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Thanks for that. I will keep an eye on my prints to see if that helps.

Yes. Thanks JCD. I appreciate you going to all the trouble. I think you have it now. Any A8 user will appreciate the additions. I didn't notice any differences in our settings that would cause this problem. Although I print at very high quality, .1 and also 35% infill is my standard. It is not uncommon for me to have a print that takes 4-5 days to finish. It makes me a better Fusion 360 user because I hate to have to reprint stuff! Thanks again!

I had to go back to my original profile. I tried printing a small part with yours. Here is what happened.. I got the word Impression... on the screen right away when I hit print. Then it started printing before extruder heat or bed heat came up. I don't understand how that is possible with our printers being the same.

Yup, that fixed it. THANKS! So do you know how this works? By selecting A8 #2 in my case, with the new profiles, did I also get your settings as well?

That allowed me to choose the new A8 printer, but the stl file is not active for the A8. How do you activate the background stl?

I do not have them listed. Was there supposed to be something in the definitions folder in your .rar?

Where you say "choose to Create a New Printer", I do not see that option. If you meant Settings/Printer/Add Printer I have no Anet options after adding the files.

JCD can I get your actual settings so I can compare what I have? Very good work! Thanks for that!

Please do keep working on the html concept. Even if we could just get a comma delimited text dump, I took a Java 101 class at the local college, maybe we could figure out how to pretty it up later. If you ever need someone who learned to program Alice, I am your man! LOL! Thanks for doing this.

JCD, I would like to get that A8 stl file you mentioned earlier. "Otherwise if you want a smarter working space, I made an stl file to put in the Cura folder, to have a picture of the printer on the cube where cura put the models (like the ones existing for the ultimaker printers)" I could use that. Thanks!

Hi Guys! Getting in on this late, but want to say how wonderful the program is and how much we appreciate it. As an Anet A8 user, I have three of them that run 24/7 for the past two years, I run into little things that are just wrong in the way the prints come out, so I go to different A8 forums and others want me to give them my profile so we can compare settings. Here is my argument for pushing this to a higher priority... We can stop bothering you with the little crap if we can compare our settings readily. Right now I am perplexed with the problem that has existed all along with concentric circles that are not connecting on the top layer around holes. Why bother you with that when I can first check with my A8 compadres and compare notes? But getting them to give me their list of settings for Cura is an impossibility. I took 5 screenshots and placed them on my web site, but I don't know if its a deterioration of society, political incorrectness, or what, but that requires too much work for them to compare my screenshots with their settings, so I get nowhere. Just a delimited text dump of every setting is fine. Others can go from delimited format to a pretty page. I don't want to waste a lot of your time. Support Blocker is coming along great! Thanks!

Kman, my hope is the Team is already paying attention to this (why I posted). Two issues that need looking at by them.. 1) We desperately need a way to print the settings out to a text file so we can share our settings easier. If we had that, we could save them a lot of time because we could compare between users and fix a lot of silly things before ever involving them. Who knows, this may be one of them, but its like pulling teeth to get anyone to share their settings because of how hard it is. 2) The top and bottom layers should be different from the infill. 6 concentric rings around each hole that allow me to push out a huge chunk of the print without much problem because of my issue seems wrong. Even if I didn't have this problem, it would make the work more solid so its a good idea anyway.

The problem happens on all three Anet A8s and all of the time. Some prints are better than others, but no, I cant pin it down to a specific machine. One uses Ramps 1.4 with adjustable stepper controller current. I have tried that route to no avail. I change my nozzle and feeder screws regularly as they need it. I am very meticulous in making sure everything is in perfect working order. I oil the system once a week since they run 24/7. I use a good PLA and have tried PLA from other vendors and this made no difference. I use the latest Marlin firmware and OctoPrint for moving my files remotely. Even when I used the stock Anet firmware on two machines and Marlin on the other, I still had the same problem with all three. A few days ago, it looked as if Printer #2 had this problem worse, but then today I ran #3 and it was worse. This has been a problem since I put the printers together two years ago. The printers are more solidly put together than typical of this model because I understand the importance of a solid machine. I use high quality belts and make sure I use the latest Cura. What would be REALLY helpful is if we could find some A8 users who would take the rather large amount of time to record every setting so we can compare. I realize how hard this is, so I took high rez screen shots (it took 5 of them) to get all the settings so everyone can see. I do not blame Cura for this, however, I merely mentioned in the first place that it seems odd to me that there are 6 concentric circles around each hole (round or square) that persist through the infill and the top/bottom layers when a more solid method would be to change the top/bottom layers so that the line method was used right up to the edge of the hole. Keep up the good work everyone... My hope is we can get to the bottom of this without anyone taking offense to my persistence.

