GregValiant

Zooming into your images I believe that Extruder 1 is really under-extruding the black. Your Top/Bottom flow is at 97%. I believe the under-extrusion is much higher than 3%. You might not be getting enough squish. It's an S5 so @gr5 or @Smithy may have ideas?

Cura contributor @ahoeben put The Replacement Patterns list together. I don't see Max's and Min's for the build plate footprint of the actual print. They do show up in a gcode file. Maybe there is a way to extract the info with your plugin? This is from the beginning of a Cura gcode file... ;MINX:51 ;MINY:51 ;MINZ:0.2 ;MAXX:179 ;MAXY:179 ;MAXZ:60.112 IF the keywords exist then you would end up with something like this in your StartUp Gcode: MESH_CONFIG X0={MINX} Y0={MINY} X1={MAXX} Y1={MAXY} Using the example numbers from above that would result in... MESH_CONFIG X0=51 Y0=51 X1=179 Y1=179 in the actual Gcode file.

Now I know. I was thinking I could order a Cheese Dutch instead of a Cheese Danish. If there is pain involved then I'll pass. And now back to the Alta. @nellie is that working well for you? It seems like a normal start. The purge line is an arc but that is expected given that you have an elliptical bed. The "Print Head" settings and the "Gantry Height" could be changed. When measuring for those numbers the centerline of the nozzle is the origin. An "X" dimension to the left of the nozzle is a negative number and would be the "X Min". A "Y" dimension in front of the nozzle is also a negative number and would be the "Y Min". Since you don't really have a gantry you can set the Gantry Height to the Max Z of the printer (which looks to be 130). The Print Head settings are used by Cura when you select the "Special Modes / One at a Time" option. Cura can tell if your models are too close together (might crash with the print head when the next model is printing) or if the models are too tall and would hit the gantry when another model is printed. Having the Gantry Height set to 0 means that you cannot use "One at a Time" as any model would be taller than zero.

There is a chance that you already have a hardware problem. If the thermistors for the bed and/or hot end have gotten "iffy" then they may not be sending the correct signal to the mainboard.

stroopwafel, (Dutch: “syrup waffle”) a popular Dutch treat similar to a cookie, featuring two thin wafflelike wafers with a sweet filling. was first made in Gouda, Netherlands, possibly in the late 18th century. Yes @ahoeben, I was forced to look it up. This leads to this mornings questions: 1.) Which came first - the city or the cheese? 2.) Does the name change if I fill my stroopwafel with gouda? (OK we can go back to talking about Alta's now.)

If you are confident that the printer is assembled as good as it can be, with all 3 axes at exactly 90° to each other then it's time to calibrate the E-steps. That will insure that when the printer is asked to extrude 100mm of filament that exactly 100mm of filament comes out of the extruder. When the ratio of "Volume of Filament In" is exactly equal to the "Volume of the Extrusion Out" then the flow is 100%. There are lots of YouTube videos on how to do it. The second thing is to measure the filament diameter. Just because it says "1.75" on the package doesn't mean it's exactly 1.75. Cura needs to know the exact diameter so it can do the calculations regarding Volume of Material. The diameter cannot be changed on standard materials in Cura so you need to copy one and make a custom material. Then you can change the diameter. My Matter Hacker PLA is actually 1.72 diameter. If I were to leave Cura at 1.75 then I would have a built in under-extrusion of 4%. When those calibrations are done and the bed is leveled correctly then the material will have good squish to the bed and should stick. If it doesn't then we can talk about other things like increasing the Initial Layer Flow in Cura.

@javmaster - What did you use the "calibration cube" for? Did it happen to be to calibrate flow?

