XYZDesignPro

As it turns out the only export options from Cura are STL OBJ and GCODE. None of these are going to be very usable or useful when brought back into a 3D application. I've had some success bringing an STL file into SolidWorks, but the result is often a just surface file not a solid, pretty messy and not very editable. Perhaps some of the other contributors here will have something for you. Perhaps Blender? I'm not really familiar with Blender's capabilities.

To start the print at at a place other than the actual bottom of the part, just select the model, then select the Move tool in the upper left of the screen. Grab the blue arrow and drag the model down into the build plate.

Your model is already in 4 parts on Thingiverse. Seems you really making this project a "project" . . . In any case, I can appreciate where 25% support density would make the problem worse, but at 50% I suspect that even though you do have a stranded support segment at layer 343 the next layer or two above that will probably bridge the gap because, unlike 25%, the support structure is so much closer together. Everything above that should be fine. Try starting the print a layer 300 or so, and you won't have to waste filament and time? Also, was there some reason why you reverted back to 60° support overhang?

Changed nothing from the default settings I outlined above except for layer height 0.15 to 0.06. Here's what I get at Layer 346. Everything is pretty much attached to something. The default support settings are Everywhere, 45°, Triangles at 50%. Buils time is 35h 4 minutes. Hope you have a generous supply of PVA. Hope this helps . . .

I downloaded your part and sliced it using the default 0.15 Layer Height settings except I checked the box to Generate Support and chose Extruder 2 for the Support Extruder. I do not see the same result as you are describing.: What layer height are you set at? My build time is shown as 14h 34min. Is that what you are getting?

I find that PVA adheres very well to the glass bed. About the same a PLA and much better than ABS. Without knowing what it is you are attempting to print, I have no idea whether or not you may need a brim. As you can see, the part I have posted uses no brim at all. Just two lines of Skirt 3mm away from the part to assure a good prime of the extruder.

Not at all. Just use a 60° bed temp (default for PLA / PVA printing). Here's some screen shots of a 7.5" tall part, bottle, that is almost entirely PVA on the build plate. About a 6 hour build. Bottom Layer 4th Layer 8th Layer Showing Support Roof 12th Layer Showing Bottom of Part over Support Roof Final Part This part is hollow (0% In Fill). Start out using the default settings and adjust accordingly. Hope this gets you started off on the right path.

OK, that's hilarious. Nothing like sitting by a warm fire with a fresh cup of coffee in the morning. Thanks for the laugh ahoeben . . .

I took a look at the part, but did not actually try printing it. I think if you can change the way your thread runs out into the root diameter and eliminate the very thin section (probably not practical in a real world part anyway) and turn the part so that the inner cylinders are on the build plate as support, you can probably build this part with no support at all with 50% infill. Sometimes you need to design the part with the printing process in mind from the outset, while not compromising the design intent. Just a thought

Thanks. I'll have to try that this afternoon when I'm back to home. I'm having some difficulty arranging the blocking cubes in support areas that are not on the build plate (Support Everywhere) is enabled. When I click on block the display of the model jumps in and out pretty dramatically. Still kudos to ahoeben for some mighty fine work here. Support placement and editing is the only feature I really miss from S3D. In my experience, S3D does a miserable job of managing PVA dual extrusion on the UM3. That's why I pretty much stopped using S3D when I sold my UM2 machines and purchased the UM3 machines. I Really appreciate the SolidWorks plugin as well. I whole heartedly agree with your assessment that Cura has really come a long way in the last year . . .

So you can reduce the size of the blocking cube with the scaling tool? Can you please elaborate?

Good read Matt. Thanks for the link to our web site as well Hope this brings more interest from other users on the forum to share their work with Cura and Ultimaker technology.

Thomas, Your work on this plug-in is amazing and IMHO a tribute to what makes open source such an important part of the internet experience. I'm an avid supporter (financially) of Mozilla and use Thunderbird exclusively as my email client and Firefox as my default browser. Thank you for your contribution to Cura.

