rich17222

Turns out if I had followed their suggestion in the first place I wouldn't have this problem. So I did what the instructions suggested and backup and restored the configuration file. Then it loaded without a problem. Thanks for offering your help anyhow.

I upgraded my Mac Airbook to Mac OS 10.14.1 (Mojave) and tried to run Cura 3.5.1. It wouldn't start, giving me an error message. It runs fine on my iMac running the same operating system. Any thoughts on why there might be a difference?

OK, so enabling support wasn't such a good idea. Most of the letters seemed to print properly in the horizontal direction without noticable sagging at a depth of 1.5 mm, and at a layer height of .04 mm the support plastic was difficult (impossible?) to remove so I couldn't even see some of the letters. I intend to retry that print without support enabled, and while that's going on I will look for a better font to use on my models.

Thanks to all of you, I am gradually gaining an understanding of how Cura and my new printer work and interact. I obviously didn't understand your initial answers that the nozzle size was the problem. I do now. I followed up with a couple of your suggestions. Here's what I've found so far. I went into Cura and set the nozzle size to .3 mm to see if that imroved the sliced rendering; it didn't. So I tried smaller nozzle sizes to see what happens. The letters didn't render properly until I got down to a .1 mm nozzle; impractical. So I decided to try peggyb's suggestion. I went back to TinkerCad and rotated the model so the lettering was horizontal. I also reduced the letter height to 1.5 mm to try to prevent sagging and reduced the block height to 10 mm to reduce printing time. I then went to Cura and tried several layer heights until the letters rendered properly. That turned out to be .04 mm. But some of the letters then had vertical lines that were less than .4 mm and didn't render. I decided to try a print anyhow to see how it would turn out. I also enabled support to try to eliminate sagging and started the print. It's running now. I'll let you know how it turns out, but I expect I will have to go back to Inkscape to find a font that has wider lines.

Wow!! I'm impressed by the number of useful responses I've gotten. Frankly, it never occured to me that Cura would not render the small fonts because I told it I had a .4mm nozzle. I will try entering a smaller nozzle size and see what happens. If the layering is improved, I will have to consider going to a smaller nozzle on my printer. It would be difficult to make the models larger since I am in fact making "rubber stamps" that replicate existing text and designs and are that size. I could go to a sans-serif font if necessary, but the serif fonts look much better and better replicate those that exist. That was why I started using Inkscape in the first place. In any event, I now have my work cut out for me. Thanks for your help and suggestions.

My last post was before I read yours. My apologies. Next time I'l look before I leap. This is where my ignorance comes in. In looking at Cura, I have not yet found how to adjust the line width and Wall Count. One of the parameters is wall thickness which is clearly related to both wall count and line width, but how do I adjust those other parameters?

It occurs to me that the problem seems to be with the file types and conversions I'm using to build my models. The lettering originates in the application Inkscape, which I like because it offers a wide variety of fonts and outputs an svg file which can then be imported into TinkerCad. I have some other models that contain rather intricate designs that originate as jpg files and are converted to svg with an on-line converter, then "cleaned up" using Inkscape. Those don't slice very well either. So it appears that maybe svg files aren't as scalable as one would want. The problem could be with Inkscape. I will try to find other ways of getting the text and jpg files into a file type that works better than svg and can be imported (or just input) into TinkerCad. Maybe direct conversion from jpg to stl is possible?

I very much appreciate the efforts you all are making to help me. I am new to 3D printing and to this forum, so please bear with me as I learn the proper protocol. Apparently, I did a poor job of explaining my problem. Perhaps the attached screen prints from Cura will help (I get the same result from Slic3r). The first one is the model as it was input into Cura as an .stl file created in TinkerCad. The second shot is the same file after it was sliced by Cura; i.e., the "layers" view of the same model. Note that the letters are not fully formed. For reference, the dimensions of the model are as follows: width of the base is 25 mm; depth is 11 mm; height is 20 mm; letter are app. 3 mm high with an extrusion height of 3 mm. I have tried various sizes of the model and found that the letters become fully formed when the size is increase by 300% or more. But that is not useful to me. Because the problem becomes obvious when I look at the "layers" view of the model in Cura, before exporting the gcode for printing, I do not believe the problem is with the printer, but rather with the slicing software. But out of curiosity, i executed a print using the model as shown. The printed version looks just like the "layers" view of the model. Any ideas? Thanks for taking an interest and trying to help.

I am trying to print small objects (20 mm and less) with very small lettering (on the order of 3-4 mm tall). So far I have found that neither Cura nor Slic3r accurately reproduce the letters after slicing (the .stl files look OK). Has anyone found some slicing software that will accurately reproduce small letters and generate corresponding gcode from which I can make a print? I am using an Ultimaker Original+, and have software running on both a Linux desktop (Ubuntu) and a Mac Airbook (iOS). I usually download the gcode files to an SD card for printing, so I can work from either the desktop or the laptop. Any suggestions will be greatly appreciated.