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LePaul

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Posts posted by LePaul

  1. Hi George,

    What's throwing me off is I have a variety of bowden and direct drive machines.  I'm a little unclear on if Cura uses the Material Manager's Flow, Retract and Retract distance settings for said machine that is loaded.

     

    I'm also noting there's about 3 entries for the first layer temperature in Cura these days.  That's confusing too.

     

    Asides the PreFix method I am using, I was curious if Cura Dev had any ideas how to do it better.  I'd like to better understand the current logic with material management and see how it can improve for those of us with a print farm of many different machines.

  2. I'm using @fieldOfView's plug in and I am able to connect to my Octoprint Ultimaker 2+   I see the video feed and all seems fine

     

    I slice a print and send it via Octoprint where it sits queued.  If I click the link to connect to my printer, I just get another web browser tab showing me the Octoprint web screen.

     

    Since this is proving a problem, I am Saving the File and Uploading it via the Octoprint Web Interface.  

     

    Help  🙂

     

  3. Hello!

     

    I'm curious how others are handling their material manager settings for multiple machines that are different

     

    For example, let's say I have ColorFabb PLA/PHA 1.75mm filament.

     

    I have 20 machines that can use this material !  (Big print farm my shop has turned into!)

     

    Each material, I do a temperature tower to find the ideal print temperature , then I do some extrusion multiplier tests to dial in the flow rate/extrusion multiplier (S3D)

     

    When I add a material, it seems to bind to what machine profile I have loaded.  Viewing the Material Manager, I see it shows the flow for what I recorded with said machine.

     

    To date, what I am doing is adding a prefix to the name so I can differentiate between machines.  For example, CR10SProColorFabbPLAOrange and so on.

     

    When I want to use that material in a different machine, here's what I am doing now.  In the Material Manager, I find the Display Name (Name/Brand/Material) and hit Duplicate.

     

    I then edit that new entry with the results for the new machine.

     

    And this works.

     

    But I am curious if there is a better way?

     

    Could the Print Settings tab for the Materials have a pull down setting for the 3D Printer Profiles installed in Cura?  And offer different settings per machine profile?

     

    I ask this only because with a print farm of 20, my list of cleverly named materials is getting rather vast!

     

    Thank you

     

  4. 1 hour ago, sankayop said:

    Thanks @SandervG,

    In the meanwhile, I have put a new BB 0.8 head to reduce the clogging effect.

    The result is on-going but looks ok. Of course, at the cost of the resolution (that is now limited to 0.2mm).

    I'll let know if this helped or not.

     

    Concerning the BB 0.4, I don't think our natural PLA is wet because I don't see any groves from the feeder at its outlet, neither any issue with the feeder (except the bowder loosening).

    Nevertheless, I just read about the cardbox procedure (with 50'C on the building plate) for 2-4hrs ; or the 8-10hrs in an industrial oven. (I don't see why such a difference). We have both so, I'll give it a try.

     

    Concerning the bowder coupler, I have never seen these 4 small metal blades, so I suppose I should look after them (re-order).

     

    Default profile is what we are using currently.

     

    Cleaned core: I have cleaned it with PLA filament 4 times, and Cleaning filament 4 times.

     

    So,

    Thanks for all your guidances, I do have some threads I can try before reverting to you.

     

    Step by step, I will first continue with the BB 0.8, default profile, and do my part.

    Then, go back to BB 0.4, clean the head once more, dry the PVA and give it a try.

    If it does not work, redo the process after having ordered the metal blades.

    Thanks,

     

    Hi there

     

    I have purchased 6 Ultimaker S5's for my workplace.  We sort of have a love/hate relationship with PVA.  We have found that if we put it in our filament dryer for a few hours, it will work pretty well.  Every now and then we observe it breaking within the Bowden tube.  I highly recommend the PrintDry Pro series of filament dryers!  We also vacuum seal the material in their plastic containers.  They are not cheap but for the research printing we do, we feel it is worth it.

     

    We are trying out the Ultimaker Breakaway material.  We're still working on the ideal settings for it since some of the team find it difficult to remove.

     

    I hope this helps!
     

  5. I'm having an unusual issue with two machines I have made basic profiles for in Cura.  One is a Fokoos Odin-5 F3 and a JGMaker Magic.

     

    I've done esteps, extrusion multipliers (flow) and numerous other test prints

     

    Here's one print, showing the banding.  Blue is from the Odin-5 and the gold is the JGMaker Magic

     

    However when I use the Ultimaker 2+ profile, those prints are just fine.

     

    So I am just wondering what it could be!  I do not have Z hop enabled, which I know can cause this.

     

    I've checked the hardware/z screw and everything checks out.  

     

    cura.jpg

    cura2.PNG

  6. I'm running 4.10 Enterprise and we use it here at work for the Ultimaker S5's and Modix 120's

     

    At home I have regular Cura

     

    One thing I have noticed is that as I calibrate flow rates for materials at home, I have a FLOW setting in the Material Manager for each material I use.

