GregValiant

Within the project file you have the Extruder #1 "Nozzle Switch Extra Prime Amount" set to 40mm³. That's 16.63mm of filament on top of the 16mm regular prime amount. That will leave a mark. Your "Dual Extrusion" settings for Extruders 2 and 3 look reasonable and neither have any extra prime (much less 500mm worth of extrusion in a blob). You need to set Extruder #1 up the same as 2 and 3. There is no G1 F2400 E-16 because you set Cura up for Absolute Extrusion rather than Relative extrusion. This is what is happening every time Extruder #1 gets over the print and starts its first extrusion: G1 F1800 X120.359 Y116.04 E203.41115 --- Last extrusion of the previous tool and the filament is right at the nozzle ..... G1 F1200 E187.41115 --- Nozzle switch retraction of 16mm for the previous tool ..... G92 E0 --- Reset previous extruder to 0 T0 --- Switch to Extruder 1 G92 E0 --- Reset Extruder 1 to 0 G1 F2400 E10 --- 10 mm prime (16 minus your regular retraction distance of 6.0) The filament is 6mm behind the nozzle. .... G1 F2400 E32.63007 --- Here is the problem. For the other extruders this is E16.0 but for Extruder 1 it's adding that extra prime of 16.63mm (40mm³) that you have asked for in your settings. PS: I just had another look at the project file I posted in the alternate thread and it's fine. That "40mm³" of extra prime came from somewhere else.

Yes, you can do it that way. What you see there is the blocker infill. There are walls around that area. This is with the infill line-type turned off: This is with the infill line-type turned on. You see the infill of the bird is not exposed, just the blocker infill. There is no true hole into the interior of the bird. This bird has enough problems without adding more holes.

You have the blocker set as an "Infill Mesh". Here the left model is from your project (I altered the Infill Density to highlight it's effect). I have altered the right model so the blocker is a "Cutting Mesh". The Cutting Mesh settings are No Walls, No Tops, No Bottoms, and Infill Density = 0. You can see that the right model has walls and floors in the cut-away section. Those are settings of the model. If you wanted to do something like have no walls in that area (so the infill is exposed) that can't really be done. So your block in the phone protector project needs to be changed to a Cutting Mesh.

Thank you. Now I see. That does qualify as another instruction though. That's 3 in your last 3 posts. I had been using this piece of technology. I didn't know the scroll/ctrl thingy.

You can if you want. As you noted - the problem was fixed without changing anything in the program so is it a bug?

@Cuq ---- are you telling me that I have to start reading instructions? I've avoided that like the plague and I'm not likely to start going into my 8th decade. For one thing, the fonts are too small.

I think the problem is that the model has such small "landing zones" for the bridge ends. When I set Horizontal Expansion to 0.4 everything looks a lot better. The author of the Calibration Shapes plugin is here. @Cuq if you could take a look at this - it does appear that the inside strings of the bridge come up short of the walls. In this view the left end appears to be air printing. Are there other adjustments that can be made besides Horizontal Expansion or scaling the model? Here I've cheated and altered the model to give it some more bridge abutment on the inside.

Hi @2go. A project file is attached. I didn't spend as much time on this one. The rollout of 5.0 was kind of bumpy as the Arachne engine was integrated into Cura at the same time that all the dialogs were re-written to work with QT6 controls. It was ambitious. 5.1 was much better and 5.2.1 continued to evolve and is certainly less buggy. There is still a slicing bug on Windows systems but moving and/or rotating the model on the Cura build plate usually fools the bug. You didn't mention which operating system but I've run all Cura versions on an older Windows 10 system with no problem. If the video subsystem doesn't support OpenGL 4.1 then Cura falls back to "compatibility" mode which is a flat line preview rather than the 3d looking preview. GV_test.3mf

Maybe. You would need to fool Cura. Let's say your line width is 0.4. You could try setting the "Horizontal Expansion" to a single line width (0.4) and then set the "Hole Horizontal Expansion" to double line width (0.8). "Hole Horizontal Expansion" generally works by the radius but in your case you would want to increase the overall "diameter". It might work although you have that random sort of shape. The best thing to do would be to alter the model in CAD. Cura is much better when the model is what you actually want rather than being "Somewhat close except for....". Cura's a fine slicer but not much of a CAD program.

