GregValiant
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Posts posted by GregValiant
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There isn't anything wrong with the gcode. Your printer is under-extruding by a lot. I happen to also have an Ender 3 Pro and it's a problem that showed up a couple of times.
Starting at the beginning:
- The filament spool needs to move freely. No loops or snags on the spool.
- If you have a plastic pressure arm on the extruder they have an amazing failure rate of 100% and when it cracks at the pivot point the arm doesn't put enough pressure on the filament to move it to the hot end.
- The hot end itself can develop a gap between the bowden tube and the back end of the nozzle. If it does then molten plastic can get pulled into the gap by retractions. The plastic hardens and forms an o-ring sort of partial blockage and after printing for a little while under-extrusion starts. I can almost talk myself into seeing that with the brim of your print.
- Not very popular but not completely unknown (it happened to me) is a bad stepper driver on the main board.
If it isn't a broken pressure arm then it time for maintenance on the hot end. Warm it up to get the nozzle out. Take it apart and clean it out. Trim the bowden tube back by about 6mm (with a nice square cut) and put it back together. Warm it up again to get the nozzle back in. It should be snug.
My printer came with a 1.1.4 "loud" board. I had the machine a month or so and it was driving me nuts so I ordered the 1.1.5 "silent" board. The first one had the E stepper driver fail after 1 week.
Another time the under-extrusion started the problem was the not end. After fooling with it a bunch of times I went with an "all-metal" hot end.
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Change your "Top Thickness" to 0.8 and the "Top Layers" to 4.
Change the "Skin Removal Width" back to 0.4.
The ribs are just thick enough to require some top layers and right now you are only getting bottom layers. That is affecting the very top and all the mid-ribs.
The Skin Removal Width at 3.0 is causing the little support gussets to disappear.
If you change to "X-ray" mode you can see the internals and they should all print.
Airplane parts are tough. This one seems to be designed pretty decent.
This is a mid rib with your settings. It starts with the designed in infill and doesn't have a bottom surface.
This is with the suggested changes. This is the same layer but now there are 4 layers of skin below and the little side gussets are in place.
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When I find it to be an advantage to split parts for printing, I put 2.1mm holes (for 1.75 filament) into each part by subtracting small cylinders from the STL or adding the holes in CAD. That way the holes in each piece line up perfectly.
After printing, I put short pieces of filament into the holes in one part and they become locating pins. The parts line up exactly.
This is a visor for a Kindle tablet. If the legs were in place for printing then the entire bottom would need support. You can see the holes I added to line the legs up so they will assemble in the exactly correct position. (The legs get printed upside down.) Super glue holds everything together.
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Cura cannot give you a spiral pattern for the Top/Bottom Skins or infill. It would be nice if you could:
- Spiral a layer outward
- Move up
- Spiral back to the center
- Move up
- etc, etc, etc.
That's a fair sized nozzle - are you running a pellet feeder?
In addition to Slashee's suggestions, you could set Cura up so the print is all walls (Wall Count = 1000) and a Random Z seam. The travel moves would change on each layer so they wouldn't "stack".
Another thing to try would be ZigZag pattern for the Top and Bottom Skins and for the Infill with the Infill at 100%. The nozzle keeps extruding for the little connector line that connects each long extrusion. With ZigZag the setting "Randomize Infill Start" is available so the nozzle wouldn't be returning to the same spot all the time.
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@braddach you have to give us something to work with here.
What version of Cura? Early versions of 5.x had issues with the Machine Settings dialog box not saving changes. A workaround was to make your change and then click somewhere else (like in the Ending Gcode box) to set the change before closing the dialog.
Load a simple model, set up to slice, and use the "File | Save Project" command and then post the 3mf file here.
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It doesn't look like anything Cura did to insert it. It's an odd color as well. If it was Cura it should be gray indicating the brim/skirt/raft area. If it came in with the model it should be the same color as the model.
Use the "File | Save Project" command and post the 3mf file here. Somebody will take a look.
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In Cura, switch to the "Custom" settings.
In the Search Box type in "Printing Temperature Initial Layer".
What does the setting say?
(I'm guessing that it's 195.)
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Sorry about that. That is the "Lite" app "Greg's SD Print Tool" and it is basic. The Cooling tool is no longer in that version, just the full "Greg's Toolbox". (I was maintaining two versions and since that post processor was to be included in Cura, I removed it from the app.)
