Gero

The pictures shown here show the result you get with the Ultimaker Cura aa0.8 PLA Visual Quality Profile. Ultimaker printer, Ultimaker software and print profile, Ultimaker material, PLA silver. It only took two prints to find out which setting was responsible for this. The "small top/bottom width" setting ensures that only straight lines are printed under new outer geometries that are based on infill. This ensures that unevenness is no longer smoothed out as with zigzag patterns, but instead builds up and stands out through the outer wall. Unfortunately, I have to realise once again that Ultimaker can no longer guarantee that the results will be of the usual quality. New profiles and settings are tried to be adapted to the value judgement regardless of losses, apparently without being tested, as it only took us two prints to find this out. Another project in which we have to explain to the customer that the printing was done with equipment with quality problems. I now consider it lucky that Ultimaker support didn't respond to our enquiry about the Professional Plan and we invested in other equipment instead. In the meantime, we have started the process of selling our Ultimaker print farm. While we used to rely on the reliability of Ultimaker, we can hardly wait to no longer have to deal with Ultimaker's questionable developments.

Here is my thought on this: In what order are the walls printed? You can find the order under the "Walls" tab. "From inside to outside" and "From outside to inside". Cura decided about a year ago that they wanted to be the only slicer that now prints the outermost wall first. In theory, this has somewhat more precise components, but leads to corresponding error patterns occurring during the retractions if the nozzle flow is not immediately present. Therefore, make sure that the sequence is set to "from inside to outside".

I have found the reason why the layers are sometimes printed somewhat irregularly in some print objects and therefore affect the visual quality. Despite the setting of the order for the walls "From the inside to the outside", there are still some layers in some objects where this setting is not applied and the outer wall is printed first.

nice to see that the prime tower is being improved again. unfortunately, i still miss the adjustment that automatically places the prime tower closer to the print object. at the moment, the position still has to be adjusted manually using the x-y coordinates. doesn't the cloud slicer from makerbot also adjust the position of the prime tower? about the plugins, a support painting function would be a great improvement. i'm curious to see what else is coming.

i agree, the new profiles with higher speeds are not quite "ready" yet. if we look at the layer adhesion at the higher speeds or how well several outer walls adhere to each other, our first impression is that the material flow and nozzle temperature still need to be adjusted. otherwise, a strong decrease in the strength of the components is to be expected so far. however, the engineering profiles are working very well so far. simply because printing is still slower here. since the profiles only print a little faster here, there are no problems in this respect. due to the quality of life improvements in 5.5, i'm clearly on 5.5 right now, but i'm only using the engineering profiles for the time being. it runs quite reliably with them.

Printed with Tough PLA Black. Here I have the project file. UMS5_BigSpoolHolder_HalterV1_TPLA_test1.3mf

have also found this. Was printing done with the new Balanced profile? I think with the higher speeds there are still slight problems here. In this case, the material at the 0.8mm nozzle does not have enough time to completely close the layers

Yep, apparently there was an error in the printer configurations. Resetting cura fixed the problem. 👍

Most slicers can now import STEP files. Cura still hides this function behind a paywall. Unfortunately, this is another aspect that makes other manufacturers look more advanced.

@MariMakes sure, here you go. As can be seen in the picture, Tough PLA with the Balanced settings was selected for print core 1. However, the object is printed with the settings of PVA Generic, which is deactivated in print core 2. Hence the long print time of over 9 hours. When I tried to print it this way, the S3 also tried to print the Tough PLA with the PVA Generic temperature. The settings here are 1 to 1 reversed. Although 5 outer walls are set, only 2 are printed, because the PVA Generic has only 2 outer walls set. UMS3_Bodenplatte_Bug.3mf

I just noticed that apparently the settings for print core 1 and 2 are reversed on an Ultimaker S3. For example, to edit the speed, fill or skirt settings in print core 1 on an Ultimaker S3, Ultimaker Tough PLA, I need to change the settings for print core 2 (PVA, which is disabled). Changing the settings for print core 1 has no effect on objects printed with print core 1. Can anyone confirm this?

We have had the same experience with other high-speed printers. It is now well known that the faster you print, the less time the layers have to fuse together properly. Nevertheless, the higher printing speeds are welcome for many projects. I think the engineering profiles still have significantly slower speeds. I would also expect this with the according description. That if I need parts for mechanical loads, these are printed accordingly with the best possible accuracy and strength.

@PaulKuiper Thank you for the reply and the test of the retraction settings. The print images shown were printed with an aa0.4 nozzle and the engineering settings, ergo 0.15mm layer height. We print 90% of everything with the engineering profiles. Since visual quality on parts for customers is also very important to us, we may try the profiles for visual quality more often. The CPE roll was dried in a PrintDryPro3 before printing and then stored in the Material Station. Here, I think we are absolutely following Ultimaker's recommended steps. Regarding the comparison with BambuLab: The printing sequence of the walls is not the same even with the "From inside to outside" setting. Enclosed is a print image of a component with 2 outer walls. Here all inner walls are grouped and finally the outer ones. If the distance between the two outer walls is too large (i.e. if the component were larger), there is a retraction between the two red outer walls and there is either a blob or an under-extrusion in the outer wall. The same part in the Bambu Slicer will be printed differently from the wall order. Here, the walls from the Inner Outer Wall are grouped first, then the walls from the Outer Outer Wall. There is no extrusion break between the outer walls, so printing defects due to extrusion irregularities are not visible.

that cura should slice the walls in the same way?

This was all printed Ultimaker-only. Ultimaker with the Cura 5.5 Beta on an Ultimaker S5 Pro Bundle with Ultimaker CPE Yellow. The nozzles are only cleaned occasionally. I could ramp up our maintenance routine and clean the nozzles more frequently and regularly. I will try this and see if the results improve. Thanks for the advice! However, these problems would not occur so dramatically immediately if the order of the walls were the same as with any other manufacturer in the slicer. I had described the exact printing method of BambuLab in the Cura 5.4 post, where the last two outer walls are always printed together without any interruption, which always creates a full material flow in the nozzle. Under-extrusion due to tough material or retraction will not be visible in the outer wall. In my opinion, for the Ultimaker printers by Bowden extruder the best solution...