DaHai8

Great! Glad Cura is finally working and turning on the fan for you! As for the USB cable crashing Windows 10, it sounds like a USB Driver problem. I'd suggest contacting HicTop and see if they have an updated USB driver for their printer that works with Windows 10.

Ok, I'm assuming you're running Windows: Try doing an Uninstall of Cura and then go to: C:\Users\yourname\.cura\15.04.4 Where yourname is the username you log into Windows with. Then delete everything in that folder. Then try reinstalling Cura again.

Ok, how about a screen grab of your machine settings? Which printer did you choose? I would suggest either "Prusa Mendel i3" or "Custom"

Not yet, but I shall!

You could make 3 duplicates in a row or column (for 4 total), group them and then duplicate the group 4 times (4 x 5 = 20). That's the only way I know to do it at this point.

You can use Notepad to view and search through the gcode file. Basically anything before, and including, the "M117 Printing..." is the header. Everything after, and including, "M104 S0 ;extruder heater off" is the footer. It's odd that the extruder fan started as soon as the print head moved off home. The gcode I sent is set to turn the fan off initially in the header: M107 ;start with the fan off And then not turn it on until Layer 1 at a height of .5mm: ;LAYER:1M106 S255G1 F2400 E33.35886G0 F7200 X88.790 Y82.536 Z0.500 You have just a single fan for the extruder, right? This is your printer? In your printer's menu, can you turn that Fan on/off through the Control / Temperature / Fan Speed menu by setting it to 255 for On and 0 for Off? Is there more than one fan listed? Also, in any of the gcode you generated, can you find any 'M106' command with any parameters after it? Sorry, asking lots of questions...

Rflynn, I have an Aurora A3, which is a Prusa I3 style printer. It should be similar enough to your printer for you to print this gcode I generated using Cura 15.04.4: http://bitman.org/dahai/MakeRobot.zip Some settings of my to note that may affect your ability to print my gcode: Nozzle Size: .4mm Filament Size: 1.75mm Print Area: 180x180x180mm Nozzle Temp: 210 Bed Temp: 60 Layer Height: .2mm Shell Thickness: .8 Fill Density: 15% No Support and No Platform Adhesion I also reset the origin as my print head home position is off the print bed. So you may want to remove these lines from the gcode: G1 X40 Y32 ; Move to print originG92 X0 Y0 Z15.0 ; Set this coordinate to 0,0,15

Also look at your object in X-Ray View Mode in Cura for any Red areas. Those would be problems with your object that Cura can't resolve: holes in the mesh, stray lines, non-solid areas, etc.

What are your machine settings? Also, if you change View Mode to X-Ray, do you see any Red areas? Those would be problems with the model that need to be fixed. It could cause it to not slice.

mikey2, Post that entire line in a reply. Maybe there is a typo that's getting rejected. Update: Looked at the gcode documentation and G29 is not supported by the 'Sprinter' firmware. And the entry in that json file says: "machine_gcode_flavor": { "default": "RepRap (Marlin/Sprinter)" }, So that may be why it was removed (I'm guessing here...) So you could try changing it to just "RepRap" ..

Rflynn, On the Expert Config windows (click the three dots next to the 'Enable Cooling Fan' checkbox) do you have it set like this? Do you find 'M106 S255' anywhere in the gcode of your print?

Sorry for the delay. Here are the latest results: To me, it appears the .8 overlap is not any different than the .6. So I think that's about as good as it gets - at least on my printer. The 1.75mm filament converted gcode files can be found here: http://bitman.org/CoastTest_1.75mm.zip Cheers!

Those properties are inherited, ultimately, from the ultimaker2.json file, in which they are all set to "enabled", "False". "overrides": { "material_print_temperature": { "enabled": "False" }, "material_bed_temperature": { "enabled": "False" }, "material_diameter": { "enabled": "True" }, "material_flow": { "enabled": "False" }, "retraction_amount": { "enabled": "False" }, "retraction_speed": { "enabled": "False" }, "retraction_retract_speed": { "enabled": "False" }, "retraction_prime_speed": { "enabled": "False" } } Not sure why this is so, but if you edit that file and set the retraction items to "True", they should show up in Cura and be changeable.

Could be a permission issue - just a thought. Try running Cura as Administrator and see if that helps.

lars86, got a Coast + .8mm you'd like me to try?