There are no "Z" moves within the area of the pause in that gcode file you posted. None. I think there should be some but there aren't any. There is no "park" move either. It's possible that using M25 for the pause is causing a problem within the printer firmware. The fact that you also have M0 in there may be a problem and the double commands are causing a glitch in the firmware. The problem is not within that gcode. Here is a gcode file with an M25 pause at layer 5. There are no bottom skins so it should print quickly. X-Y Ref Block.gcode

That is a general observation since for most machines it's a viable alternative to Cura's USB Printing. Questions about the DaVinci's come up here every once in a while and I tried to do some research to try to help. It was like pulling teeth trying to find anything useful though.

I can't get it to work in 4.13.1 either. It does work in the SmartAvionics fork of Cura. Set the blocker to "cutting mesh" with a wall count, no top or bottom and set it to Extruder 2. In an oddity - I saved the project in the SmartAvionics Master version and opened it in UM 4.13.1 and it worked. The outer walls were assigned to T1 (Extruder 2).

Well there ya go. Happy printing. If you have an ABL system there is a minor change you can make to the StartUp Gcode that will keep the hot end from drooling all over the build plate during probing. Since you changed the hot end and thermistor have you run Auto-Tune (M303) to adjust the PID setting? If the PID numbers are off then the hot end temperature can bounce around instead of staying right at the set temperature.

Another thing...With the "Disarm Timeout" set to "0" then the printer will fall back to the firmware setting. I'm not familiar with the Jyers firmware but the stock Ender is 120 seconds until the steppers disable. If it is taking you longer than 2 minutes to insert the magnets then that could be a definite problem. The maximum you can put in the box is 1800. That is in seconds and so you would have 30 minutes to complete your task. On what may be another topic - your "Home All" numbers seem odd to me. When I use the Auto-Home (stock Ender 3 Pro firmware) and the print head is up against the X, Y, and Z end-stop switches then the location of the nozzle is displayed as X0 Y-5 Z0. Those are exactly my Home Offset numbers. The Auto-Home location is measured from the Home Offset 0,0,0. So maybe @gr5 has it right that you are having issues with the Z, or possibly the steppers are disabling, losing position, and resuming incorrectly. That gcode certainly is not telling the print head to move up from what should be the printing height of the next layer (4.36).

"...go to "Prepare" and move Z from 5 to 0 (because somehow everytime I canceled the print the value became 5)" When you Auto-Home the printer what does the LCD show for the X, Y, and Z locations? Looking through that gcode I see differences between what you have there and what I normally see in the pause area of a gcode file. The printer moves to Z4.36 which is the correct print height for layer 26. The final location before the pause is "G0 X187.989 Y174.8" at a Z of 4.36. That is the location of the nozzle when the print pauses and there are no further movements until extrusion resumes and goes to "G1 F2400 X32.011 Y174.8 E1549.92737" with the Z still at 4.36. That looks correct. In my pause code I always see a Z movement, then a move to a Park Position. After the pause there is a movement to the "resume position" and then the Z drops to the resume height, there may be an un-retraction, and then extrusion resumes. Your gcode file is missing all of that.

Just turn the Fahrenheit part of your brain off and use °C. It's just a number you plug in and doesn't change much unless you change material. Same with the bed temperature. When you design models you can design in English units (they call them Barbarian units around here) and scale the models by 2540% in Cura. I've been designing in Metric units for a long time and it just doesn't matter which one you use. You have enough printing experience now that the requirements of models (for support, infill density, number of walls required, etc.) should be starting to become apparent just by looking at the preview. Fusion 360 is a popular choice as a design software. I was a CAD designer for years using AutoCAD and Mechanical Desktop (precursor to Inventor) so I am most familiar with the AutoDesk products. Whether you have access to another high-end software or go with a freeware package is your choice. Knowing how to design your own models and/or modify existing STL files (Blender, MS 3D Builder, etc) is a real plus. More learning curve though.

I did not include nozzles because they should already be in place. The "creality_base.def.json" file describes the nozzle variants. Did you try changing the Settings Profile and/or the Material to see if the nozzle sizes become available?

