kayazuki

I'm trying to return to Cura for reasons of (hopefully) better control of preventing the nozzle from crossing through the inner contour of cylindrical objects (I don't want any stringing on the inside of my "tubes", on the outside is not a problem). But I've been using Super Slicer for a long time now (started with Cura) and there is a nice option for this (Walls are Perimeters there): Print Settings > Perimeters & Shell > Quality > Only one perimeter - On first layer [...] On top surfaces [...] That way it'll print one single wall (takes care of ugly edges of line or zigzag solid infill) and then fill up the entire surface with infill. Very neat option which I used a lot, but I can't find a similar "easy" option in Cura. So using a modifier for the top layer indeed appears to be the only way...

Guys, I've discovered that the UBL BL Touch sensor is really not making me very happy. I just can't print decently outside a central box of approx 150x150mm on that 660x660mm alu plate without seeing terrible width variations in the wall thickness. I made and printed a bracket on my Anycubic Mono X resin printer for a micrometer I suddenly realised I still had laying around somewhere. See images. I mounted the thing on the mounting points of the secondary printhead. Then I wrote a simple program to probe 10x10 measure points as close as possible to the UBL pattern (which appears to be 603mm divided over 9 sections resulting in 10 points spaced 67mm). The measurements exactly identify the issues I've been seeing during the prints if I tried to print 3 objects in an area of approx 300x300mm! (All those values should have been the same, but they are far from the same. 50 represents 0.50mm) I'll apply the corrections now and I hope that will make a big difference (finally). Clearly the edge of the alu plate in the back is really out of wack. No idea how or why. It's a little disappointing that the BL Touch allows the UBL mesh to be measured with upto 0.2mm tolerance?! While I print ASA with a layer thickness of 0.3mm (directly on the alu plate btw, using 3DLac with a bad of 100ºC. Sticks great. Pops right off below approx 40ºC, great!). That's a deviation of 66.7%. That's insane, really.. I hope the micrometer adjustments will finally solve this problem. Another btw; In had to place the printer in the garage (no room indoors) and I cannot regulate the temperature there (without going bankrupt). So the machine shrank that much in wintertime that my belts were all pretty loose, resulting in additional printing issues. Time to move and find a bigger place 😉

Recently I was 9hrs down a print (on my Modix Big60 V2) and coincidentally while I was looking at it suddenly made a loud grinding noise from the X-axis motor while it had already started a travel move (moved 2" already of an approx 6" travel move to the next object on the plate). It was pretty much up to speed, but still it stopped suddenly and then continued. It was mid-air, it wasn't touching anything. I was baffled?! The people from Modix say that missing a few steps so now and then can happen always as Open Loop motors basically aren't really the most reliable ones, unless you do all your movements reeallly slow.. Then during a conversation with Modix about tilting issues of the print bed, the guy mentioned that re-adjusting the tilt is actually needed/advised every 1-3 prints?! Reason: Because the Modix uses OPEN LOOP stepper motors..! I had no idea what that meant actually, until I saw this video: I want to try those.

I also don't know why people don't answer to questions.. 😕 A few things I found out recently when trying to print ASA parts on my Big60 V2: - After trying the PEI and then the BuildTak Flex System I can to the conclusion, that -for me- I get the best results using 3DLac directly on the alu print bed with the bed @ 80ºC (or more), 0% cooling fan for large parts and when the parts get significantly smaller in effective XY dimensions somewhere between 50-80% cooling fan (only when the diameter gets small, otherwise it'll warp like crazy. I'm highly surprised how crazy strong that 3DLac holds that ASA down to the alu bed. If you need more sticking power, just increase the bed temperature. And cooling off the bed just leaves the prints sitting completely loose on the bed in the end. I found that I get the best results when I don't use a brim, because the 3DLac sticks so hard that it's not needed and... The part only loosens itself if it's big and especially solid enough, so it can offer enough resistance against the shrinking of the alu plate. A brim just shrinks along with the alu bed and will still stick to the 3DLac pretty much even after the bed cools down. I haven't tried Magigoo. It's said that that will let go completely when cold. But since I only print large enough parts, I don't think I wanna spend that much more for the same effect. Sticking the material to the bed is a first challenge. If you print with "easy" material like PLA, then you don't have to worry much about warping and bed adhesion. Printing on the BuildTak Flex System (or Wham Bam or AliExpress alternatives) works pretty nice. ASA made my BuildTak pull loose from the magnetic base and curl up like crazy. That's why I ended up trying it directly on the alu bed. Hope this info is useful for Modix users.

