GregValiant

There have been a couple of people that have come in here with questions about setting up Cura for a paste extruding machine. If you do a search of the forum, those posts should come up. Maybe a PM would be in order to ask them a question directly. Personally I don't know anything about it. In regards to pellet extrusion, those are generally larger machines that put out a lot of material. As a retired old fart and hobbyist I have no need to FDM print a house or boat. Here is an example of one poster's pellet extruder in this thread. It's a self-built printer, it takes up a lot of space, and he anticipated "output around 2kg/h". Even in Detroit schools that comes out to at least $40/hr just for material. .

It indicates the "relative" movement from wherever you started the current move. The actual location is noted in the number boxes of the Translation Tool and refers to the Center of Geometry in X Y and the bottom face (or currently lowest point) in the Z.

@gr5 pointed out the most popular missed setting (filament diameter) but there is a 2nd most popular missed setting. When Cura calculates the amount of filament needed to produce a given length of extrusion, it uses the Filament Diameter of the Material. Generally, that results in the Gcode E values in "MM" of filament. If that printer is running Marlin firmware then it has an option under "Control | Filament" of "E in mm3". Cura and the printer need to be talking Apples and Apples or Cura might be saying "MM" but the printer is reading "mm³". So make sure that in the printer "E in mm3" is turned off, and that if the printer is running Marlin firmware then check the Machine Settings and make sure the Gcode Flavor is set to Marlin and NOT "Marlin/Volumetric". Whether Volumetric is turned ON or OFF - Cura and the printer need to match. If Cura says E1.0 and meant 1mm of filament, that would be 2.4mm³. If the printer is set to Volumetric then the same E1.0 would be read as 1.0mm³ of filament and so you can see it would be under-extruding by about 58%.

You are quite welcome. Some parts just need to be designed for FDM because it is "additive" instead of "subtractive" and a change in design can alter how many supports are required. Splitting some parts into glue-together assemblies can simplify things as well. 2.2mm diameter holes with a piece of filament glued into them make fine locating pins.

That's a heckuva machine. Reading through some of the information regarding print speeds and accelerations, and the fact that they do recommend Cura, maybe somebody at 3D Platform has developed printer definition and extruder definition files. It would be worth checking with them or maybe a support forum. It appears to run RepRap firmware.

It can be done with Support blockers printed as parts with a lot of separate settings. Not bad when the area is a rectangle, but an odd shaped area is a pain. The best is a designed grill. It is also possible with a second part that simply fills the area of the grill. I set the Infill Line Multiplier to 2, no walls, no top or bottom, etc. Those are in the Per Model settings. Make sure you go through all the settings. My profile was for PETG so check temps for sure. Cover-A Grill-B.3mf

"...Since the Ender 5 is possibly the only printer model in this arm of the galaxy that has the issue..." I was wrong. The Ender 6 is built the same way (it appears to be an enclosed Ender 5). AHoeben, it's rotated on both printers. 0,0,0 is the right rear with +X +Y quadrant being the print area. I viewed the assembly videos and that's how they work. I suppose it does make the wiring harnesses simpler (and cheaper). @merph Here is a poor mans workaround... There are two files in the attached ZIP file. Copy "creality_ender5.stl" to "....\Ultimaker Cura 4.X.X\resources\meshes". If you have not customized your Ender 5 definition file then overwrite your current "...\Ultimaker Cura 4.X.X\resources\definitions\creality_ender5.def.json" file with the included "creality_ender5.def.json" file. If you HAVE customized your definition file then you need to customize it some more. Add this line to the end of the Metadata section. "platform": "creality_ender5.stl" When you re-start Cura you will get this. It's still rotated but at least it has the Z rods and indicates which way you are looking at your machine. When you spin it around, it looks correct with the Z rods in the back as you look at the printer. creality_ender5 files.zip

Sort of on this subject...it always drove me nuts that moving a part around the Cura build surface was clumsy. The numbers were not intuitive. I didn't give it a lot of thought until one day when perusing Github and Cura bug reports there was a post that caught me. The poster pointed out that the part origin was mirrored about the X axis in relation to the build plate origin. On the build plate +Y was up, but when moving a part, +Y was down. It is wrong. So the original poster (with some direction from Ghostkeeper) altered two files and now my origins match. The files are "TranslateTool.Py" and "TranslateToolHandle.Py". Somewhere in Cura there must be a file that creates the build plate origin and puts it in the left front corner. Maybe that file could be altered to put it in the right rear corner and rotate it so it is correct for your printer. I don't know how to do that, I'm just sayin'.