It is good to have a plan. Whether you are going to make prototype parts for a company, functional pieces for yourself, or art pieces that you will paint or otherwise finish, the learning curve is not an easy one. Here is a little list. Make sure the printer is assembled as accurately as you can get it. Do not assume that just because some parts may have been assembled by the factory that they were assembled correctly. The X Y and Z must all be exactly 90° to each other. Get out some tools (like a carpenters tri-square) and check them. All the trolley wheels must be adjusted correctly. You should just be able to turn them with your fingers. The belts are adjusted correctly. They should twang like the strings of a bass guitar. The cables going to the hot end and the extruder are supported and out of the way. There is no wobble in the X beam or the print head. All the screws have been checked for tightness. The end of the bowden tube is cut at exactly 90° and is butted up against the back end of the nozzle. Calibrate the E-steps. There are lots of videos on how to do that. Measure the filament and get the exact diameter and enter it into Cura in the material settings. If you need to make a custom material in order to make a change to the diameter then do it. The E-steps and the filament diameter are the main ingredients used by Cura to calculate the amount of filament to push in order to make an extrusion. The first layer is extremely important. It is the base for everything that gets added above. Whether you have an ABL or level with a piece of paper - a properly "leveled" build plate is a must. If the first layer doesn't stick then you won't be having any fun. I manually level with a piece of paper and it is not difficult but it is a practiced art. Start with simple models. Do not decide to print some gigantic monster with a sword that needs all kinds of supports as your first print. The 3D benchy is good. Calibration cubes are good. I am attaching a couple of models that I designed as calibrations for users. You can scale them in Cura to make them smaller if you like and print them with different settings and see what works for your machine. The ShapeA file can be printed in Vase mode (Spiralize Outer Contour). The ShapeH file uses supports and they are not impossible to remove but you will need to think about it. I've typed enough for now. GV_CalibrationShapeA.stl GV_CalibrationShapeH.stl

Hello. @Hekusen are you using Pause At Height with "By Height" or "By Layer Number"? There is a known glitch when using "By Height" and there are Z-hops in the file (or if you are using Adaptive Layers). Cura reacts to the last Z it sees before the pause and if that was a Z-hop (or an odd adaptive layer height) then the resume height can be wrong by the Z-hop height. Have you opened a gcode file to check what's going on with the Z around the pause? If you search for "M0" (or whatever pause command you are using) it should jump right there. From the point of the pause - search for " Z" (space Z). Each Z value should be near the print height, and then finally it should drop to the print height and the extrusions will start again. That's the plan anyway. You could post a gcode file that exhibited the problem as well. I have an Ender 3 Pro and PauseAtHeight is one of my most used plugins. I've never had a problem with the resume height. As a rule - the printer goes where it's told.

What material were you thinking of using? PLA is very rigid but when it warms up it will deform. PETG is more compliant but has better heat deformation resistance. I have managed to run over a print with my car. It had single line infill at around 10% and it was fine. If it would have been larger so that there was more distance between the walls then the upper layers may have crushed. There have been a couple of posters here who were involved in some FEA analysis of FDM prints. They asked a couple of questions and were gone. I've never seen any results from an analysis of that type. Overall strength in compression is actually pretty good. It depends on the shape of the model and the force loading to know how it will hold up. A compression load on a screw connection is another story. Cold flow deformation at the screw head and at the face of the nut will cause the connection to loosen. That will happen every time with either PLA or PETG. The warmer the environment the worse the condition and the quicker the failure. Overall strength in tension is not good. The layer adhesion is the main weak point and so in that case more walls can't hurt. If there is a twisting moment in the loading so that one side of a model is in tension and the other side in compression then the layers will fail do to the tension before the compressed side fails. If you do a search for FEA (Finite Element Analysis) of FDM models maybe something will come up that you can use.

Or maybe just update the video drivers. It can be a bit of a search nightmare to chase down the correct drivers and make sure that they include support for OGL 4.1 but it would be easier and cheaper than adding a new card.