Maybe it's just a "Setting Visibility" thing. Next to the "Search Settings" box is an icon with three lines on it (you can see it in your screenshot). That is the Setting Visibility tool. Click on it and set the visibility to "All" and see if the rest of the settings show up.

Load the model and set Cura up to slice and use the "File | Save Project" command. Post the 3mf file here. With just the CuraProfile file, and using a model of my own, I can't duplicate the problem. (You might try changing what looks like "Concentric" bottom to "Lines" and see if it makes a difference.)

Yes. The "Auto-Home" location is just where the switches happen to be located. It is only used by the printer so the printer knows where the print head actually is in space. The printer sets the "Stepper Locations" of the X, Y, and Z to 0 when you Auto-Home. The "Home Offset" 0,0,0 is the actual Origin point of the printer. It is where the printer will put the "Origin" of a gcode file. There is of course a relation between the "Home Offset" position and the "Auto-Home" location, but it is the "Home Offset" location that is important for actually positioning a gcode file on your printer's build plate. I'll use my Ender 3 Pro as an example. My glass build plate physically measures 235 x 235. It has a 1mm beveled edge all around the periphery that can't be printed on. My preference is to put another 1.5mm safety area all around the periphery. So my total "non-printable" area is a 2.5mm border all the way around the glass. That leaves me with a "Printable Area" 230 x 230 and that is what I enter into Cura as my build plate size. After Auto-Homing the printer - my nozzle happens to be aligned with the left edge of the glass and is 2.5mm in front of the front edge of the glass. That is a non-printable location. I move the nozzle so it is 2.5mm in from the left edge, and 2.5mm in from the front edge, and at a Z=0 and then I use the LCD control to set the Home Offset location at that point in space and then use the LCD "Save Settings" command. That is the normal situation. If I then tell the printer to move to X=115 and Y=115 the nozzle will be smack dab at the mid-point of the glass. That will align it perfectly with the Cura build plate. For specialty situations the Home Offset location can be altered using an M206 command in the gcode. G92 could also be used to change where the printer "thinks" the nozzle is.

Since the Arachne Engine was rolled into Cura there are additional settings for walls. Some settings are specific to UltiMaker printers and others were made defaults in an effort to increase accuracy. They aren't always what you want. Here is the model. The points are the problem as "knife" edges always are. This is the model sliced with your settings. The "Outer Wall Inset" at 0.025 is hurting the slice because it makes the "points" 0.05 narrower. That coupled with your "Line Width" at 0.4 is keeping the nozzle from getting to the end of the points in an "Out and Back" move. The "Wall Transition Angle" at 10° is also hurting the slice. With those settings Cura is calculating the move as "Out - Travel - Continue". That is indicated by the white spots showing where the extrusion starts at the very tip of the point. Not good. This is with Outer Wall Inset = 0, Line Width = 0.35, and the Wall Transition Angle = 5.0°. With those settings Cura calculates the move as a sweep out to the point and then a continuation back along the other wall. There is no longer a "Start-Stop" at the end of the points. This behavior can also be noted if you try to print something like a hair comb. Each tine of the comb needs to be an "Out and Back" extrusion rather than "Extrude Out Tine 1 - Travel over to Tine 2 - Extrude Back Tine 2" moves which leads to stringing and half the tines get welded together at the tips.

"... the printer says the fan is on max but it doesn't spin." The cooling commands have not changed. If the fan % indicator on the LCD says the fan is at 100% then the printer saw an "M106" line in the gcode and reacted to it. If you go to "Manage Printers" and then "Machine Settings" and click on the "Extruder 1" tab you will see a box for "Cooling Fan Number". Since you only have a single extruder you only have a single layer cooling fan and it's number is "0". The setting isn't "Number of Cooling fans", but rather which fan works with which extruder. In your case the "Cooling Fan Number" should be Zero. Within the Gcode file should be lines like "M106 S255" and not "M106 S255 P1".

