gr5

I recommend tinkercad. It's free, powerful and super easy to use. There's thousands of youtube videos to help learn it. It's designed for young people. It runs on any platform with a browser including ipads.

You could post the STL so we can see it. You can also right click and see if there are "ungroup" or similar options. STL files allow sub-meshes.

You are going to get horrible quality on the highest point of your part. I STRONGLY recommend you print a tower next to the part (positioned ideally such that a fan on your print head cools the tall spot. And when I say "horrible quality" I mean it will be just a blob of plastic that looks more like a sphere than what you want to print. The nozzle will never leave the plastic and it will be transfering heat to the PLA the entire time those last few layers and it will not solidify until the print is complete. Alternatively you can print two of the same object. While it prints the tower (or second object) the first object gets a few seconds to cool.

So I think your model is faulty - it looks like you have at least 4 different models overlapping. You want to (ideally) fix that in your CAD software (which should even allow this kind of thing). 1) What CAD software are you using? Is this your model or did you just download it from someone else? 2) There are lots of model repair services that are free. netfabb free repair service is here (you have to create a free account first): https://service.netfabb.com/login.php Here's another service - drag and drop mesh repair service: https://3d-print.jomatik.de/en/index.php Regarding "All at once". That's when you have multiple STL files - like if you are printing little frogs and you want to print 10 of them but in "one at a time" mode. It will completely print each frog before starting the next. This avoids stringing between the parts and also allows you to remove some of the models mid-print.

Is PETG safe to thermoform and heat treat? I don't know, sorry. Just had some other comments. It is a higher temp material but still well below boiling and you can definitely mold it and unlike many materials is very similar to PLA in that you can thermoform it just fine. I'm 80% sure that will work just fine as I've heated PETG and formed it before. However it's "softening temp" is 20 or 30C hotter than PLA (I forget which) and PLA already just about burns you when thermoforming against skin - PETG will definitely cause serious burns. So you'll need to wear some kind of fabric covering the surface to thermoform to and where gloves for the person doing the forming. It seems to me if you can heat it to 230C (or whatever the temp is) to melt it then any gasses created at 90C should be fine! I know nothing about heat treating PETG. I dont' think that will be necessary since PETG has such a higher melt temp. You don't have to worry about it melting in a car in direct sunlight on a 40C (105F) day. Not an issue. Cars can get to 60C but not the temps necessary to soften PETG (or nGen or CPE).

Print slower. MUCH slower. Try 1/2 or 1/4 speed what you are printing now. You can also lower the acceleration and jerk by 2X. In cad, add some support. the part is stronger where it is wider and it should be okay to add some support there. Make the support get very tiny where it attaches to the main part - maybe 1mm attachment. Make the attachment be like an angled post that angles in and helps prevent your part from wobbling when it gets taller. Also you can print much slower. i'm guessing you have a printer where the bed moves in the Y direction. This moves the part and so it wobbles more - align your part so it lines up such that it is stronger in the Y direction if this is the case. All supports should be at least 1/5th as wide at the base as tall. So they should actually be cone shaped ideally.

I think it's connecting to this line here on the back (but I think it's a different model). I marked the line in red.

Your other 2 photos above that - I have no idea what you are trying to show. I don't understand if you are happy now and think everything is resolved or if you still think there is some issue and if so, what is that issue? If you still think there is a problem then maybe you should start over with screen shots and maybe an arrow or circle around what you think is a problem. You ask "what may be happening here", and all I see is a normal model being sliced just fine. There may be an issue but it's not obvious to me.

So in the image you posted immediately above you have "travels" unchecked. Maybe friend probably had the same thing unchecked and that's why he had no blue lines. There's no way for the nozzle to get from one part to another without passing through the space between. When you have two people using 2 different computers and slicing the same object there are MANY things that can be different. Such as the printer (machine) settings. It's best to have the person with the "problem" save their project in cura: "file" "save project as...". Then send it to the other person. That way you don't have to worry if some setting is slightly different or they are using say an Ender 3 and the other user is using an Ender 3b (for example) for their machine.

Nice. In sketchup - all faces should be white. If they are gray you can right click and click "reverse faces". Or of course you can use solid inspector. But once you see how easy it is to fix normals with the mouse you may find it's irresistible to fix them manually.

Please post your project file - do "file" "save project as..." and post that file. It will include your model and ALL of your settings (including machine settings). Is the problem you are seeing only happening on the bottom layer? It might be that the model needs to be moved up or down very very slightly. Tinkercad usually does a pretty good job of making manifold objects (some cad programs like sketchup and blender - not so much). It might not be your CAD. Let's look at your model first.

It appears that some of your normals are backwards. What cad did you use to create this? It's very easy to fix this in blender or sketchup. If you used one of those cad let me know and I'll give you simple instructions to fix in cad. Anyway in cura I sliced your STL and got the same issue. Then I ran the mesh tools "fix normals" and it slices great! It also mentioned your model has 14 submeshes - which is not good but it sliced fine so do this: In the upper right corner of Cura click "marketplace" and make sure you are on the "plugins" tab and install "Mesh Tools". Then restart Cura. Now right click on your model, choose "mesh tools" and choose "fix model normals".

So up on the to of the screen you have "PREPARE" highlighted. Click on PREVIEW instead and use the vertical scroll bar to see what is going happen. At that point you would have realized that it is going to print a tower on the gray circle. Becasue you are doing a dual filament print with PVA it's smart to do a tower because otherwise you will get lots of tiny "hot dogs" of filament attaching into the side of your print. Both PLA and PVA tiny strings. You can remove the tower or even move it to another location in the settings but it's purposefully over near the location on the printer where it switches to the other nozzle.