Next, when I click and hold my scroll button/middle button I can drag the build plate around. (That's what I have to do in Orthogonal because "scroll to mouse pointer" doesn't work for me when in orthogonal.) At any rate, if you can drag it to the center maybe you can get by for a bit. I haven't seen that problem before but I'm just a rummy dumb who came in off the street. if you post a log file maybe someone from the team will see something. In Cura go to Help | Show Configuration Folder and you will find Cura.log. Close Cura, go to the location and delete Cura.log. Restart Cura and the file will be created again but much shorter. Bring in a model and do what you do moving it around. Close Cura and post the log file here. Posting the info about your computer, Operating System, video card, etc. will help as well.

Hi @gsar333. I'm running Win10 Home 64 bit and Cura 4.9.1. My video is in "compatibility mode" (this older video system doesn't support OpenGL 4.1). I loaded a CR10-S Pro and it looks fine. It appears that your view of the build volume is skewed even when ignoring the background mesh/machine. Have you toggled between Perspective View and Orthographic View (Preferences | Configure Cura | Viewport Behavior) and does the problem occur in both modes?

It is a generic support blocker for all the upper holes. I figure they would bridge OK and not require support. Slice it with it in there and see what the supports look like. Then select just the support blocker, delete it, and slice again. You will see the difference as a bunch of additional supports grow up and into the holes.

Could you post that broken Gcode file and either a PrusaSlicer or Simplify3D file that does work? Maybe there is something in there. An error on every other layer is really odd.

The Ender 5 is the only printer I know of that is orientated that way. Creality put the motors and switches in the right rear corner. I think it was for part removal (and part visibility during a print), they wanted the mechanics out of the way and then there was no room for the user to get their hands in and so they put the LCD on the "back side" which made it the logical "front side". It is possible that the placement and rotation of the Origin could be altered in the firmware. I have no idea how to do that. The easiest thing is to pick up the machine and rotate it 180° but that puts the LCD screen in the back and the Z rods in the front which then severely limits access to the build area, so that is unacceptable. You can rotate the part 180° in Cura so it faces the back. You've already said you don't want to do that every time. This is something that needs to be done on a lot of models anyway. Doing it on a few more would not be an onerous task. You can possibly get Cura to start with it's virtual build plate rotated 180°. That would orient it to the users actual viewpoint and 0,0,0 would be the right rear. The "plan view" button (and side and front views) would still snap it around backwards. The STL cartoons that Gr5 refers to (and that a lot of printers have on their base plate in Cura) is just a mesh that Cura brings in at whatever orientation it is. You could copy the Ender 3 file (in "resources\meshes") and rename it, then define it in the printer definition file in the Metadata section as "platform": "creality_ender5.3mf". Ghostkeeper, Ahoeben, or another main contributor might know what files in Cura could possibly be altered to achieve the effect of rotating the virtual build plate 180°. Since the Ender 5 is possibly the only printer model in this arm of the galaxy that has the issue, coupled with the fact that it isn't an Ultimaker printer, the chances of getting someone to make adjustments to the program to accommodate the Ender 5 point-of-view are not good. In addition, the people at MarlinFW.org are truly unhappy with Creality (for taking the firmware and making it proprietary) and so the chances of getting someone there to explain how to alter the firmware is effectively nil. So we are back to rotating the parts. Sorry.

There is no keyword "material_bed_temperature_layer_1" so it would be ignored. The list of keywords is HERE.

The Filament Change plugin consists of adding a single line that is the M600 command and it gets inserted at the target layer. The file is "C:\Program Files\Ultimaker Cura 4.9.1\plugins\PostProcessingPlugin\scripts\FilamentChange.Py". How "Filament Change" works is dependent on 3 things: 1. Where the user leaves the new filament in relation to the nozzle. If the user remembers to pull the filament back "retraction distance" then there should be no blob. 2. How the firmware is configured to handle the two retractions that are within the M600 command. 3. Where the M600 line gets inserted within the retraction/prime cycle of the gcode file . If it is: a) between a retraction and a prime, or b) just before a retraction, or just after a prime. I use "Pause at Height". It works well when the "By Layer" option is chosen. If there are no Z-Hops in the file and you are not using "Adaptive Layers" then "By Height" will work. I am a fan of the Manual Retraction method and I've found that about 3mm is perfect.