Finally got this macro to work from inside SWX. The macro is not necessarily in the same folder location as the animation instructions would suggest. Great addition to SWX. (I'm on 2018 SP2 BTW) As to the higher resolution settings AbeFM has been discussing, SWX has two default settings, Course and Fine. You have added your two 3D printing settings Fine and Course (3D Printing). Since you are already using the two SWX default Radio Button settings, would it be possible to use the third Radio Button setting as SWX Custom. That way the SolidWorks user could always have their favorite STL setting available as a third choice. So what ever those settings were left as when last used would be the STL settings that would be applied to the model when it was imported into Cura. AbeFM would get what he wants, and there would be no fiddling around with the py configuration file. My better quality settings: Would something like this be possible?

Nice to see another positive review on this feature. Like you, I print fairly large (tall 7" to 10") objects. I also use primarily 0.6 nozzle (3D Solex) with typically a 0.2 or 0.25 layer height. This leads to shorter print times and better overall quality. Hopefully positive reviews will facilitate further development, adding and refining the functionality and moving it out of the Experimental category.

Thanks for your response. I can appreciate the complexity of adding this functionality. Good to know that it's at least in consideration . . .

Hello Chris, As long as I have your attention, may I draw you attention to a post of mine from 2-20? "I would really like to see the ability to set the "Adaptive Layers Maximum Variation" and "Adaptive Layers Variation Step Size" as adjustable individually for top and bottom, much as there are those settings for top and bottom pattern and thickness." I'm really liking your Adaptive Layer functionality. Any chance the above could be considered? Thanks so much for your efforts so far with this . . .

While every part has it's own unique properties, It's hard to believe that Adaptive Layers default settings would add 12 hours to a 2 hour print. Of course there is no need to actually start the job before accessing the impact of the changes, Cura will reveal the time impact with each rebuild of the slicing engine, but your results are pretty startling. Can you share the file? My results with Adaptive Layer have been so positive, I'd like to see your file.

I'd like to share the obvious advantages that Adaptive Layer has afforded me in my daily work flow. We are a manufacturer of plastic bottles. Not very sexy, but somebody has to do it . . . On this particular design, Adaptive Layer saved over 30 minutes on a 5 hour 15 minute build compared to without it. At the same time improving the overall look and quality of the finished model. The angular sections (dark blue at 0.10 layer) of the bottle have much finer stair steps per layer and the thread finish of the neck of the bottle has superior detail as well. The benefits are obvious. So again, thanks to the Cura team for this feature. I look forward to continuing improvement and the total integration into the basic application.

Thomas, I think you have finally gotten it! I'm on SW 2018 SP1.0. Windows 10 Pro. Parts come in in the correct orientation using the 3D printing fine setting.. They seem to look just fine. One problem I was having, that I have not mentioned before, is that I do use a functionality within SWX called Insert > Part. This allows one to insert a existing part into the working part. When only one other part is necessary to complete the project, this functionality is much more efficient that creating an assembly that would only have two parts in it. In any case, I never mentioned it in the past because you have made it clear from the outset of your en devour here that a single part was all the plugin was capable of working with so I've never brought it up. That said, this version seems to handle the part inserted into a part SWX file with out a problem. Congratulations!! BTW, I leave SWX running when using this plugin as it seems to be faster loading the file into Cura. Any connection there, or is it just my imagination? Thanks for all of the hard work on this valuable plugin for SolidWorks users.

Where will we find the link to 0.5.4?

Speaking from my use perspective, I personally think that the Adaptive Layers functionality is one of the best things to be added to the Cura in a long time. For the most part I have found it reduces my average build time of a part significantly. As much as an hour on a 7 hour build with a base layer height of 0 .2. I would really like to see the ability to set the "Adaptive Layers Maximum Variation" and "Adaptive Layers Variation Step Size" as adjustable individually for top and bottom, much as there are those settings for top and bottom pattern and thickness. S3D does this, but it's very difficult to implement. Maybe in the next release while it's still considered Experimental? Anyway Kudos to the Cura team for even taking a shot at this very desirable feature / functionality.

Sorry, but it still fails with the same error message:

The link still points to 0.5.0 no 0.5.1

I have team viewer installed on my system. What time did you have in mind? It is 2:50 P.M. PST (West coast of the U.S.)