GregValiant

The one I posted is fixed (so far as I can tell). I had to simplify it twice to get the resolution down to something sane and then IdeaMaker was able to fix it. The other utilities I use still didn't like it. The beard won't print though. It looks like it's just stuck onto the model rather than being part of it. I'm seeing a new trend to make models as high a resolution as possible. The slicers really struggle trying to cut through so many triangles/layer and if/when they finish slicing - there is no way that the printer can control the molten plastic enough to provide that sort of resolution. Try that "IdeaMaker Real Simple..." model and see how the slice looks.

You cannot alter a built-in profile. That's why when you have "Dynamic 0.16" active the "Update..." option is greyed out. Switching to your Custom "Airplane Profile A" allows updating. I have 4 profiles. One each for TPU and PETG and a "Fast PLA" and "Fine PLA". I treat them like the built-in profiles and they give me a base to start customizing the settings. Every model starts with one of those four base profiles and then it gets tweaked until I like the preview. Then I throw it all away and go back to a base for the next model. That's what works for me. Some folks save every configuration they come up with. That's fine for them but I can't remember what I had for breakfast so having a bazillion profiles would be pretty useless. This whole 3D printing thing is difficult enough without adding more complexity.

Here's a video. CHEP is usually pretty good (although I didn't watch this one).

Cura always knows the volume of any extrusion. L x W x H. Cura also knows the diameter of your filament (which you should have measured so it's exact in Cura). So the volume of filament is PI x r² x L. When Volume of Filament IN = Volume of Extrusion OUT then flow is 100%. But there are possible mismatches. If Cura was set to "Volumetric" extrusion, and the printer was not (or vice versa) then the Flow will be wrong. Both the printer and Cura need to be set the same in regards to Volumetric. If Cura is set to 2.85 diameter filament and the printer is actually 1.75 diameter filament then the Flow will be wrong. The diameters need to match. I mention those because I have a Micro-Swiss hot end myself mounted to the stock extruder/bowden setup.

That model is fine and the bottom is flat. The issue must be in your settings. My Ender doesn't like ironing at 10% flow. At 7% parts come out very good. Every printer is going to be at least a bit different. I print on the Creality glass with the textured surface so the bottoms of my prints always pick up the texture. "Also keep in mind Cura likes to put down 120% flow" @jirodriguez72 that would be from the printer definition file of whatever printer you have. Most printer definitions don't call for that even though it is helpful when starting out. I run my Initial Layer Flow at 105% as it pretty much guarantees a good first layer and takes care of inconsistencies in my piece-of-paper leveling.

"I am confused about saving changes to a profile." The "I'm confused about Profiles" club has a lot of members (including me). "I want to keep the changes I made to the current profile I am was using, and change to a new profile without making any changes to the new profile." You only alter the default settings of a profile when you select "Update Profile..." from the bottom of the drop down list that appears when you click on the profile, or when selecting the "Update Profile" button in the Manage Profiles dialog box. If you are working with ProfileA and it is set up for Wall Count = 3, and you change that to Wall Count = 5 then you have created an "override" for the setting. Then you decide you want ProfileX and so you click on it. ProfileX was set to Wall Count = 1. So Cura asks if you want to keep the overridden settings. If you select "Yes" then ProfileX will become active but the Wall Count will still be 5. ProfileX doesn't change, but the overrides stay in place. If you select "Discard" then ProfileX will become active with all it's defaults and Wall Count will be back to 1 (there won't be any overrides). If you want to save your overrides to a profile then activate the profile and select "Update Profile with Current Settings/Overrides" from the dropdown list (or the button in Manage Profiles dialog). You have to specifically state that you want a custom profile to be changed. If you don't, then any "overrides" are temporary and when you re-select the Profile you are going to get the same questions again. That probably doesn't help much but it's the best I can do.

There are two settings that are really useful...once in a while. The one you have there looks like "Make Overhang Printable" in the Experimental settings. The other one is "Remove All Holes" in the Mesh Fixes. Most folks only need them occasionally. Then they forget to turn them off. Don't ask how I know that. You're really going to try and print those threads?

It looks like it was extruding from one direction, quit near the middle, and then came from the other side. The extrusions don't line up. It could be a setting or the bottom of the model isn't flat?? With the model loaded in Cura, and Cura set up ready to slice, use the "File | Save Project" command and post the 3mf file here. Someone will take a look.