Don't you have these 3 horizontal stripes to click on? It's under there..

For those that didn't find the solution yet (I assume everybody solved this already, since I'm new here), using Cura 4.6.1 I noticed this comment at the start of each new layer: ;LAYER:0 (etc) So then I used the Post Processing Plugin [Search and Replace] and did this: Search [ ;LAYER: ] Replace [ M117 LAYER: ] Which will just show "LAYER:0", "LAYER:1", "LAYER:2", etc on the display 🙂 Edit 21-07 You can't leave the colon ":" in the line, that does not work, apparently. So it's: Search [ ;LAYER: ] Replace [ M117 LAYER - ] And then it's working great. It shows "LAYER - 13" on my display. Very simple and effective. You know from your slicer how many layers you have in total, so this should provide enough info.

I'm so curious which super knowledgable person can answer this one! See image; I have the same Cura installed on my Macbook Pro and on my Mac Pro.. I may have started from 2 different default profiles (I don't remember), but as Category selection, I've selected "All" on both machines. I have compared ALL the settings and all settings and values are IDENTICAL. Also the 3 post processing plugins are identical and setup identical. I've also installed the Linear Advance plugin on both programs, with the same values. Printer settings, Extruder settings, material settings: EVERYTHING is the same!! But in one program I get this strange messed up "connected" version of the concentric initial layer bottom pattern. In the other I get a "normal" "real"concentric pattern (which I'm looking for).. Who knows what setting is causing that strange "connected" concentric pattern??? I'm completely lost..

I don't think you've provided enough info to answer your question 😕 It would if you'd upload the 3D CAD file and an export of your project file of Cura as a *.3mf or *.ufp file. Then someone else could load the files and analyse what might be the problem.

Hi all, Is it correct/normal that Coasting only works above the Initial layer when you give a value >0 for Outer Wall Wipe Distance?? I thought I was completely silly, by printing a single wall test ring, just to tune the Coasting feature, constantly increasing the value of it. And then I noticed the increasing gap in the Initial Layer, but above that nothing. I also noticed it in Cura after slicing, but I hoped that was just a graphical bug. That's a little bug, right? By the way, for anyone who also ends up with some irritating little piece of filament that just always flips sideways to the nozzle at the start of the brim/skirt, and some poor priming, this is how I solved that perfectly (when always printing the same objects) on my Modix Big60: M104 S250 ; Start heating the nozzle, without waiting G28 ; Home all axes G0 X0 Y15 Z30 F7200 ; Move to front edge and bed 60mm down G0 Z45 ; Creating enough space for the messing brush to clean the nozzle super clean if needed G92 E0 ; Zero the extruded length M109 S250 ; Really wait for the nozzle to reach the right temperature G1 E10 F1500 ; Extrude 10 mm of filament to prime the nozzle good G1 E-1.5 ; Retract filament 1.5mm to reduce oozing M0 Click to continue.. ; Wait till a button is clicked in case some extra cleaning is needed G0 X265 Y220 Z2 F7200 E-0.5 ; Move somewhere close but outside the brim/skirt G1 Z0.3 F1800 ; Lower the nozzle straight down to printing height G1 E2.2 F600 ; Extrude to make a good blob that sticks well to the amount that might have already oozed out M0 S2 ; Wait 2 seconds to stick well to the bed G1 X265 Y240 E4 F600 ; extrude a fat line (1.6mm approx) to leave the bad start behind This leaves my nozzle 100% clean at each start. Maybe useful for someone..