Post a gcode file that's broken. It might be an Octoprint problem as well. It's also possible that the filament change code M600 is not supported in your firmware. Creality likes to play tricks and their firmware is no longer mainstream Marlin.

The printer profiles are provided by the printer manufacturers and submitted to Ultimaker for inclusion in Cura. The E2 is an IDEX printer and it's quite possible that you MUST use IdeaMaker. Is there a Reddit group for your printer? There or the Raise3D support forum might be better places to find out if Cura is an option.

If you are not printing over the USB port then go to "MarketPlace" and "Installed" and scroll down and un-tick "USB Printing". When it is enabled and Cura starts - "USB Printing" polls all available ports and then tries different baud rates on the ones it can open. Maybe a response is upsetting the plugin?

For a 32 bit version, there is a SmartAvionics branch of Cura: Cura-mb-master-win32-20210522.exe I run it on a Win7 computer. It's alright but does have a glitch or two. Switching from one printer definition to another can be iffy as can switching Settings Profiles. Cura will crash sometimes, but it comes back up with the new printer (or settings). It's annoying but not a deal killer. For an Ultimaker branch at 32 bit you have to go back to 2.3 I think. Between those two I prefer the Smartavionics 32 bit version as it is pretty close to being the same as the 64 bit version.

The commands are in your start gcode. Something like this would do it. It is the order of the commands and the use of keywords that are important. M104 S120 M140 S60 M109 S120 M190 S60 G28 X Y G29 M109 S{material_print_temperature_layer_0} M190 S{material_bed_temperature_layer_0}

Try cutting a circular piece of tin foil and putting it under the center of the glass. My personal fix was to stop checking the center. I know it's off but for 99% of what I print it's close enough.

Ya gotta love it when everybody was right!!🍻

"IMHO it was a really bad decision to set a hard limit on the nozzle temp. HT printers are getting more and more common these days and that 365°C limit is kind of arbitrary. IF one normal printer (without a reasonable FW limit set) would be operated at 350°C or 360°C doesn't matter. It would probably be dangerous to the same extent in both scenarios." "(without a reasonable FW limit set)" That requires an assumption that isn't in evidence. The word "reasonable" itself is subjective. It appears you have found a niche for yourself working with, and developing definitions for, High Temp printers. Cura is open source and highly customizable. One of the tools in your toolbox should be the knowledge of how to customize it to your needs and I would think some knowledge of programming would be necessary. Are you doing hundreds of these - or a couple here and there? I spent 33 years fighting and investigating fires and consequently a lot of time in court trying to clean up the aftermaths. The 16 year old who clicks on (your) "Allow High Temps" box (because he saw on Reddit that he can print aluminum wire filament on his YockShaMosh Pro printer) cannot sign off on the rights of the old lady who dies when the smoke fills her upper flat. Along with "reasonable" the word "responsible" should be considered. In my (never humble) opinion, 365° is too high given the number of completely clueless home hobbyists getting involved in 3D printing. No matter what temp was picked as a limit - it would still be arbitrary. PrusaSlicer is a fine program. I use IdeaMaker sometimes too.

"...the printing does not reset the software..." Are you referring to resetting the flow rate or feed rate after a print? That can be done in the machines End Gcode in Cura by adding an M220 and M221. This is part of my End Gcode: G1 X0 Y{machine_depth} ;Present print M106 S0 ;Turn-off fan M104 S0 ;Turn-off hotend M140 S0 ;Turn-off bed M220 S100 ;Reset Feed Rate M221 S100 ;Reset Flow Rate M84 X Y E ;Disable all steppers but Z

That's correct. At this time Cura does not interpret G2/G3 commands in the preview. I think that's being looked at and will be fixed. @BStump is it possible for you to post the 3mf file and the gcode file? Somebody will take a look. As far as I know, "One at a time" isn't interfered with by any other setting.