@Mike2481632 That file won't open in MS 3D Builder either.

Another thing you could check is the hot end to see if there is a partial clog between the bottom of the bowden tube and the back end of the nozzle. I found a coathanger laying around that is just the right diameter to push through the hot end. You can use filament but the hot end necessarily needs to be around 180 to get the nozzle out so you need to move fast. Having to push the Esteps to over 200 is a bad sign though. I looked through all the settings in that Project File you posted and they look fine. I was hoping to find that Cura was set to volumetric extrusion or maybe the filament diameter was set wrong (as gr5 suggested). They are both set correctly. That pretty much leaves us with a problem on the mainboard.

How are you leveling the printer? If it has an ABL maybe the Z-offset needs to be tweaked. I'm a hand leveler and I use a piece of parchment paper. Leveling by hand is all about consistency. I'm consistently just a bit too tall so I run my Initial Layer Flow at 105% to make up the difference. The first layer comes out consistently just about perfect. I did notice that the Z stop switch on my ender 3 Pro isn't very repeatable. I would level and then start a print and the G28 would change my Z position. The first layer would be wrong. I changed my StartUp Gcode line to G28 X Y and so the Z doesn't get homed after I level the printer. It's much better like that.

I'm not a fan of rafts and much prefer a skirt. I will use a brim on certain parts that might break free without some help for the build plate adhesion. I'd print that gear with a skirt and hair spray as an adhesion promoter. When you enable the Raft one of the settings is for the "Raft Air Gap" between the raft and the bottom layer of the print. You can't set it to "0" because the raft would become part of the print. The default is 0.3mm. Since Cura used your "Initial Layer Height" + "Raft Air Gap" to figure out where the nozzle would be you get what you see there which is that there wasn't any Squish for the first layer of the print. It looks under-extruded. That top layer doesn't look so hot either. There may be some minor under-extrusion going on? I don't think it should have those gaps that I see at the midpoint of each gear tooth. You may want to visit (or re-visit) your E-step calibration. Do not use a single or double wall calibration cube - just do the calibration for the steps/mm.

Gcode is perfectly linear and perfectly logical. Mr. Spock would love it. From what I gather - what you really want to do on Layer:0 is to: Print a skirt. Print all the Wall features (both Inner and Outer). Print all the Infill features. This method is different than what I posted above but may be easier to follow. This cannot be done with a "Raft". This MUST be done with "Relative Extrusion" turned on. The main file ("LAYER 1 and Up") for your print: Get your models arranged and set Cura up the way you want for your finished prints. Slice and save the Gcode. This will be the file you will use for "LAYER:1" up to the finish. The Layer:0 file for the "Walls only": Without moving any models - change the Top Layers to 0, the Bottom Layers to 0, and the infill to 0. You will want the skirt/brim turned on. Slice the file and save the gcode. The Layer:0 file for the "Skins only": Without moving any models - turn the Top and Bottom layers back on, turn the Infill back on. Turn off the skirt/brim. Set the "Initial Layer Horizontal Expansion" to "Wall Count * Line Width * -1". If your line width is 0.4 and you have 3 walls then the Initial Layer Horizontal Expansion would be "-1.2". Slice the file and save the gcode. Cut and Paste. This gets done in a text editor app: Open the "LAYER 1 and up" file. Do a "Save As" and make it "*_combined.gcode" or something. In the new "combined.gcode" file - find the line that says "LAYER:1". Look above that line and find "MESH:NONMESH". That sections stays. Delete everything from the line below "LAYER:0" to the line above "MESH:NONMESH". Add a few carriage returns to make space for the walls and skins. Open the "WALLS" file. Find the LAYER:1 line and above that the MESH:NONMESH line Copy everything from the line below "LAYER:0" to the line above "MESH:NONMESH" and paste it in to the "_combined" file just below the "LAYER:0" line. Open the "SKINS" file. Find "LAYER:1" and then the MESH:NONMESH section above it. Copy everything from the line below "LAYER:0" to the line above the MESH:NONMESH line. Paste that into the combined file BELOW the walls section. Save the Combined file. There it is. If you want to get fancy (and I would) you could add a couple of Z-hop lines because the travels from the Walls to the Skins isn't quite right. You wouldn't want the nozzle to whack one of your wall lines and break it loose before the skins go down. There are three files in the zip folder that I used to create the 4th "combined" file. First layer walls first.zip