From what I've read the Creality definition file for the Ender 3 Pro (at least) was altered to add that "heat to standy" line to keep down oozing during the Auto-Level routine. It's in there whether you have an ABL or not. You can stick a semi-colon in front of the line and the printer will ignore it. I would suggest that you change it to M104 S{material_print_temperature_layer_0}. That will start the hot end heating and start the bed heating without waiting. This is from the new definition file: ; Ender 3 Custom Start G-code G92 E0 ; Reset Extruder G28 ; Home all axes M104 S{material_standby_temperature} ; Start heating up the nozzle most of the way M190 S{material_bed_temperature_layer_0} ; Start heating the bed, wait until target temperature reached M109 S{material_print_temperature_layer_0} ; Finish heating the nozzle

That's what I was trying to do. There are a lot of holes. The shoe laces themselves are a pain, something is going on with the beard, and eyes are in backwards or something. The model has a lot of errors. I tried cutting it into pieces figuring I could repair the pieces and reassemble the model. That didn't work either. Areas like the sides of the shoes don't have any mesh over them. They are just holes into the interior which appears to be hollow. Whatever software was used to create this didn't stitch it up everywhere. It kinda looks like somebody had a bunch of body parts laying around (Igor??) and glued them together but didn't do a proper "Union" operation. One problem I'm having is that Mesh Mixer and 3D Builder keep crashing when trying to deal with this and so two of my main tools won't work. We're talking about a model that is very high resolution at 1500mm tall. Scaling it down to fit on my Ender increases the density of the triangles by a factor of 6. Couple that with the fact that the model has almost half a million errors and my little laptop just looked at me and said "You have got to be %$#@ing me!". While I was typing all of that I was working on the model. I simplified it another step and decided to give IdeaMaker a try. I don't like to do peoples homework for them but in this case I'll give you the model cuz it's a complete pain in the butt. If you can get the beard to print you'll get the Rudyard Kipling "You're a better man than I am, Gunga Din" award. Ideamaker Real Simple_Untitledav1-export.stl

There are a couple of reasons for areas to come out like that. Models with errors confuse a slicer and (in this case) Cura couldn't figure out what to do so it ignored those spots. I tried to fix the file with Mesh Mixer and with MS 3D Builder and both crashed during the repair. After simplifying the model I tried again. This report is from https://formware.co/OnlineStlRepair and it timed out (4 minute limit) trying to fix it. -> Analyzed your file: --> 222043 Naked edges (?) --> 51 Planar holes (?) --> 27084 Non-planar holes (?) --> 4 Non-manifold edges (?) --> 6 Inverted faces (?) --> 0 Degenerate faces (?) --> 8 Duplicate faces (?) --> 0 Disjoint shells (?) The model is extremely dense at 1500mm tall. Scaling the model to 250 tall makes the mesh 4 times as dense. So in my unprofessional opinion, that model be broke. PrusaSlicer hated trying to slice it as well and the "The model won't be printable" message came up. Here is the X-ray view in Cura. Red areas indicate problems. Here is the sliced view in PrusaSlicer. Note how the missing layers line up with the red areas in the Cura view. Another reason for an incomplete slice would be that the Line Width you have set won't fit into the area being sliced. That may happen on the fingers of that model. Think of printing a knife edge. As it narrows - it's width approaches 0 and the nozzle won't fit.

Here is a model I simplified in 3D Builder. See if it makes a difference. I'm going to read it into AutoCad and see if those wigglies are still there. Simple 1 BangiukasBottom.stl EDIT: I don't like that one at all.

Hi @frink Here are a couple of shots of my print. I don't know how much it would effect things but I scaled it to 75% size to make it quicker. Here is a shot of the model in 3D Builder. I'm wondering how the mesh density "striping" is contributing to those wiggly lines (which I also saw in my AutoCad representation). I tried to get this centered. The triangle density is high at the top and bottom of the image, and at distinct intervals it transitions to lower density.

Did you notice if the print head was stuttering? If it is stopping for just a fraction of a second you can get divots like that as the nozzle re-softens the plastic near it.

Cura really needs a solid body to slice. It can be thin, but it needs an internal volume. I think that's what @MariMakes was suggesting when she mentioned that the walls should be 0.8mm thick. The walls of your box are surfaces and infinitely thin and so it can only be sliced in Surface mode as the model doesn't qualify as a 3D Solid and in fact could not exist as a physical thing in the real world.

Within the Special Modes settings is "Surface Mode". Have you tried setting it to "Both"? The way the model is designed (infinitely thin surfaces) it really can't be done any other way. The thicknesses everywhere (except the bottom) will be dependent on your Line Width. The bottom thickness will be dependent on "Bottom Layers". I can see where travel movement could be a problem as all the extrusions are essentially one-way streets.

I think what's happening is that Cura is adding a regular retraction and prime around the combing moves (;MESH:NONMESH) according to the settings "Retraction Minimum Travel", "Combing Mode", and "Max Comb Distance with No Retract" and then it is explicitly adding a retraction when the layer changes. So it appears that there is no check to see if there was a retraction that was based on other settings, it's simply adding the "Retract at Layer Change" regardless of what else might be going on. Turning of "Combing" eliminates one of the retractions and leaves the "Retract at Layer Change". Now the question is "Is this a bug?". I don't think so as it appears to be working the way it was designed. But that raises the question "Is this annoying?". I could see where it could be annoying as blobs may be involved. You could write up a bug report over on GitHub. I did a quick search and didn't see any other mentions of this behavior. I'm often the greeter over there and it would get past me but at some point it might be changed to a feature request. (BTW I get the behavior you describe in 4.8 in 4.10 as well. 4.13 seems to be like the 5.x behavior. I will assume that a change was made for 4.11 or 4.12.)

