Hi All
Is it possible to take a 3D Object in an STL file and only print half of it. For example I want to take a say a bottle and slice it from top to bottom and so it can be mounted on a wall or a board.
Is this able to be done in cura?
I don’t think you can split vertically (at least, I don’t know how: @Geit may have a clever way). You can kind of split horizontally by changing the Z scale. For example, when I’m printing the 2 tower string test everyone uses, I will often will shrink the Z scale to 50%, so it doesn’t take as long to get initial results.
What happens if you position half of the bottle under the build plate in Cura? Would that do the trick?
What an interesting option, and pretty funny considering I was the 1st one to talk on this forum about sinking a model into the printbed 
I suspect you are correct; it likely would work. Try it: flip the bottle on its side then move it down the Z axis into the plate. Clever idea 
Yes, everything under the build plate gets cut off from the model, so the bottle example would work.
A very handy trick to keep in the back of the mind.
It can easily be split by importing it to timkercad too.
I understand. I have split things off in the slicer before. Tinkercad won’t accept files with too many polygons.
Not to mention, if you keep track of the Z distance you used to bury the model, you can repeat the process indefinitely.
I find slicers fascinating.
I thought of sinking it into the bed but Cura would just keep popping it back up to the top.
Perhaps it’s a setting in Cura
Try Prusa, it’s much easier to figure out. I never use Cura unless I have to, which is not often. I want to master one slicer not fart around with half a dozen like many people do.
In Prusa if you look on the left you can perform a horizontal cut and choose what half (part) you wish to keep. Then it lays the part you have chosen to keep on the bed.
You will see a white sheet transecting the model and you can raise and lower it to where you want to make the cut.
It definitely is a setting in Cura. There are three settings you may want to know about. Go to Preferences/Configure Cura. In the middle of the 2nd section Viewport Behavior, you will see Zoom toward mouse position, Ensure models are kept apart, and the one you want right now, Automatically drop models to the build plate.
The Zoom toward mouse position is interesting in that it can eliminate the need to move the build plate around while setting up: you can just zoom out and in to reposition the build plate.
The disadvantage to Prusaslicer, for me, is that you can’t print directly to the printer from it. You can send sliced models to OctoPrint, but I don’t have that. Otherwise, all you can do is save gcode.
I hardly ever connect my computer to my printer but I think if my printer had a thermistor right now I could send my gcode file from Prusa to my printer without much problem. I will have to try when my thermistor arrives.
If you can, I would like to know how you do it. From what I have seen to date, it’s not possible. It would be nice.
I would like to know if you find a way. I haven’t been able to find 1.
I guess I don’t have to print it so I could try it now and see if I can transfer it either to my sd card in the printer or to the eprom. Maybe I should check what Joseph has to say about it first before I bite off more than I can chew.
Being able to transfer to SD card is OK, but it’s still not the same as printing directly from the slicer as I can do from Cura.
I think you are right. I can’t find anything about printing directly to Prusa. It’s all sd card or octoprint.