GregValiant

Yes, this is where you come to show off what you came up with. I can't use your slippers though. I had the opposite problem. I have a shelf built on a slight angle that is mounted to my printer stand. The laptop kept wanting to slide off so I printed "anti-dance" keepers so it wouldn't hit the floor.

On the red piece I see that at around layer 15 there was a slight problem, at the visible defect the problem was major, and above the major problem there is another layer that shows the minor defect again. Since they don't appear to be at regular intervals (Z binding or junk on the Z wheels or something else mechanical) then it would appear that something is intermittently affecting the extrusion. The Enders (I have a 3 Pro) and CR-10's share the same model hot ends and it's often a partial clog at the bottom of the bowden tube where it is supposed to provide a seal against the top of the nozzle. If a gap develops there (and it will over time) then longish retractions can pull molten material into the gap between the tube and the nozzle end. That material in the gap can cause a partial blockage resultant in intermittent flow. Fixing the problem requires warming up the hot end, taking the nozzle off, pulling out the bowden tube, passing a piece of correctly sized wire (I found a coat hanger that worked) through the hot end to push out the plug of plastic, and trimming off 5 or 6mm of the bowden tube. The cut on the end of the bowden tube needs to be as exactly square as you can make it. When re-assembling the hot end - leave the nozzle loose by 1/2 turn, shove the bowden tube back in down to the nozzle, put the lock clip on the tube fitting, and then do a final tighten on the nozzle. The hot end needs to be hot during that. The problem could also be a fluctuation in the temperature, but that doesn't happen very often. If you have a stock Creality extruder that is constructed of plastic then pull the pressure arm off and look at it's bottom side. Those arms WILL crack and fail at some point. The fix for that is an aluminum extruder.

@VladimirK I viewed the gcode file you provided. Without a project file it's tough to determine, but IF you have Normal support and IF it's set to Build Plate Only then that short piece of support that goes nowhere MAY be the beginning of a support for the roof of the horizontal hole (which is where any support blocker should be placed), or there MAY be an issue with the model and Cura is being fooled. As @ahoeben says, it's tough to provide support or to give advice if the posters themselves don't provide enough information to troubleshoot a problem. If the problem is something within Cura then those people involved in the development want to know what is going on so they can fix it. They need a proper trail to follow in order to reproduce a problem and it's really up to the posters (both here and on Github) to provide that trail.

I've never been up close to one but with my E3Pro shimming is pretty easy. The Z motor was holding the Z rod out of alignment. It required .024" of shim to get it to line up. The Y beam (assembled by the factory) was angled to both the X and Z. That just required some screws to be loosened and the adjustments made. Your frame is much more elaborate but you are getting a handle on where the issues are. Pieces of paper can be used as shims. The Chinese have talked about going to the moon. Unless they have someone else build the equipment I don't see them making it. Their QC seems to be defined in two words..."close enough".

The flaw may have been a random blob that came off the nozzle. No way to tell really. The way the print ran for the rest of it I'm guessing it had to be something like that because 99.99% of it looks really good. I think there is a way to export settings but it's something I've never used. In the Marketplace there is a plugin called "Export HTML Cura Settings". You will have to play with it. Maybe @gr5 or @tinkergnome can help with that. Out of curiosity - how are you feeling about that Ender 6 today?

Got it. When you print it with a conventional single wall you tell Cura the wall thickness. Cura calculates the wall thickness by a dimension that is perpendicular to the surface of the wall. It will then call for more plastic to maintain that wall thickness. In the case of the ornament - around layer 28 Cura starts adding movements to extrude material where the wall needs to be thicker. Cura defines those movements as "skin" rather than "inner-walls" but the effect is the same as a wall. Those movements max out at about layer 260 (where it is printing at a full 60mm/sec) and then disappear as the walls get near vertical. That's normal behavior but increases the print time from my spiral slice at 6303 seconds (1:45) to your normal slice at 13729 seconds (3:45). That might be what you are seeing in your print. There is more material where you see that pattern in the finished print and the gold is slightly translucent. The 3mf file below has been sliced in Normal fashion with a single wall, no top and no bottom, with a support blocker configured as an "infill mesh" with the Bottom Layers set to 4. You will see that the print time is down to 1:45 and that the entire model has a single thickness all the way up. GV_Ornament_thin_normal.3mf