This is not a good story but I'll relate it for you as it is possible it might apply. My Ender 3 Pro came with the "Noisy" mainboard. I bought a new "silent" board from Creality and installed it. About 2 weeks later my printer started under-extruding after printing for about an hour. I recalibrated the E-steps and like yours, they went from 93 to 250. It was alright for about an hour to and hour and a half into a print and then the problem started again. The bottom line is that the new mainboard had a defective "E" driver chip. When it warmed up it would go bonkers and the prints would be under-extruded. After some arguing back and forth Creality replaced the defective board with a new one. Yes, the stock "E" steps are 93. Everyone pretty much ends up at 97 or so. Having to go to over 200 likely indicates a bad stepper driver chip.

You open a model file (STL, 3mf, etc.) in Cura and click on the "Slice" button. Cura is not a simple program to learn as there are a LOT of settings. Play with the settings and look closely at the preview screen to see if your model is going to print like you want it to. Everyone gets it wrong the first few tries so if you can learn to read the preview you will save a lot of plastic. If you switch from the Basic view to the "Custom" view all the settings will become available. To the right of the Search Settings box is an icon with three lines on it. It is the Setting Visibility tool Click on it and set the visibility to "All".

It fails with the "Prime Tower Brim" enabled? That's a substantial brim that should have 100% coverage on the inside and be about 8mm wide on the outside of the tower. It can be made larger by increasing the size of the tower. The image below shows the Prime Tower Size at 30mm and that's about a 46mm circle of plastic in contact with the build plate. Have you noticed if your nozzle is whacking the tower when it moves over to it? There is a setting for "Zhop after extruder switch height" that can be set separately from the regular Zhop height setting.

@knaeckebrot27 There are strings, and then there are extrusions that didn't stay where they were put. In the top view of the real print - that mess around the ID of the top look like extrusions whereas the views from the bottom look like real "stringing". PETG is PETG and is soupy but I think you can get better results by changing your "Wall Order" to "Inside to Outside" and see if it makes a difference. I print a lot of PETG and I've settled on 230°. It's stringy (more like "angel hair") but at lower temperatures the layer adhesion isn't as good. I suppose much depends on the manufacturer but I always use the same one.

A printer definition file has a list of settings to initialize Cura so when it's time to create a gcode file it will be suitable for your printer. There is a manual HERE for your printer and although the instructions are for Simplify3D, the settings are mostly there. Build plate size, the gcode flavor, and if you look through farther than I did you may find others. So I would install a "Non-Network" "Custom FFF" printer and then name it whatever you like. After installing it go to Manage Printers and then Machine Settings and enter the numbers you find in that manual. What you may not find there is the StartUp and Ending gcodes. Those are important as they set the printer up, heat the hot end, bed, auto-homes the printer, and so forth. The Ending Gcode shuts off the hot end, bed, and the heated build volume (it looks like you have one). If you can find a sample gcode file that was created specifically for your printer the StartUp and Ending Gcodes should be in it. If you have an AutoBedLeveling system your startup gcode will be different that a printer that doesn't have an ABL. Same for a heated build volume. The sample files for my Ender were actually created in S3D but it would have been close enough to figure things out (although the Ender series is covered by definitions that are included with Cura). Get started and if you run into a show stopper check back in here. Here is the Add Printer dialog box. It is where you will start.

That is seriously under-extruded. Did you calibrate the E-steps on the printer?