ChrisAlbertson

So it looks like you are dropping a cylinder onto the build plate after you place the part on the plate them moving it around by eye to center it on the hole. That is the method I was using too. Now what I want are shapes that are much more complex than a cylinder, something that looks like a skeleton or truss.

I want to do something, perhaps it is impossible with Cura. I am printing a structural part and strength to weight is important. Let's say it is a motor mount plate and have 7 bolt holes. Currently I find I need to print it with 2mm walls and 2mm top and bottom thickness then 40% infill and the part is strong enough. This works but I see a way it could be lighter and stronger. Walls are printed with all the plastic put down in parallel to the outside edge but I can only print walls along the edges. It would be very good if I could make "walls" in the interior of the part. Here are two use cases: I would like to have "walls" radiating from a bolt hole to spread the stress out in to the skin Cura makes a wall around the hole but the surface area of the outside is not enough to transfer the stress to the infill. Interior walls in a spoke pattern would make the hole stronger and I could make a truss design of thick "walls" that interconnect the bolt holes. This way the stress is carried by 100% solid "beams" that are surrounded by a light 25% infill. Lacking the ability to make these I must resort to higher infill even in sections of the part that are lightly loaded. Here is how I might try doing this now... In my CAD system (I use Fusion 360) I might make the part as I do now as a solid body then I make a second version of the same part but this version lacks the skin has ONLY the internal beams that interconnect the bolt holes with a truss frame made of triangles. SO I make an normal part and the same part again but as a skeleton truss. Then I print in Cura 3.2 I use the second version of the part to modify the infill percent. I set the infill for this to 100%. So now I have beams made of 100% solid infill inside a much lighter structure and my overall strength to weight is better Problem: The "beams" are made of 45% crossed infill lines. it would be MUCH stronger if the beams where printed like walls with all the plastic printed parallel If this is not 100% clear think of steel reenforced concrete. I want to print the steel bars the same way as walls are printed and I want to use low-percentage infill where the concrete would be. Perhaps this is something Cura will never be able to do, or perhaps I can use some tricks with my STL files to trick Cura into making "walls" inside the part I'm printing. Or perhaps there is another slicer that is better for making structural parts?

This is all on MacOS. Was running 3.2 and I had some custom materials and customized printer. Then I install 3.3 and all the old setting are gone. I think the problem is the user settings are stored inside the *.app bundle because I go to Time Machine and restore the old 3.2 *.app bundle and all my settings are back. I have yet to look into this and perhaps there is a way to have user settings stored in the normal place (applications support) Or perhaps there is a way to specify a location. How does one upgrade to 3.3 while preserving customize materials, profiles and printers? In the mean time 3.2 works well and I can use that.