Daid

1) Yes, support material lacks some retraction right now. Support does need some more work. 2) On slow down the flow does slow down, however, if you are printing on 220C, then you have quite a bit of pressure and molten PLA build up which flows out of the nozzle. On small prints drop down to 200C and you'll see a lot of improvements there. Yes, it can still do this. The "switch object" gcode has been removed because the internals handle this switching a bit smarter now. You just need to load multiple objects in the main interface, and it will do what you want. There is no easy setting for this. Except that if 1 of the objects is higher then the gantry it will print them all at once, of if you set all the head sizes to 0 in the preferences then it will also print all objects at once. 100% infill causes some over-extrusion right now, I think that's what you mean that some bits are filled twice and that there are some odd zigzags. (if you want 100% fill you could also put the bottom thickness on 1000mm, this would work around the problem I think) First I tell people, having different infill speeds causes some extrusion problems because of different pressure build ups when switching. Then people tell me they still want the feature. And then they are surprised that you get some extrusion issues? Shocking. Your filament might also be slightly slipping at 100mm/s, you might also want to check that.

Small note it's better to use 0.06mm then 0.05, because of the stepper motor on the Z and how the steps divide on that. I've been printing quite a bit at 0.06mm layers (which is also the high quality setting in Cura these days) prints start to become smooth at that point, which is really awesome. Bed leveling is only critical if you don't keep the default 0.3mm initial layer.

That won't help much Owen, because OpenSCAD requires even better manifold models then NetFabb.

For soft PLA, I just noted this down: http://blog.ultimaker.com/cura-user-manual-flexible-pla/

1) I always print at 0.1, no problem there. When I want quality prints I print at 0.06. And this isn't tweaked towards a single printer, as I use about 10 different printers. 2) 190C might be too low in some cases. 200C is usually what you want at small prints like this 3) Retraction could also be grinding down the filament, too much retraction could make this worse. 4) Extra length is the most silly thing ever. It is removed for the next version. 5) Filament should look a bit like a zipper yes.

Just to keep you guys in the loop. I've been fixing some small things like: - Overhang display didn't always work right. - USB Webcam timelaps recording was broken - Start menu shortcuts where not always created on windows - Auto scale down objects that are larger then 150% of the bed to 150% so you can see them properly. You still need to scale them down before you can print them (if I scale them down to bed size you won't know that they are scaled by software, as I keep them too large I still force you to take action on the scale) - Better looking progress bar - Fixed some memory issues where it used a lot of memory for no good reason - Made the amount of retraction with dual-extrusion configurable - Slightly adjusted the combing code so it works in some corner cases (= less retractions) - Updated the packaging scripts so I can do "single button" releases again. For these betas I had to do some extra steps to get working versions. Just internal stuff for myself, but it gives less chance for mistakes on release. I've also wrote down a manual on "first use of Cura", "full settings" and some other things. I still want to write some stuff on "how to improve prints" which highlights some first things you want to play with to improve your prints, instead of diving into all the settings. (this manual will replace the wiki Cura manual, and the github pages manual)

I only made the 13.06 version for windows (at the same location as the rest). It was a quick build because we needed some fixes for Dual extrusion internally.

Maybe the drivers are not installed properly? This sometimes happens (due to, you know, windows being windows), COM3 could not be the printer but some other device.

I just wanted to let you people know that the Humble Weekly Bundle of this week includes a 3D model that you can print. This is included with some games. (The Humble bundle is a "pay what you want" bundle of computer games) https://www.humblebundle.com/weekly It costs about $3 (as you need to beat the average to get the 3D model) I haven't bought it yet, but I might do so next week. (I don't have time to print the model right now anyhow)

Monday the next release will be out ;-) so grab that one. I solved a few more small issues.

True, but then list both the pros and cons, or you will set false expectations.

Be sure to use the 13.06 beta, there was a but in the retraction checkbox where it did not work. Disabling the box sets the retraction distance to 0 in the engine, so it cannot retract if that box is not ticked, but it was broken for almost all versions of the beta.

The problem with PC is that it warps like crazy, worse then ABS or the 618 Nylon.

Yes, the communication from SD is faster then over USB. So with high detailed models you might have some stuttering with USB while not with SD. First model I noticed it with was http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:17906 But that was a year ago, software has advanced, so it might work better now.

Glass-transition-temperature is simply put the temperature where materials go a bit soft. For PLA this is really low, around 45C, which is why PLA and hot cars or hot water give problems.

Commandline slicing is broken in the beta. But I've fixed it for the next version. Commandline printing is not something I support, but PrintRuns "printcore" can do this. The new engine is also a commandline engine, but the engine itself is a bit harder to use then calling it trough the gui. (it has a lot of parameters and no documentation yet)

Are those solid layers? That could be the "interface layers" problem people are talking about. The beta version of Cura has solved this, so you might want to check that one out.

Oh, and on bridging, the 120mm bridge at 0.2mm layers is just what I needed for a print at some point. It was by no means an test to see where the limit was. I think you could span the whole machine with a 200mm bridge at 0.1mm layers if you get everything dialed in properly.

It could be a feature in the USB printing interface. Except that I want that interface to be as simple as possible... It's always a batter between features and simplicity.

The odd thing is, the speeds used for the light at the top are the same for both versions. The difference is that the 13.04 doesn't try to fill up the thin walls. Which is most likely what is causing some visual difference.

You could already sink the model into the bed and then print the top missing part, gluing it together. I think this gives better results then trying to print on top of the failed part...

Oh, and stuff is happening. I cannot tell anything more. But you are also right that stuff has been standing still for quite a while. Just going from 3 people in a shed to a company simply shut down development for half a year. Next was properly defining the machine, as drawings and details where missing, company wise it was a mess. That's all done now, and development is being done now. That's all I can tell.

Our local fablab is one of the kickstarter backers. We still do not have the machine.

That's to generate a release package, it also requires nsis installed, and will generate an installer in the base directory. Else it will only generate a zip file I think, or just a directory with the final package in it.

I think retraction is grinding down your filament, which might be an indication that you have too much tension on the feeder spring.