Alright. A contributor on Github (SmartAvionics) suggested changing the Mesh Tools "Maximum Deviation" from the default 0.025 to 0.100. That will filter out some of those very short line segments. I have a print running now and it looks very good. And it finished very nicely. I don't see any flaws.

Cura will stick a model out at X200 or so if the model doesn't fit within the printable area of the build plate. If that dog's tail is sticking straight out the back then maybe the model is too large in the Y? If the dog is actually a pig then I don't know.

I can't duplicate that so it may have something to do with the way you have Cura set up and your combination of settings. Use the File | Save Project command and post the 3mf file here. Someone will take a look.

This is at 75% scale with scrap "natural PLA" at 0.8 line width. My previous print was with red PLA and I missed this. Light refraction makes this a tough shot. Loading the Gcode into AutoCad results in this view of the area with the bulges. Those jig-jogs are a maximum of 0.1478mm. I missed this on previous print as it isn't really visible when using an opaque filament. I think I'll post this as a bug report on Github.

I printed this myself with some leftover PLA at 0.8 line width and didn't get any issues. Your model itself is fine. If you turn off the "Shell" line type in the Preview and turn on "Travels" then if it was spiralized correctly there should not be any travels above the solid bottom portion. This is my slice of that project file I created. You can see the travel lines within the base, and that there are none above the base. This indicates a single long extrusion up to the top. This leaves me wondering if: Your extruder is working correctly, the E-step calibration is correct, the condition of your filament, and whether you may have developed a partial clog just above the nozzle. So I went back to the images you posted of a print. In your first image you point out a hole in the side. No matter how it sliced that should not be there and I'm sure it isn't in the gcode. Looking at another image I see a spot with more holes (in red) and something wrong with the extrusion (possibly under-extrusion) that I've marked in green. There should be no holes and no ripples. When printing with PETG it can collect around the nozzle and form a blob that will occasionally come loose and get stuck to the print. This is a known issue and it's why people invest in nozzle cleaning stations. It's something else that could be going on, but a hole? Nope. Something else is happening there and it has nothing to do with the slice. It may have something to do with the printer calibration and that includes the mechanical aspect.

Search and Replace can add multiple lines of code by using the "\n" newline character, but it cannot take wild card characters. There would be no simple way to maintain whatever temperature is in the line. That means a separate instance of Search and Replace for each temperature change and you would need to know the temperature in the line. If you knew that the line you want to replace is M104 S200 then this would work: Search = M104 S200 Replace = G91\nG1 Z3\nM109 S200\nG1 Z-3\nG90 Assuming the temperature is changing at 5° intervals the next Search and Replace would be: Search = M104 S205 Replace = G91\nG1 Z3\nM109 S205\nG1 Z-3\nG90 It's a bit clumsy and you could get a blob (as the hot end oozes) but you could add a retraction and a prime using M83 and M82. It starts to get clumsy pretty fast though. Replace = G91\nM83\nG1 F2100 E-6\nG1 Z3\nM109 S200\nG1 Z-3\nG1 F2100 E6\nM82\nG90 It would look like this in the gcode file: ;LAYER:5 ;TYPE:CUSTOM LAYER G91 M83 G1 F2100 E-6 G1 Z3 M109 S200 G1 Z-3 G1 F2100 E6 M82 G90 ;TYPE:WALL-INNER

If they are both running Marlin firmware and both use the same filament size then that would be good. Other than that I think the two main differences would be in the build plate size and possibly the StartUp Gcode. Place the model in a position so it will fit the printer with the smaller build plate, slice it and save the gcode. You can copy the gcode file all you want. If all the printers run the same flavor of firmware it will work. If all the printers use the same size filament it will work. If there is a mix of 2.85 and 1.75 machines and they are running Marlin then you can print by switching the Gcode flavor in Cura to "Marlin (volumetric)" and add "M200 S1" as the last line in the StartUp gcode and "M200 S0" as the first line in the Ending Gcode. That will turn on Volumetric in the printer after any purge cycle and then turn Volumetric off at the end of the print. When printing in "Volumetric" the diameter of the filament is known by the printer and the printer calculates how much filament to push according to the diameter. You can bring a calibration cube into Cura and scale it to 1mm tall in the Z and slice it as a test print for your machines.

Rip Van Winkle was on watch that day but he was taking a nap and missed it. @Cuq may be the author of that plugin and will certainly know more about it. If the post processor is adding M104 lines then you could add a "Search and Replace" post processor AFTER it and have Search = M104 and Replace = M109. You need to think about it though. The print head will stay in contact with the print and you will get a divot because it will sit there while it is heating up. For a calibration part it shouldn't matter but you need to be aware of it.