mechamecha

Student-modeled mini-figures (created in Onshape)

Stanley Cup rockin' the red!

I'm currently trying Slic3r's variable layers to see if it does a better job for me. It's not automated, but so far I like the way it allows you to "paint" on where you want the thinnest and thickest layers to be instead of forcing you to have variable layers for every single detail in your print.

Exactly right, that's why it would be really nice if they're able to fix this bug very soon.

I get the impression that you're not quite understanding what I'm asking for here, but OK.

I'll have to check out Slic3r's variable layers feature, because it looks like it works pretty much the way I suggested. It's great to have options.

Haha! OK.

There is definitely a visible difference between 0.05 mm layers vs. 0.25 mm, and banding is quite evident when very thin layers are unnecessarily added to fairly straight vertical surfaces. Also, I'd prefer not to waste valuable printing time adding very thin layers to details that are less important to me on a model. I'd be very surprised if I were the only person wishing that the adaptive layers feature had slightly more versatility. For example, if I were much more concerned about eliminating the visible banding on the exterior of this very simple object than having the arched opening printed as nicely as possible, it certainly would be nice to tell Cura to ignore the arched opening when calculating adaptive layers. It would reduce the print time as well. Obviously the problem is exacerbated on more complex models.

Thank you for replying, @ctbeke!

Thanks, @cjs!

So Cura is apparently calculating the number of top (and probably bottom) layers relative to the base layer height, and not on the calculated adaptive layer heights.

This isn't even a difficult bug to reproduce. All you need to do is take a cube, fillet the top surface, then slice it in Cura with adaptive layers turned on. If I slice the attached STL using .15 mm as the base layer height, 0.1 as the maximum variation, and top thickness set to 1 mm, there will be 7 top layers generated, and each layer will be approximately .05 mm thick. That results in a top surface that is approximately .35 mm thick, not anywhere close to the specified 1 mm. adaptive_layers_bug.stl

I apologize if my replies came across as snippy. I'm not taking any of this personally; I just thought it was kind of funny. I probably should have clarified in my original post that I was merely reporting a bug and not necessarily asking for assistance. But, seriously, if Cura was doing exactly what it was supposed to do (printing 5 top layers when 5 top layers were specified), I wouldn't have posted this. I know this forum receives posts from people with a wide range of 3D printing expertise, but we shouldn't just assume that everyone is new and confused. I do appreciate both of you for taking the time to respond.

If you take into consideration that I'm talking about setting the top thickness in mm, then, yes, that is pretty much what I said. For example, if I have my top thickness set to 1 mm and adaptive layers are calculated to use something like .07 mm for those layers, I need to double (at least) my top thickness setting (therefore, something like 2 mm) to get an acceptable top surface. I'm not sure why anyone would set their top/bottom thickness in layers instead of mm...

C'mon, guys, give me some credit here... I set it by mm. If I set it by layers, I wouldn't be posting this.

Yes, that's pretty much what I said. But that's not the way it should be. Adaptive layers shouldn't be completely ignoring the top thickness setting.

In such cases, I've had to multiply my top thickness setting by 2 or 3 to get acceptable top surfaces.

I've noticed that Cura doesn't respect the "top thickness" setting when adaptive layers are used. I haven't been able to test this extensively, but I've had a number of failed prints (brittle top surfaces with holes in them) if top layers are calculated to use very thin layers in the specified adaptive layers range.

I've been really impressed with Cura's development over the past year or so. It has become my default slicer because it gives me so much control over just about every print setting, and its GUI is so much more intuitive than its competitors. Adaptive layers has been a great new feature, but I've found that its usefulness is limited to fairly symmetrical models without a lot of detail, or if detailed areas are isolated to their own vertical spaces within a model. Adaptive layers would be so much more useful if there could be a way to target specific areas on a model for Cura to include in calculating the step-down of layer thickness. (Or, conversely, to target specific areas for Cura to exclude when it calculates that.) The way that the new "support blocker" tool works seems pretty nice; maybe "adaptive layer include/exclude" could work in a similar manner?

Ah, never mind. The setting is hidden in the "Experimental" section.

Trying to make just the top skin concentric in 3.2.2 and 3.3 beta. I'm pretty sure I've been able to do it in a previous version, but now it makes ALL of the top/bottom layers concentric, not just the top skin. You can, however, make only the bottom initial layer as lines with the rest of the top/bottom layers concentric, which seems like a pretty useless option.

Thanks for looking into this, @smartavionics!

Definitely! Attached are the stl and gcode files generated from both Cura and S3D. Thanks! bottle.stl bottle_Cura.gcode bottle_S3D.gcode

Thanks, @gr5 and @smartavionics! I've tried changing every setting that might have an effect on wall printing, but nothing fixed the problem. Disabling "optimize wall print order" didn't change anything, either. Oh, well... Back to S3D, I guess...

I've been really happy with the development of Cura lately. It seems to give the user nearly complete control over every aspect of the printing process. I've especially been excited about the new adaptive layers feature, which the 3D printing community has been wanting for quite a while now. Even though I have a Simplify3D license, I've found myself using Cura most of the time for these reasons. However, over the past week or so, I've been noticing some odd slicing behaviors which have affected the quality of my prints, forcing me to go back to Simplify3D. I've attached some screen shots below: one from Cura and another from Simplify3D. The settings for each are as similar as I could make them using three perimeters/walls for the shell. As you can see, Cura generates seemingly random gaps in the innermost wall which results in noticeable rough spots on the printed surface. I tried changing a bunch of different settings, but no matter what I did, the gaps remained. Simplify3D, on the other hand, generated the walls exactly the way I expected, resulting in an impressively smooth print surface. So... Any idea what's causing this problem in Cura? As I mentioned before, I'd prefer to use Cura because it offers so much control over pretty much every printing parameter but, first and foremost, I care about printed surface quality and, unfortunately, Simplify3D is giving me much better results at the moment.