Design checks

The Design checks panel is docked to the bottom of the Draw and CAD Preview tabs, so the same list is available wherever you are working. It updates as you edit.

For the catalogue of individual checks, see Design-check catalogue. This page is about working with the panel.

Nothing here blocks an export

Say it once, plainly: the panel cannot stop you doing anything. It has no relationship to the export buttons at all — no disabled states, no confirmation dialogs, no “are you sure”.

The line along the top of the panel says so on every screen: advisory only — nothing here blocks an export.

This is deliberate. You are the one holding the printer. You know your resin, you know what this chip is for, and you may have excellent reasons to do something the geometry thinks is unwise. A tool that refuses is a tool you route around, and a tool you route around stops being consulted at all.

Severity

Three levels, and they rank how likely you are to regret ignoring the warning — nothing else.

Severity	Means
`risk`	This usually does not work. A channel below the printer’s resolution, a chip larger than the plate.
`caution`	This often causes trouble. A thin wall, a dead-end branch.
`info`	Worth knowing. A luer-lock thread, a mild taper.

Collapsed, the panel shows counts by severity. A chip with nothing flagged says nothing flagged in green.

A risk on a chip you are deliberately pushing past its printer’s rating is information, not an error.

Reading one

Every warning has the same shape:

Title — the problem, with the measured value in it. “Only 0.2 mm of wall between two channels.”
Detail — the consequence, and the usual fix.
Measurement — 0.2 mm · limit 2 mm. What was measured, and what against.

The measurement line is the useful one when you are deciding whether to act. It tells you how far over the line you are, which the title alone does not.

Each row also has a Learn more link into the catalogue, which explains what physically goes wrong.

Clicking a warning

Selects the elements it names and centres the view on them.

It works across tabs: click a warning in the Draw tab and the offending segments are selected on the canvas; switch to CAD Preview and the same elements stay highlighted in the 3D view. Two buttons on each row jump you directly to either tab.

This is the fastest way to find a problem on a busy chip. Do not go hunting for the 0.2 mm wall — click the warning.

Thresholds

The sidebar on the right of the expanded panel holds the three settings you control:

Setting	Default	Governs
Taper ratio	2×	`abrupt-taper`
Minimum printable wall	0.4 mm	`channels-too-close`
Overhang limit	45°	`port-overhang`

Changing one re-runs the checks immediately. Nothing about your design changes — only what the app says about it.

Change them when you have measured something better, not to quiet a warning you do not want to think about. The defaults are conservative because the consequence of being wrong is a wasted print and a wasted afternoon.

Everything else the checks compare against comes from your printer profile or from the chip parameters, and is edited where those live.

What a clean panel does not mean

An empty panel means “no geometric rule of thumb was violated”. It does not mean:

that the chip will print — that depends on your resin and exposure;
that the chip will work — the checks know nothing about what you are trying to do;
that the flow will behave — that is the Fluid Dynamics tab, with its own limits.

A test print is the real test. The panel says so in its own empty state.

Design-check catalogue — every check in detail.
Fluid dynamics — the other kind of estimate.