Thanks GregValiant! I'll try that. Someone also mentioned the extension "Modify G-code", or is that the same thing?

Hi nitro2k01, Thanks, I only referred to the flex plate to indicate I just want to just peel off the product, but in the mean time i indeed want the hotend to stay warm, because peeling off doesn't take a long time with that flex plate. The bed stays 105-110ºC all the time to make that BuildTak FlexPlate stick good. I'm still experimenting, trying to see what temperature would provide good adhesion with ASA without the need to apply any extra glue (to try to work cleaner), as I'm not sure if applying glue would give me more misery than help concerning collection of dirt/dust particles over time in that sticky layer. Thanks for the Modify G-code extension, i'll try that sounds great! It'd be easier for some purposes if the End Code field would just really display all end code.. Maybe with the final M104 S0 code in some separate final safety field, with a checkbox that you must explicitly turn off (with extra warning + confirmation) so you really know what you're doing, etc..

Any idea how you can prevent Cura from adding a forced temperature shutdown right after the custom end code where I'm trying to set the nozzle temp to a holding temp of 190ºC while I swap the flex plate for the next test print or product..? Or can that only be removed manually..? I put this: M104 S190 ; set holding temp but it's just putting this right after that: M104 S0 ;End of Gcode 😕

Nice for that beginning code, thanks! Do you also know how you can prevent Cura from placing M104 temperature instructions at the END of the gcode, after the custom part?? I'm trying prefer to have my holding temperature for ASA at 190ºC while I'm peeling of my products from the magnetic flex plate, so it doesn't cool off too much. But as you can see, after my code, it just forces the temperature to 0 anyhow. Any tips to prevent that from happening? Thanks!

Wow, I tried this twice now, both with Burtoogle's version and the official 4.6.0 versio of Cura and when i try to apply the profile it tells me "Not supported" and when I go to the Profiles Manager and click on the imported profile, Cura instantly crashes. I've sent both crash reports, but this way isn't working for me on my Mac Pro 😞

Yup! For SW you should also click Save As, choose type STL, then left bottom set the options to pretty fine resolution. Then it will look best in the slicer.

Hi simaomanoel, When I see you mentioning that your object is 150x25x5 mm and that your SW infill is 0.39g, then I'm starting to guess that you made that infill 0.1mm in all directions...? With a very goo, well calibrated FDM printer you may manage to print layers of 0.1mm high, but to get the wall thickness to be so enormously thin, you'd have to use an air-brush head of 0.05mm (or 0.1mm max) as a nozzle, otherwise you could never create such thin walls. I'm curious: What nozzle size do you use? If you're trying to print such very thin walls with a nozzle that's simply too big, then I guess that's the reason Cura discards such super thin walls, because they can't be printed anyway. If you want to print such ultra fine features, maybe it's better to print them on a UV resin SLA/DLP printer..?

How thick is the infill you created? I noticed that when I create things that are much thinner than the nozzle width, they just disappear in Cura.. Or; if I created some track of 0.6mm width, that it creates a really ugly stutter-path if I set the line width also to exactly 0.6mm, while setting the line width to 0.61mm then instead in Cura, the path smoothens out completely. Not very clear to me why that is, but details like that may have a connection with this maybe? Maybe an idea to show a screenshot of the pattern you created, plus a mentioning of the wall thickness of it and your set wall thickness in Cura?