I don't know about other materials. I'd guess it works fine for PET/PETG/CPE as I think those are almost the same thing as nGen but I don't know. It sticks nicely but after printing you pull with a bit of force and it pops right off. I've only ever printed PLA support "touching buildplate" so I don't know how well it works on top of nGen. I use off-white nGen and black or red PLA and there is often no color mixing at all. But also often you can see the tiniest bits of color here and there (doesn't matter for me as these complex surfaces are deep within the part where a customer can't see). And as you already know - the quality of PLA as support is 100X better than the quality of PVA as support. Nice, smooth finish (obviously - it's PLA so it's great).

So if you open this json file here: https://api.ultimaker.com/cura-packages/v1/cura/v7.5.0/packages And search for PA6CF twice (the second one is polymaker) then a little bit before that you can see download_url gives you this link: https://api.ultimaker.com/cura-packages/v1/cura/v7.5.0/packages/Polymaker_PolyMide_PA6_CF_2019/download Paste the above link into your browser and you will see nothing happen except a file will download. Drop that file into cura and it will install that material type. Restart cura.

There *is* a hacky way to download the material file on a different computer that has internet access, then copy the file using usb flash to the computer that has no internet access and load it into cura. But do you really need this? I'm a little confused why your cura computer has no internet access but you have other computers that *do* have internet access?

So there are 2 buttons in upper right of cura: "marketplace" "sign in". You can go to the marketplace and install materials without signing in. What happens when you click the "marketplace" button in cura? Is it not able to find the materials due to your company firewall?

Instead of using digital factory you can connect cura directly to the printer and upon connection it will send over any new materials the printer doesn't already know about.

Sometimes the support material is in a cavity such that breakaway won't work but such that water can get in there. But I have to admit I don't use support very often. I try to design everything such that no support is needed.

I disagree on the point "C" in your diagram @GregValiant. But it's really hard because our computers aren't doing it. The "0.1" was just explaining that it's visually small to a human eye. Of course the error could be significantly smaller than that. If you look at the very first photo in this topic, Greg, you can see that this 3rd point is most likely on this line circled in red. And the "c" you are referring to @GregValiant may be on a triangle on the rear of the right wall that we can't see from this angle because it's hidden behind the existing wall. Without actually seeing it happen and being able to orbit in 3d, it's hard to tell where point "c" is.

@nallath Sounds familiar but I can't find that feature. I searched for "empty" "remove" "layer" and a few other terms and can't find it in Cura 4.8.

It only has to be off by about 0.1mm (or less) before the routine that takes the line segments and tries to form them into loops grabs the wrong line segment and makes the wrong loop. The locations of the sides of the triangle (the triangle shelf) are all on lines in your STL if you look at the actual triangles that make up the STL.

That's not a brittle issue. when it's brittle it breaks in the bowden tube. So PVA is very different from PLA. It's harder to print. It doesn't stick to itself so amazingly well like PLA. So that could be normal in your photo but I think that is probably PVA that absorbed too much water. LIke i said above, I keep it with 1/4 liter (one cup) of dessicant at all times. I NEVER leave it overnight on the printer, etc. One sign the PVA is too wet is it snaps and pops and hisses and you can actually often see steam coming out at the nozzle tip while it prints. The PVA ens up being snowy instead of clear (like this photo) because it has tiny steam bubbles embedded (hence the snowy look). If it's only a "little" wet you won't notice the noise or steam but it will still be showier than usual. When PVA is wet like this it expands too much and so it overextrudes. Enough to get lots of stringing and other issues. It's easy to fix with heat. In cura look up how many meters of PVA are needed for your print. Unspool that much, place on the heated bed, put the spool on top (no need to cut the PVA). Put a towel over all that and another blanket on top of that and heat at 70C for 4 hours. That should be enough to get you going on your print. To dry the whole spool, dry it for 24-48 hours (not necessarily all at once). Going forwards keep it in a 2 gallon zip lock with LOTS of dessicant. And recharge the dessicant every month. I buy it in liter jugs and store it in a container with a lid that stops the dessicant from coming out but allows air exchange. I use color changing dessicant that can be reheated (dried) in the microwave.

That looks pretty normal. Those blue lines are non-extruding moves. They are also divided into dark and light blue. The darker blue are non-retraction, non-extruding moves. The lighter blue have retractions. Just above those colored squares where you can enable and disable the colors, it says "color scheme: line type". Click there to show different filaments in different colors. Although I much prefer this way of viewing the print.

Wow!! You are correct. That does seem like a bug. Here are 2 work arounds: 1) You can add two lines of gcode to tell the printer to print the part higher. G1 Z10 <-- NOZZLE 10MM ABOVE GLASS G92 Z0 Look for the Z commands and if your bottom layer is 0.3 then look for the "Z 0.3" in your gcode. Just before that put the above two lines and it will move the nozzle to 10mm above the glass and then tell Marlin that *this* is now z=0 and will do what you want. Change the "10" to the hight you want to raise the part. 2) In cad, you can add a cuboid say 3mm by 3mm on the base and 0.5mm tall (at least as thick as the "initial layer height". then move you "actual" model up higher than this cuboid by the height you want to raise your model. 3) Maybe report this bug in github - you need to create a free github account if you don't already: https://github.com/Ultimaker/Cura/issues