Here is the actual Cura post processor:
In Cura 5.6.0 use the "Help | Show Configuration Folder" command. On my Windows system it is:
C:\Users\...my name...\AppData\Roaming\cura\5.6\scripts
Unzip the file and put "AddCoolingProfile.py" into that "scripts" folder.
It will be available with the other post processors right inside Cura. The script is not version specific so it will work fine.
Let me know if you would prefer to have it in "Greg's SD Print Tool". I never removed the code, just hid the button. I would need to take a look again to make sure it is up to date.
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I always blame Python. It certainly can't be MY fault when something goes wonky.
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It's PETG so the strings are hard to get rid of. Hotter print temp gives you better layer adhesion but a greater chance of stringing.
For this model...
Set the "Combing" to "All".
Set the Z-Seam location to wherever you want and then look at the "Z seam X" and "Z Seam Y" and make a note of them.
Go to the Travel Settings and make the "Layer Start X" and "Layer Start Y" the same as the Z seam locations. You won't get as much travel through the center of the print.
If I have a screw connection I know that it will loosen over time from "cold flow deformation". That plastic wants to flow away from the pressure exerted by the screws. Those three cheesy walls around the screw hole are going to crush.
In the MarketPlace is a plugin for Cylindrical Support Shapes.
Here I've added one to a bolt hole in the flange. It's 12mm dia by 3.2 tall. The bottom is at 0.8 (resting on the bottom skins) and it ends at the first top skin. It is set as an Infill Mesh with 8 walls. It's an example of something you can do to make a model stronger in one area rather than filling something with infill.
I just eyeball them into the XY position. It isn't like anyone will know they are there. X-ray view helps.
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Yeah baby!!! That's what I'm talkin' about. Smooth, and it slices very nice.
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To hard to fit with all the curves. This won't be an easy task but I think it helps a lot to be able to push separate pieces together. They could sanded and filed till the fit was right.
After thinking about this some more, I think I'd just print it all together and get out a fine modeling brush and some paint and just paint the road surface. It's only 0.42 wide so it would be a single wall print and then you would have to stuff it into a slot.
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If you can do a thing called a "polar array" you can make a cylinder the size of the hole you want, put it where you want, and then do a Polar Array of the cylinder with 8 items and the centerline of the part as the axis. It would copy the cylinder equidistant around the center of the part. Then, subtract all the cylinders from the main part.
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Python wants the punctuation just right or the file won't load.
The Creality Base file should have something much like this in the "overrides" section.
"machine_extruder_trains": {
"0": "creality_base_extruder_0",
"1": "creality_base_extruder_1",
"2": "creality_base_extruder_2",
"3": "creality_base_extruder_3"That also gives the name of the extruder file (for each one) that must be in the "extruders" folder. Cura supports up to 16 extruders but as you are finding out - screen real estate gets to be at a premium.
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It could be done with a couple of cylinders and fillets as well. The key is to have a model that is a single solid and to set TinkerCAD (or whatever) to the highest resolution you can for the output file. Lower resolution means less triangles and surfaces but easier slicing and smaller file size. Higher resolution is a model that more closely follows curves so less faceting and smoother prints. Extremely high resolution models go beyond a printers ability and take forever to slice.
In AutoCAD the setting is "FacetRes". Other software might have something similar. You can edit a model in apps like MS 3D Builder and lower the resolution, but once the file is exported from CAD you cannot increase the resolution.
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This one is pretty interesting.
Two things here...
- I agree with Jasenodell that a puzzle is the best way to do this.
- I'm glad I'm not the one doing it.
Repair the models first (both have errors). Right now they are less complicated than they will become. Starting out with good models will be huge.
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The function in the app is a post processor so it:
- Opens the gcode file you choose
- You make the settings as you want (the "profile") within the dialog box.
- When you hit the "Create" button it writes a new gcode file with your fan "profile" written into it. The profile settings doesn't actually save anywhere so once you close the app those particular settings are forgotten.
Cura 5.7beta has "Advanced Cooling Fan Control" which is the same thing as that app has but it is a true post-processor.
Go to "Extensions / Post Processing / Modify Gcode" and then "Add Script" and it will be in the list.
With ABS or other materials that are prone to warping - "By Layer" works best. It is also better for small prints.
If you use "By Feature" on small prints then the fan speed can bounce up and down constantly rather than giving an even speed. "By Feature" works well on big prints or for situations where you just want cooling for skins or maybe support-interface.