Hi all, I need to print tubular products that have a need for a higher detail at certain elevations, while all other sections may be printed at a more rough setting. Simplfy3D seems to allow splitting of the object in Z-sections where you can then alter any settings you want, like the wall thicknesses, etc? I didn't buy S3D, I have this info from reading and watching YouTube. I have now done a test by splitting a tubular shape in 2 sections. I turned off the "drop to build plate" option and stacked the 2 items on top of each other. Then, using the "Per model settings" I see I can change the wall thicknesses of Outer and Inner, so that gets me closer to the goal.. But there is no way to adjust the layer height there or switch on the Adaptive Layer Height from those points. I'm getting a more detailed/defined result applying these tricks already, so that's ok, but it's really quite complex to chop up my product in the required heights as separate 3D parts. It can be done, but it's not ideal. Is there ANY way that all this could be done easier in Cura (or any other slicer)? So, to create some height-management list that allows entries like: - [From layer .. to .. (or height .. mm to .. mm] - [Use Layer Height .. mm] or: [ Use Adaptive Layer Height (set base height + tolerance)] - [Use Outer/Inner layer widths: .. / .. mm ] I'm new at all this but so far I really like Burtoogles version of Cura and would prefer to stick to Cura. But it's really hard to have more controle over how detailed which section would be printed. I'd like to turn Adaptive Layer height on and off for certain Z-sections, for instance..

I once set my STL resolution quite high, thinking I'd need such detail, but recently i realised that just gives enormously large files and maybe such mesh details also upsets a slicer more than needed also..? Are you saving your STLs with very high detail?

Sorry, I was sort of continuing my own conversation which I had going on with burtoogle on the first page of the topic. I installed his modified version of Cura and found better results (I also had the weirdest artifacts, more inside the model though). Have you tried the "Maximum Resolution" feature to see if that changes something? Try increating that to 1.0 and see what happens? I tried that one and it improved the situation in the official UM Cura. On the previous page you can find burtoogles version of Cura, which didn't give me those artifacts. Have you tried that version too?

I just sliced the same object, scaled to 75% in both the Official 4.6.0 Cura version and burtoogle's version #20200424 and.... Look at the differences. The top left/right images compare the slicing of a stupid simple cylinder. Below that a tube + flange. While slicing the cylinder, it seemed like burtoogle's version was a lot faster. I thought I was dreaming, or that the simplicity of the tiny object might show a wrong comparison, so I fed it a more complex shape (see 2nd row of images). I then timed both Cura versions and.... Well.. Look at the difference in slicing time???!!! 41sec for the original Cura (left) and 20sec for burtoogle's version! 🤪 How did you do that burtoogle??? This is bizarre?!

Yea I got that 20200424 release, thanks. Btw, do you know if this is wise to utilise and what exactly is the definition of "just before the end"...? Is that like the last 25mm of printing? Or the last 12 minutes? Without knowing that, the only thing I can think of is that printing with a colder temperature might lead to poorer adhesion..? And another thing; Is G90 not mentioned (I can also not find that the the complete generated G-code) because Absolute Positioning is default..?

Hi all, I also bought a Modix Big60 v2, in november 2019. I'm situated in Belgium. I just didn't get around to build it up till about 3 weeks ago 🤦‍♂️ @chucktaggart; Are you saying you took out the individual bearing balls from the cartridges and put new ceramic ones in there?? Can you provide some info on how you did and where you bought those replacement parts? I'm trying to understand how those steel bearing balls would be so poorly sized that they would allow so much motion that you'd have side shifting from that? I personally also don't like the method of belt tensioning they chose. Especially for the front+back X-axes. Loosening the bracket and having those brackets "float" from the 40x40 profile to facilitate the right tension?? 😕 I think I should try to create (or find) some kind of sleigh tensioned by a screw and/or some heavy spring or something.. Did you guys change anything there? Hope to hear from you chucktaggart, thanks in advance! 🙂

Hmm, I wanted to try your version so enthusiastically burtoogle, that I forgot I was stupid enough to run the app straight from the .dmg image.. There were no [Update Firmware] and [Machine Settings] buttons for the printer (so I guess it was very stuck on the default 2.85mm). I properly copied it to the Applications folder and now I can indeed just change the [Compatible material diameter].. Silly me.. Sorry for wasting your time!

Hey Burtoogle, In your version, there is absolutely no way that I can define or create any material with a filament diameter of 1.75mm. Would you happen to know why? Even creating duplicates and manually entering 1.75mm does not work. Upon exiting the screen, I see the new material briefly appear, before it vanishes all automagically. Any idea?? Thank in advance..