To use the full fancy preview Cura requires that your video system has OpenGL 4.1 drivers loaded. If it doesn't, then Cura reverts to "compability mode". That's where I am with this laptop as I cannot update past OpenGL 4.0. If the computer has dual video systems (like an onboard Intel Graphics and a separate dedicated graphics card) then you may be able to inform the computer that Cura should use the dedicated video card. There is a setting in Preferences/Configure Cura on the General tab and Viewport behavior for Force Layer View Compatibility Mode. You can turn that off, but if the computer doesn't support OpenGL 4.1 then the setting doesn't do anything.

I thought I'd take a closer look at your Shelf5 model as something seemed "off". There is a gap between the ribs and the wall. Cura will see it and you won't get good adhesion because there will be outer walls facing each other across the gap. Here at the other end of the rib, the tail of the rib isn't even with the back of the angle plate. Adding some dimensions shows up what may be other problems (unless this is exactly how you wanted the model to be). The cyan lines are square to the world. If the model isn't accurate then the print won't be accurate. Things like the gap between the rib and the wall will show up in the preview and in the print. That gap will make the part weak. All those slight angles will not be noticeable in the preview but will certainly be present in the print. Any slicer can only deal with the model that is opened. "That's how it is so that must be what they want." is the mantra. Having software decide "That can't be right - I'll make an adjustment and won't tell anybody." is always a bad idea.

Ah. The little step. Well it doesn't appear to be a whole belt-tooth off so I think if the belts are properly mounted (I've seen them installed upside-down) they can be eliminated as a cause. Your Print Speed, Accel, and Jerk settings are not overly aggressive. Make sure that the brass ferrules that secure the belt ends are tight against the brackets where the belt passes through the slot. If there is a gap between the ferrule and the slot (the belt fits into) then stopping and starting can cause the belt to pull out that slop and loosen the belt. Eventually that condition fixes itself as the ferrule works it's way up against the bracket. You should be able to just turn any trolley wheel with your fingers. There should be friction with the wheel slot, but the wheels should not be "locked down" tight. The hot end has to be tight to it's mount and needs to be perpendicular to the build plate. When you put one finger under the right end of the X beam and gently try to move it up - there shouldn't be any movement. When you grab the print head and try to rotate it in any direction there should be no wobble or movement.

A search for "free stl files" will turn up other sites. Thingiverse has a lot of stuff and a fair percentage is for people to bling their printers. On the surface, some of that stuff seems...silly?...dumb?...useless? But you are getting good practice at making things and so I think they serve a larger purpose as learning tools. One of my favorite downloads (I ended up designing my own) are the covers for the unused wheel slots in the aluminum frame of the printer. Specifically, the ones below the Auto-Home position of the nozzle. I was always picking stray pieces and wisps of filament out of those slots until I covered them. It is easier to clean up the machine now. I am the proud designer of the #1 totally most useless "upgrade" you can make to an Ender 3 Pro. I have it posted on Thingiverse. Folks learn something about "removing supports" from this bad boy. The effect on the actual print quality of the printer is hard to qualify, but I suspect most people would see a huge amount of not much difference.

Congratulations. Most FDM machines are very accurate. Overall dimensions and any hole locations are usually spot-on. Small holes may need help from "Hole Horizontal Expansion" but that setting can have un-anticipated consequences and the word "hole" has an odd definition in Cura. A pin chuck is your friend - I just hand drill small holes to size. Precision on the CAD side and having the STL translator set to a high resolution are keys to a good model that will in turn give you a good print.

I'm not convinced that is a layer shift. Zooming into the image - there appears to be walls between the areas of skin. It looks like (in that image) that the model is made that way. But opening the 3mf file and the gcode I don't see that offset/shift looking area in either of them. Here is a zoom view. Those look like "wall" features to me. The skin on both sides clearly stop at that dividing line. I'm not sure what's up with that. The model is a basic rectangle with a slot and some lettering. Your speed, accel, and jerk settings are quite normal and I wouldn't expect a layer shift provided the belts are tight (and that they aren't upside down - been known to happen!)