@geert_2 might have a take on that. It appears to have happened during the widest area and that would have been the fastest area too. What temperature did you print at? I just re-read your post. In vase mode that file took 1hr 45min for me to print. Post the gcode file you printed please. I'll take a look at that. This is the file I sliced and printed. It should print on your machine if you want to give it a shot. The first 20 or 25 layers should give you an idea on how it's running. GV_Ornament.gcode

Wire Arc Additive Manufacturing patented in 1920? I've never heard of it but most of my work was spent designing spot welding machines for the automotive industry. There were a few simple MIG welders involved but my end was designing the holding and clamping fixtures for those. Overlap setting...I don't believe so. BUT the wire system can do an overlap independent of the gcode? The Line Width setting is also the index distance between two movements on a skin, wall, or any move where an extrusion goes down next to a previous extrusion. If you were to set it to 1mm and the weld bead was 2mm wide then you would have an overlap of .5mm on either side? Within the Top/Bottom settings is an Overlap setting for skin to walls. I think it always refers to the inner most wall. The weld start might be problematic if you need to dip the gun to strike an arc. Stop might have the same problem. Some firmware allows for a call to an outside gcode file using M32. You might be able to set up Start and Stop scripts that would be called when needed. Cura is not capable of following a path that requires Z movement so any angled weld surface or curves that rise and fall would need something different. Also in regards to start and stop - the Laser Etcher crowd makes do somehow. On and off on retraction and prime or something? Dunno. Much time has passed since I worked with them but the robotic MIG welders back in the day were often programmed via a pendant. The operator would simply move the gun around and the system would remember the path. Maybe it's gone beyond that now and someone may have came up with software to do it ahead of time?

I opened the file and sliced it. Spiralize was turned off. The model sliced fine. I turned Spiralize on and again, the model sliced as expected. Sorry @kimura but I can't reproduce the problem. Maybe it's your installation of 4.11??? This is as downloaded and there was concentric infill: This is with spiral turned on

Well, that would do it.

"...Just not too happy with this ender-6 right now." My Ender 3 Pro is 2 years old now. It is much better now than when it was new. Mostly because all the weaknesses have showed up and been addressed. New fans, all metal hot end, it's on it's 3rd mainboard, glass build surface, aluminum extruder, 5015 cooling fan, and the operator now has some idea of what he's doing. That last item is the most important part. The learning curve on these can be steep. Cura is not simple software to get to know. At least a rudimentary knowledge of Gcode is required. If you want to design you own things there is another piece of complicated software involved. The first thing though...do not assume that anything on the machine was assembled correctly. Get out your carpenters tri-square and a straight edge and go over the frame and make sure that the three axes are perpendicular to each other. Check that all the wheels provide good contact with the beams so nothing shakes, rattles or wobbles and the belts are tight. Check all the screws for tightness and that includes the hot end mount. I know these are cheap machines (that's why I bought one) but all the parts are there and they fit together (more or less). Your first job is to tune the frame, belts, running gear, etc. to give it a good shot at making quality prints. Mine runs well on large rectangular models and PLA up to about 125mm/sec at Accel 2000 and Jerk 20. On circular models - above 60mm/sec starts causing herky-jerky movement even with the Accel at 500. I started a 14 hour rectangular print 3 hours ago with PETG which I print at 35mm/sec with the Accel and Jerk at 2000 and 20. It isn't fast, but on my printer PETG goes down very well and with good accuracy at that speed. I recall that you had your speed set to 80 for that ornament. If you want to run hard like that you really need to know how to tune a slice, and the machine needs to be well tuned. After a while you will recognize what to do with a particular model. Here is an app I wrote to talk to the printer. It's kind of like Pronterface but it does not send a gcode file to the printer. Instead, it controls printing from the SD card by sending gcode commands to the printer. It doesn't have a digital signature (which I would have to pay for) so if you install it you would probably need to explain to your anti-virus why you think it's OK. I humbly call it Greg's Toolbox. The reason I'm passing it along is so you will have ANOTHER piece of software to learn.