Cool! Did not know that. Thanks!

Chris, Have you looked at the end of the gcode generated by Cura 2.x? While it may not be really easy to recover the settings used in the model, most of them are enumerated there: ;End of Gcode;SETTING_1 [general]\nversion = 1\nname = Current settings\nweight = 0\n\n[setti;SETTING_1 ngs]\nlayer_height = 0.2\nspeed_topbottom = 45\nmaterial_print_temper;SETTING_1 ature = 215\nretraction_min_travel = 0.5\nspeed_wall_x = 60\nskirt_ga;SETTING_1 p = 0\nraft_surface_line_width = 0.4\ninfill_before_walls = False\nin;SETTING_1 fill_sparse_density = 15\nmaterial_bed_temperature = 55\nspeed_wall =;SETTING_1 45\ntop_bottom_thickness = 0.8\nsupport_enable = False\nraft_airgap ;SETTING_1 = 0.25\nsupport_angle = 50\nspeed_infill = 80\nretraction_speed = 40\;SETTING_1 nskirt_line_count = 1\nraft_surface_thickness = 0.27\nwall_thickness ;SETTING_1 = 0.8\nadhesion_type = raft\nlayer_0_z_overlap = 0\nretraction_amount;SETTING_1 = 4.5\nspeed_layer_0 = 45\nsupport_type = buildplate\n\n Not sure if this is used anywhere or why the linefeeds are not activated

Darn! That coupon is irredeemable here....

Like nallath said: I've tested Cura 15.x, Cura 2.x and Craftware and found the slicer in Cura 2.x to be much better than the other two: It avoids holes better, generates a smarter tool path (less jumping around), less hairs, better object avoidance, and better finishes. I ask questions, report bugs, or highlight things I think are issues and I get fast, intelligent responses from the developers and the community. It's refreshing. So I try to do the same. That's how the software gets better...

Did your Antivirus recently update itself? Have you tried disabling your Antivirus and then running Cura? I haven't seen any stealthy updates by Windows 10 recently, so its (probably) not that.

Is it just the slicing and layers view you are seeing slowness or other areas as well? Cura makes heavy use of the graphics drivers, so ensuring they are up-to-date can help with responsiveness. Since you mentioned QT, I'm assuming your running on an Apple machine?

Survey Says: Both, it looks like a zipper line. It even uglier when they don't line up and are spread all over an otherwise smooth face. JG Aurora A3 Prusa I3 Printer. PLA 1.75. Heater Bed, etc. etc. etc. I love this printer Fixed income. Can't afford a Ultimaker. Wish I could... Cura 2.1.2 - Best one on the market and getting better every release (much more so than CrapWare, er Craftware, whatever.). Do I get extra points for saying that? It is true.

Latest Test Results: The Coast .6 is showing the least zipper, but I have some concerns on the head jerking. I think what is happening is that at the end of the layer, after the coast, you're moving the head back .2 to .6mm from whence it came. There is an audible 'snap' on my printer when this jerk occurs. It's kinda disconcerting. But more than that, I think it's not helping the finish. What if you instead continued to move the head .2 - .6mm forward (just following the beginning of the path) instead of going backward. I think this might result in even more seam inprovement as there wouldn't be an abrupt stop and retrace. Of course, this opens the issue of what if then end of the layer is not where it started and there is nowhere to go forward - which it probably why you do a retrace backward... Hmm.....

I'm in the midst of printing a rocket ship (with smoke) that takes all day. Will test you .6mm overlap first thing in (my) morning Cheers!

Ok. New Day and different results. Apparently I really hosed up my printer with all the Tune/Flow/Flow 0/Change Filament testing. After turning it off last night and then testing again today, 2.65 x Extrusion levels worked! I tested other multipliers as well: 1.7 (bad), 2.2 (bad), 2.40 (good), 2.50 (good), 2.57 (good). So here's the 2.65 multiplier test: And I tried another test: here's the 2.50 multiplier test: The Coast .4 looks better in both tests in the photos, but not as good in real life. I think the difference is that the Coast .4 has less of a divot/depression but its just as wide as the other tests. So on camera it does not show up as much. Still, Coast .4 is a marked improvement! I've also place the modified gcode files on my server for anyone to use if they want to test this with .4mm nozzle and 1.75mm filament. http://bitman.org/Coasting.zip Let me know if you want me to testing anything more! Cheers!