With that in mind and knowing how the manufacturer didn't step up, let me know if there is anything you need. Anything at all, I will jump right on getting you whatever is available. I am sure there are others who feel the same way.

Thanks. I will try this. Also, you can see all of my parameters here. If anything sticks out other than what you have already observed, let me know! ? http://devestechnet.com/NewTech/HeatBed

I would just me happy to try what is working for you. If I had your settings, I would try it, and then we would have apples to apples comparison. If you are not having the same problem I am, that is encouraging because it means the settings in Cura are already there to resolve it.

I use Octoprint for that. I can see in real time exactly what will happen next. Support blocker is also a major bonus. We are all very happy Ultimaker has allowed everyone in on the game. Don't lose faith, your team is making tremendous progress.

Can I get that from you? I would be interested in knowing what settings work best for you. Do YOU have this same problem?? ONE thing the programmers for Cura could do that would be so nice is... let us print out the settings in .txt. Just the ability to do that, rather than scroll through tons of settings, lay the text file on the table and start sorting through things would be really nice. Maybe they already have and I am missing it. Maybe I am just getting old, but I cant figure out what impacts what. I am very happy with Cura and do not want to change slicers. I am committed to learning this program. Everything mentioned I am slowly working through as the printers are vacated. I have one of them that uses Ramps 1.4, the other two use the stock A8 mobo. There is no difference whatsoever between the two as far as print quality. I get really great quality except for around holes. I have been trying to fix this on every print for the past two years changing every setting available as new ones come out. Frustrating sailed a long time ago!

It is ALL being sliced by Cura and the point here is, while printers are different, to accomodate all of them (not a small task by any means and kudo's for you guys trying!) you need to have different slice capabilities built in. In the case of more than one of us obviously, the layers need to be different from the infill in how they handle edges. The concentric thing doesn't work very well. So lines would be more appropriate in this case. In all of the wonderful choices (settings) for the love of GOD I can't find where I can make the top layer just different in ANY way to the infill around holes. When you can see all the way through those rings, there is something very wrong. In any case, we are all appreciative of your efforts! Do NOT abandon us! The reason I don't purchase a ready-built printer is because I am a tinkerer, and it would be blasphemous to just purchase an off the shelf printer. I would have to take up drinking if I did that! ?

This is just nasty. You mentioned about unhiding some features, Ill try anything at this point. You could actually push on this hole and all the rings would come out. There is no top or bottom layer around the holes. This is what I am talking about. We need the layers to go to the edge of the hole.

I thought I had it with flow, but I don't. That works that way with test pieces for me. I have to actually spend the 5 days on the long prints to find out! In this case it was just a day. I REALLY wish we could change the pattern of the top layer to go to the edge of the holes. Maybe this thread will give the programmers some ideas.

Thanks to all who are working for a solution! Wow! I have been asking on other forums and had no idea how helpful this one would be. SOLD! Anyway, I have been afraid to make the flow higher than 100% because I didn't want some arbitrary mess and my 3 printers run all day and all night on large projects so taking the time to test is hard. I upped the flow to 110% and that closes all the gaps without adding size. There is no difference in size between 100 and 110% flow, but I did notice a little extra buildup on the top layer which is okay. So I will try it at 105 because the less that works the better. I still think over the long term, a top layer should have a different pattern to help lock the piece together rather than allowing those rounds around the holes to be done the same. By going up to the edge on layers, this problem would never exist because everything else IS connecting just fine. The pictures suck, but looking at all four you can see the one on the right is the one with badly connected circles at 100% flow and the one on the left is the one at 110%. JCD, I appreciate the thought you put into your reply, and if this persists, I will try it, but I do not personally like ironing. It makes the piece look totally different and I like the look of the raw print. The jury is still out on whether or not that shortens the life of unclogged nozzles too. But since they added flow to the mix, something I might try again.

Does this mean in Cura to change flow to 110% and try that? Its fresh a .4 nozzle. There are so many settings that I have tried different things but probably was too stupid about how things work to make an intelligent decision on what to try. Also, I realize you are trying to tighten up the printing, but does my suggestion of changing the top layer pattern to go to the edge of the hole make no sense? Thanks everyone.

How do I find that out? I would love to get this resolved. I have three of these anet a8 printers and some are tighter than others, but do you have suggestions on maybe changing different settings that would tighten things up? The choices in Cura are tremendous and very very flexible. Maybe I have something set wrong. Thank you!

Here it is. Let me know if you need more. You have to hit slice first! LOL!