I can't reproduce the problem. When I slice either file at any percentage of infill the infill shows up. I notice that you have "Gradual Infill Steps" set to 5 and the step height to 1.5. The benchy doesn't have a lot of headroom in the basement so the infill is very sparse for the first few layers. This is the second file sliced at 50% infill, Gradual Infill Steps at 5 and step height at 1.5. You can see that the bow area doesn't show any infill. It's because the threshold determined by Gradual Infill steps and the Step Height has kept it from forming. The only change I made for this one is Gradual Infill Steps set to 0.

With the model loaded and Cura setup and ready to slice - use the "File | Save Project" command to create a 3mf file. It will include the model and your printer and your settings. Post the 3mf file here and someone will take a look.

Pull off the build surface with the print on it and put it in the refrigerator for 15 or 20 minutes. If you don't want the down time then purchase another build surface so you have a spare to put in right away. The difference in the coefficient of expansion of the build surface vs the PLA is enough that the prints usually pop off. A little tap with a spatula or small putty knife at the base of the print can help to persuade it.

"when I had the "Remove all holes" On it fixed the problem." Sorry @Smggems, I was referring to AFTER that print. Many people forget that they turned it on and the next model they slice has issues.

At the top of the Cura settings area is the Settings Search box. Just to the right of that is an icon with 3 lines on it. It's the Settings Visibility tool. Click on it and select "All". Every model has it's own requirements. Some require support, maybe tree support is better for that model. Some are basic rectangles and can be printed at 80mm/sec at high Accel and Jerk. Models with a lot of curves print better at slower speeds and lower Accel and Jerk. For every different model, I go through ALL the settings to customize Cura for the particular model. Attention to detail before you start squirting plastic makes for a much smoother experience and a lot less scrap. A lot of people like to bling their printers with different sorts of plastic parts (I'm one of them). 99% of those parts are solutions to problems that don't really exist, but you are slicing, printing, and gaining experience along the way. I don't consider any printed part to be art (the art is in the model design and the post-processing), but I think slicing a model could be considered an art. There is a lot to think about to get it right, and how a person decides to set up the slice can make a huge difference in the quality of the print. Here is the air inlet for my power supply fan. I mean really...was this necessary? I learned quite a bit about support (and how to remove it) from this dumb thing so it had value to me, but really....

Everything runs in streaks around here. When everything is a curve (and she is very curvy) then a high resolution model has a lot of triangles that make up the surfaces. Too many very short line segments cause problems for the printer-processor and it can't keep up. Every time it takes an extra split second to figure out the the next move the print head hesitates and leaves a tiny blob. In the Mesh Fixes section of Cura's settings is one for Maximum Resolution. If you dial that up to 0.5 or 0.6 it will adjust the line segments so they are longer. That will take the pressure off the printer-processor. You didn't mention your Accel and Jerk settings or your print speed. Slow is good for quality as is Accel at around 500 and Jerk at 8. Another problem with curvy or round objects is where to put the Z seam. Those lines on the right side might be the Z seam, but the other little random blobs are likely caused by of the high resolution of the model.

I responded to your post on reddit as well. It's as Tinkergnome said. The high resolution is causing stuttering. The 2500 Accel setting and the 80mm/sec print speed is causing issues as well as the printer is struggling to read all the gcode and the buffer is running dry causing the printer to have to wait for another instruction to show up. I started to print your gcode file and made it about 150 layers before aborting it. It did not look good as there were a lot of surface defects. The one on the left is my slice at 75mm/sec and 500 Accel 8 Jerk. Print time was 1:45. The yellow circles are surface defects from the nozzle hesitating. I cut the feedrate to 70% (at about the red line) and it finished really well. (I cut it off in the image but the point printed quite well too.) Here the gold one is at 35mm/sec, Maximum Resolution at 0.5, and I cut the temperature down to 200 at layer 435 to help the top, but really, the blue one came out pretty good at 210 all the way up. (I had to print it in gold because the wife walked by while I was printing the blue one. "That won't match"..."What color would you like dear?")

He has Coasting enabled. The gap is the coasting move and since there is no extrusion along that path the preview just shows as a travel move along there. I suppose technically it is, but it will print. It is a pretty long coasting move though. I don't care for coasting. It seems like there is always an under-extrusion at the start of the next extrusion.