The Cura post processor looks like this:
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Hi folks. I thought I'd throw in my 2 cents since it definitely is a CAD thing.
That particular model is made up of 25 separate pieces and they don't appear to have been properly merged prior to export from CAD. In fact, 23 of the pieces have no volume at all, just 1 or 2 faces. That's 23 non-watertight entities in the model. (They are more like single cell organisms than printable models.) The only two parts that are relevant are the "bell" and the "cylinder". They should be designed as a single piece but merging two parts is fine when it's done correctly.
If that model was a simple "Revolve" with 8 holes in the flange then all the model problems go away.
Which leads to a much better slice.
I print a lot of PETG and my normal print speed is 50. If I want nice shiny outer walls I drop those to 35. Just sayin'.
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As you have found, Cura doesn't actually support IDEX printers as there is no native support for the "U" and "V" axes.
That means many things have to be configured as workarounds.
What do you have the "Raft Extruders" set to? If the Raft Extruders are mixed with some of it T0 and maybe the top surface as T1 then there can be a problem that might be dependent on where the model is on the build surface.
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I don't think the problem here is in One-at-a-Time but rather the "Slicing Tolerance" being set to "Exclusive".
@rburema the original project file in this thread will show the problem. I found that setting the slicing tolerance to "Middle" made the problem go away. (The "Layer Height" of the project is 0.2 and the Raft Air Gap is 0.3).
Exclusive and Raft Air Gap of 0.3:
Middle and Raft Air Gap of 0.3,
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There are settings that can make the area small because Cura can decide it needs to reserve the space for something.
"Avoid Printed Parts when Traveling" is one. If you have "Prime Tower" enabled or are using a Skirt/Brim/Raft or if you have "Generate Support" enabled then the area can be smaller. For an UltiMaker it appears that just changing the material can effect the Max Model Size.
Generally, if there is a gray border around the bed it is caused by either a setting, or (for some printers) a disallowed area. With the settings just right you can slice a model that is 0.2mm less than the build plate X Y.
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This is odd.
I opened the 3mf in MS 3D Builder and it showed errors. Cura and PrusaSlicer both sliced the models as if they had errors.
I exported the models from Cura as an STL file and surprisingly the exported models don't show any errors in either MS 3D Builder or when uploaded to https://formware.co/OnlineStlRepair.
In addition, after clearing the build plate and then importing the "exported" models they sliced fine.
The bottom line here is that once again I'm clueless. I'll guess and say that something happened to the models during translation which caused them to slice incorrectly and re-translating the files fixed the error...but I don't know if that is true.
This is the report from the Formware site regarding the "exported" STL file. Everything is copacetic.
-> Analysed your file:
--> 0 Naked edges (?)
--> 0 Planar holes (?)
--> 0 Non-planar holes (?)
--> 0 Non-manifold edges (?)
--> 0 Inverted faces (?)
--> 0 Degenerate faces (?)
--> 0 Duplicate faces (?)
--> 0 Disjoint shells (?)
-> Repairing: 100.00%
----- Repair completed in 2123ms ------
-> Vertex count changed from 2391 to 2391 (+0)
-> Triangle count changed from 4794 to 4794 (+0)The surfaces bothered to show up.
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The models have errors. Mesh Tools picks out open seams really well (non-watertight) but finding "flipped surfaces" and/or duplicate surfaces is a challenge.
This is the file opened in MS 3D Builder. All three models have errors. Flipped surfaces and duplicate surfaces will cause a slicer to get confused and skip layers.
This is in PrusaSlicer. You can see that the layers are missing or incomplete.
Meanwhile, back in Cura, once the model is repaired (MS 3D Builder) it slices as you would expect.
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The blue polka-dot pattern indicates errors in the model. Mesh Tools couldn't fix it. The errors are severe enough that trying to fix it will make the eyes go away. This one needs to go back to CAD for repair.
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Not printing walls, only infill
in Improve your 3D prints
Posted · Edited by GregValiant
The printer is as Ender 3 S1 Pro so not the same as was stated and it appears to be a direct drive so not a bowden printer.
I read the gcode into MS Excel to do the analysis of the extrusions. There is no problem within the gcode.
I altered the temperatures and changed the retraction distance from 0.8 to 6.5 and it printed fine on my machine.
@muscato57 you are always welcome to post a bug report on GitHub. I do much of the triage over there and I would perform the same investigation there that I did here. I just don't see any problem within the gcode you posted.