ShopGeezer

Wow sorry to hear that. I have a Crealty CR-20 and as I described it works great via USB. I started printing with CR-10 selected as my printer in Cura since that was all the 3.x versions listed. Version 4.2.1 has a lot more printers listed including the CR-20. Trying to think of problems that popped up. One thing, when I first did the upgrade to ver 4.2.1 And selected the CR-20 as my printer Cura started giving me errors saying my CR-10 configuration files were corrupt. I could no longer contact the printer. Cura wanted me to do a reset that would delete all the printers and profiles. I backed up my profiles and did the reset. Then reinstalled the profiles and selected the CR-20 as my printer. All worked well after that. Windows 10 was hassling me to update my version of Windows since the current version I was using would no longer be supported after November. I hate upgrading Windows but on a dark and stormy night the laptop just went ahead and did the upgrade all by itself. I had to run the install for those drivers again. The rebooting sounds like it could be a connection problem. Could it possibly be the USB version you are using? USB has three versions now. What help is your vendor offering you? You could call Mech Solutions in Toronto and talk to Sim. He is very knowledgable and got me up and running when the card reader broke in my CR-20.

I didn't back anything up before installing these drivers. It is a very simple install. It doesn't matter if you are using a laptop or a desktop computer as long as it is a WIndows machine. Won't work with a Mac.

You are right, X-ray shows the corners as red. I suspect that the problem is attachment of the tabs to the box. They don't want to become part of the model. I tried a bunch of different ways to create the tabs. I finally got one to work by creating it in place as part of the wall, then copied it to the other 3 corners. All looks good in Cura now. I will see how it prints tomorrow. Interesting issue, I have Cura 4.2.1 on both my Mac desktop and my PC laptop. The Mac has an issue with the walls of the enclosure. I have 5 walls selected with no infill. I wanted a solid 2mm wall thickness so with a 0.4mm nozzle 5 walls fills the 2mm width. On the Mac the middle wall is empty in the Cura preview, as shown in the screen shot. On the PC all 5 walls are solid. The PC version of Cura seems to do a much better job of slicing. I am using identical profiles on both computers.

So I upgraded to version 4.2.1 from 4.1.0 because I liked the way it sliced my models. Version 4.1 did strange things to inner walls but 4.2 is much better at this. However there are some weird things. I added tabs to an electronics enclosure to receive the mounting screws from the lid. This all looked good in the CAD program and showed up just fine in the Cura "Prepare" window. However the Preview window showed the tabs cut off from the wall. They are not even attached to the wall. I have tried several hours of different ways to create these tabs in CAD and different settings in Cura. No difference for any of this, the tabs are always shown with a flat back and separate from the inner wall of the enclosure. Can't figure this out. I have been having great success with Cura, it works exceptionally well, printing directly from my laptop. Can't figure out how to get these tabs attached. The rest of the model slices perfectly.

The card reader broke on my new Crealty CR-20 so I contacted my vendor (Mech Solutions in Toronto) about running the printer from my laptop. The tech on the phone explained that the printer uses an analog digital converter and the driver that Windows 10 assigns to the printer is not reliable for this process. He sent me the link to drivers that work better. This is the link: https://www.ftdichip.com/Drivers/CDM/CDM21228_Setup.zip Run the setup and install the two drivers that are shown in the setup program. From that point on Windows will use these two drivers. The printer works perfectly from my laptop. I have had no problems at all. NOTE: Be sure and go into the power settings and set your laptop to NEVER turn off when using AC power (doesn't matter about the screen, it can turn off as long as the computer is still running). I forget to do this, the computer shut off during a print, the printer stopped and the print head cooled off and welded itself to the print bed. Had to replace the print nozzle. Good thing I got a bag of them with the printer. The printer has to be on to print and preheat the print head and the bed. The data panel on the printer will light up when you plug in the USB cord from the computer. This is because USB provides 5 volts for devices and the board on the printer will work with this power source. Not sufficient for the heaters and motors of course, the power switch on the printer has to be on for those to work and do an actual print. When you start up Cura, the program will find the printer and it will show up in the monitor window. Sometimes I have to load a model and do a slice to make Cura find the printer. I have tried various combinations of starting the printer first, starting the computer first and then the printer, etc. It doesn't matter what order you use, Cura will connect with the printer once you do a slicing operation as long as you have the two drivers shown above installed. . Another note: I was confused by how to actually start a print. Once you have done a slicing operation and Cura finds the printer, the "Save to File" button ( the big blue one bottom right in the Preview window ) will have a little arrow on the right side. Clicking this arrow will show the option "Print to USB". Click this options and you will be taken to the monitor window. The bed and nozzle will preheat and the print will start. That is when you will wish you had used more glue stick on the bed. Be sure and always print with your laptop plugged into AC power.

I was curious as to why my raised letters didn't print well but zooming in on the sliced file shows that the letters are included in the Shell settings. Cura is trying to put 3 walls into each letter as set in the Shell section of the print settings. This produces poor raised letters. Is there any way to make the letters solid? They are a solid group in the Cad file but Cura is treating them like an object subject to the print settings. Can you block the Shell settings for selected areas of the print the way you can block support settings? How do I make raised letters solid?

Your image shows watermarks on the vertical sections of the design. I tried this on the enclosure lid but they turned out poorly. The letters did not fill completely. I am not sure if the letters are solid from the cad program. I created 3D text and added it to the box lid. The entire lid shows as a solid group. Everything else printed well except for the top right corner which curled. The text is .1 cm high. I understand the text prints better vertically as in your design but that would be difficult with this part. I increased the bottom inset of the lid to .3 cm thick. The overhang part is also .3 cm thick. Since I have more "meat" in the lid now I added countersinks for the attachment screws in each corner. Haven't had a chance to try a print with the updated cad file yet. Vacations are getting in the way.

I have used tree support successfully especially if there is an overhang close to the top of the print. But in making a small figure of the moon lander (lem) as a table ornament for July 20th celebrations tree support was a disaster. The tree was so intertwined into all the complex shapes of the Lem that I could not remove them. Normal supports were not much better. It was impossible to keep the fine details, they all came off with the support material. Geert_2 that is interesting, a lot of design for the supports though. How do you design the support attachments so that they release easily? You mention the overhangs curling up. I have that problem on electronics enclosure lids. The thin edge wants to curl up despite the supports underneath. . Any solution to this? I used zig zag supports but they were not easy to remove. They seemed to merge with the box lid itself.

I am starting to use version 4.1 of Cura and it has been working well. However some complex prints with lots of overhangs build a lot of support and in some cases the support is almost impossible to remove. The supports seem almost as strong as the print. Fine details come off with the support material. I downloaded the Settings Guide extension and looked at the support patterns entry. The various support patterns are shown and the intro text mentions that some are meant to be stronger and some easier to remove. But it doesn't say which is which. Very useless. I want to know the easiest to remove pattern. The Settings guide shows Lines, Grid, Triangles, Concentric, Concentric 3D, Zig Zag, and Cross. It doesn't mention Gyroid. Is there an order to this left to right? Which are the easiest patterns to remove?