I had this problem. By changing the name of my printer to a custom name (mine happens to be Greg's Ender 3 Pro) it seemed to resolve itself. I have about 8 printers installed in Cura as I do open a lot of other peoples 3mf files. If the 3mf file was created with an Ender 3 Pro active then I am prompted to "Update" a second Ender 3 Pro I have installed just to catch that. It never asks to update the "Greg's Ender 3 Pro" printer that I have configured for myself. I always double check though and if it were to try to "update" my printer then I select "Install a new Printer" instead. I do go through and clean them out once in a while.

OK @CarloK I don't know that I understand any better but I'll this a shot. The OBJ file is just a model and it would need to be sliced in Cura so Cura could create a gcode file (that would have extrusions) that the printer can read. The UFP file (I think) has Gcode information in it that some printers can read, but I think it is specific to Ultimaker printers(????). Whatever printer your "community printer" is (Ultimaker, Creality, Monoprice, whatever) would need it's definition installed in Cura as your active printer so that the gcode is compatible. Then you can copy the gcode file to an SD card (or maybe a mini SD card) and the printer will read it from there. Trying to print a file that was created for a different printer is never a good idea. In some cases it works, in others it doesn't work and can make a real mess. If the community printer is an Ultimaker S5 then it could conceivably work. If the community printer is (for example) a Tevo Tornado, then it won't.

If your video system does not support OpenGL 4.1 then Cura goes to "compatitbility mode" and you get the simpler representation of the preview. That includes flat lines instead of 3D and no animation. You could try updating the video drivers of the laptop. My laptop with Win 10 and onboard Intel graphics is also stuck in compatibility as it is too old for OpenGL 4.1.

I don't get things like that when I model things in Inventor. I printed the die and the artifacts you show on the "5" side showed up very faintly. It looks like an "X" crosswise and a square connecting the outside dots. I think it might be something you did in OpenScad but I don't know that software. As I watched it print (this is how I use up the ends of rolls) I was thinking that the acceleration setting was either off or set very high. When looking at the 3mf file you did have Accel and Jerk enabled at 500 and 8 which is very reasonable. This is from the gcode file when I sliced the model ;LAYER:0 M107 M204 S500 Print and Travel Accel M205 X8 Y8 Jerk control G0 F7200 X102.903 Y102.37 Z0.2 But the gcode file you posted (and that I printed) doesn't show any Accel or Jerk control. In that case your printer (not being told anything different) would default to either the last Accel and Jerk settings used, or to the Max Accel setting in M201. This is from the gcode file you supplied. Something changed though between when you generated the gcode file and when you saved the project file. ;LAYER:0 M107 G0 F6000 X102.903 Y102.37 Z0.2 My print showed a lot of ringing which I usually don't get at 50mm/sec. I'm guessing that the printer went to 3000mm/sec² on Accel which is the maximum I have set in M201. Also, the infill printed much faster than the 50mm/sec that your 3mf file showed. This is the wireframe view of the die in MS 3D Builder. You can see how dense the triangles are that run around the dots on the 5 side. I wonder if Cura is just getting a lot of short line segments there and that is causing the artifacts. The pattern is exactly the same as I saw in the Cura preview and what showed up on the actual print. Here is the Cura preview a few layers below the center dot of the 5. You can see the short line segments being generated by the density of triangles in the STL file. There are your artifacts. To take this analysis to the point of ridiculous - here is layer 39 in AutoCad. Instead of 4 red lines making up the 4 outside walls path there are 90 lines that jig jog back and forth. There are a lot of line segments on the inner wall as well.

With a model loaded, and your settings adjusted the way you want, from the Cura menu bar select "File | Save Project" and post the 3mf file here. It is the best way for people here to troubleshoot printing problems. From what I've read on the Selpic's, they are just set up to print slowly. That's true of most of the cantilever-arm printers. Cura can't know the limits of the printer unless it's told and you can't tell Cura the limits unless you know what they are. They are available to view if you use that App I posted, or another program like Pronterface, and send M503 to the printer. That image you posted shows 270mm of filament being used in 14 minutes/840 seconds. At a popular setting of .2mm layer height and .4mm line width, that's 8100mm of extrusion in 840sec so an average speed throughout the whole print of ~10mm/sec. If it took 2 hours to print then that's about 1.25mm/sec and is REALLY slow.

"My experience of Florida was quite opposite - dry and hot!" Missed hurricane Irma did you? 48in / 122cm of rain in 48 hours. I admit it was a hot rain though. An interesting side note was that most of it was moving sideways as if gravity was too soaked to work well.