     

    I do not see a FLOW field in the Cura 4.10 Enterprise Material Manager

     

    Any reason?

     

    Thank you!

  7. My work lab I manage now has 6 Ultimaker S5's.  We have them inside instrumented 3D Print Clean 870 Pro enclosures (https://www.3dprintclean.com/product-page/model-870-safety-enclosure)  We use the lower stand/cabinet area for the switch, UPS, rack server and hub for all the data we collect from prints (humidity, temps, multiple thermal and 4k footage we capture for the researchers).

     

    It's been quite an adventure seeing my hobby turn into a full time job!

     

    • Like 2
  8. Hi @Smithy and @Josh_gpi,

     

    For the lab, I bought several extra glass beds.  For more finicky prints we use the Ultimaker adhesion sheets.  Spares are great to have.

     

    Yes, we attached the magnetic sheet on glass and that works great with active leveling.

     

    You can also, if you feel it is too close, use the z offset plugin and add some Z + if you feel the active leveling is too close.

     

    I know we've done all sorts of stuff on them but I can't recall if we have done PC on it.   On their website they offer some guidance...

     

    PEX Build Surface

    - Bed temps for PLA 70°C, gap PLA as tight as you can get it with full material flow. The first layer must be squished and flat-topped.

    - Bed temps for PETG 70°C, gap PETG moderate.  For PETG set hot end of lower limit to good layer bonding, usually 240-250°C to avoid fusing with surface.

    - Do not use part fan until layer 3-4.

    - Let parts cool completely before popping off, never pry or force parts off or you can take a chunk of your build surface off.

    - Finger oils and dust are prohibitors to adhesion, so keep your beds clean.

    - We have had success printing PLA, PETG, ABS, TPU, PP, and glass or carbon fiber filled PC and Nylon on our PEX build surfaces with no adhesives needed for bond. However for pure Nylon and PC its usually necessary to use a glue stick or magigoo to get the part to stay down. You will need an enclosure when printing ABS, Nylon, PC and other high shrinkage materials.

    • Thanks 2
  9. 5 hours ago, nallath said:

    What support would you need for multiple hot zones? How would the g-code they generate be different from "regular" printers?

     

    Thanks for asking, I think this would a great opportunity to Ultimaker Cura to replace what's largely been something only Simplify3D could do.   I have two thoughts!

     

    1)  I can work on linking you up with re3D (makers of the Gigabot machines).  Given they make giant stuff and Ultimaker makes smaller stuff, I don't see why the two companies couldn't collaborate.  If you want me to contact offline (email), let me know.  It would be good to have you speak directly with the people I have worked with over there.

     

    2)  To get your creative juices flowing, here's the link to their slicer settings section of their website. 

     

    https://re3d.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/360037613411-Gigabot-Printing-Profiles-Simplify3D-Slic3r-Cura-

     

    As you scroll down, the machine of interest is the Gigabot X Reg Firmware 1.3.  This is the machine we have and I would be most interested in seeing if Cura can drive it.   If you have S3D handy, just import the profile, use their premade profiles (i.e. PETG) and you can see the multiple temp settings in the Temps. 

     

    The GigabotX utilizes pellets, as most medium and large scale printers do.

     

    That said, I think it would be excellent if Cura offered support for these pellet machines.  I can speak from experience with Medium and Large scale 3D printing, we would love more options!

     

     

     

    • Like 1
  10. That boat video you refer to is what we printed here (I'm on that team)  

     

    I just submitted a support ticket to re3D, the makers of the GigabotX pellet-fed machine we use to test materials.  They offer an S3D one that works but as I mentioned previously, we largely use and train with Cura now and we haven't seen an S3D update in quite some time.

     

  11. Hi,

     

    Does Cura support, and is anyone using, Cura for hot ends with multiple heat zones?

    We have two GigaBotX pellet fed machines and they advise the use of Simply3D.  We have used it for a year now and that combination works alright.

    However S3D hasn't seen any updates in over a year.

    I have my staff using Cura and the GigabotX is the one machine not using it  🙂

    Thanks!

  12. I guess I would start with the basics.  This is on an Anycubic Chiron?  Or?

     

    I would verify the esteps are correct for your extruder.  (https://mattshub.com/blogs/blog/extruder-calibration)

    Then I would do an extrusion multiplier test print or two to dial in your flow rate/ extrusion multiplier

     

    You really want to rule out over/under extruding right off.

     

    I'm not a fan of Anycubic materials and for something like a frame, this is that one time I'd splurge for better stuff.  (Versus a critical failure later and ponder how much you really saved)

     

    With that said, I would also suggest doing a temperature tower so you can find out the sweet spot for your filament.  I see a lot of people "guessing" on this and one temp tower can really save some bad guesses.

     

    You could find that just doing these fine calibrations could produce a vastly better print.

     

    Printing requires some fine tuning!

     

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