes - 87685 & 87686

[Mike Texter]

Hi, I'm brand new here so forgive me if i'm doing this slightly improperly.  https://www.ldraw.org/parts/official-par...rtid=87685 - The dat file for this part looks incorrect.  Clicking it from the search results gives a very small (1kb) file, and clicking into the details page for it doesn't seem to get me anywhere.  In fact it looks like it links to 87686, which is the mirror-image part.

What I'm really looking for is a complete wheel with sprue, like this one - https://www.bricklink.com/v2/catalog/cat...2w#T=I&C=1 But, just the two side wings are all I need.  The file for 87686 looks great, but 87685 is just 1kb and doesn't seem to contain any instructions.  

If anyone with experience here could take a look, and/or quickly fix it, I'd be grateful!

[Orion Pobursky]

Basically the "left" part points to the "right" part and mirrors it. So you need both left and right parts for the left part. 

What program are you using? This part has been official for a decade so even Studio, who's library is usually lagging the official one, should have this part.

[Mike Texter]

Basically the "left" part points to the "right" part and mirrors it. So you need both left and right parts for the left part. 

What program are you using? This part has been official for a decade so even Studio, who's library is usually lagging the official one, should have this part.

My end goal is to convert these .dat files to .gcode and feed them to my 3d printer, i'm 100% brand new to modeling, 3d printing, CAD, etc.  though.  If i'm missing something obvious and stupid, don't hesitate to tell me

So, are you saying that the .dat file that's 22kb, titled 87686.dat, will print both the left AND right sides?  I was just confused why there was an entry for both parts, one of which has is 22kb, but the other is just 1kb.  It didn't look to me like they were mirroring each other, it looked like they BOTH point to 87686.  

I'll have to look around for these different libraries, all I did was search this site's catalog for "plume" and found these entries.

Thanks!

[Vincent Messenet]

I will rephrase what Orion explained:

• 87686.dat contains the whole geometry for the "right" part (87686)
  
• while 87685.dat just contains a reference to 87686.dat but mirrors its geometry to get the "left part (87685) that's why it is only 1 kb
  

So only 87686.dat is required if you want to use part 87686
while both 87685.dat and 87686.dat files are required if you want to use part 87685

[Mike Texter]

I will rephrase what Orion explained:

• 87686.dat contains the whole geometry for the "right" part (87686)
  
• while 87685.dat just contains a reference to 87686.dat but mirrors its geometry to get the "left part (87685) that's why it is only 1 kb
  

So only 87686.dat is required if you want to use part 87686
while both 87685.dat and 87686.dat files are required if you want to use part 87685

ohhhhhh that makes sense.  I should've guessed that mirroring would be a simple bit flip basically.  Thank you!

[Orion Pobursky]

You prolly don't need the mirrored file since most slicers can mirror a file. That said, the easiest way to export LDraw to a file usable by a slicer is to download the complete library and use LDView to export to stl. One warning: the exported files can have problems that might need some tweaking of your slicer settings to get them to print correctly.