GregValiant

Hello @Mikelo I have responded in the other post. Use a support blocker. Set the Per Model settings to "Modifiy settings for overlaps" Select "Infill Density" and "Infill Pattern" as additional settings to alter and then change the value of those settings.

The "Support Blockers" can be configured in different ways. The normal situation is to block support (Duh!!). The tool above the Support Blocker tool provides the "Per Model" settings and one of them is "Modify settings for overlaps". Since a support blocker is just another mesh (and can be scaled and moved like any other mesh), you can configure them as "Infill Mesh" (which you want for changing the infill) or as a "Cutting Mesh" (which gives different possibilities). Below is an image with the Support Blocker configured as "Infill Mesh" and I've added "Infill Density" and "Infill Pattern" as two of the settings changing them to 25% and Gyroid. Within the overlap of the block with the part you can see that the density and infill type is different.

If you are using Windows, it has MS 3D Builder included. I have found that it isn't real intuitive, but for simple things like cutting an STL it works pretty good. Open the helmet, bring in a cube from the menu, size and move the cube till you like it, and with the cube selected, and the helmet NOT selected use the "subtract" tool. You will get a nice clean edge. Then do a Save As for the new model. MS 3D Builder is also pretty good at repairing problems in models. It looks like Mesh Lab simply erased a bunch of triangles without sealing the gaps. You want a boolean operation there (Subtract, Union, or Intersection).

That is a bad cut. Those jagged edges look a lot like open seams to me. That would confuse Cura and you will get wierdness in the slice. Instead of altering the model, go into the Cura Preferences and turn off "Automatically drop models to build plate". Then in the "Move" tool dialog set the Z to a negative number to sink the helmet into the Cura build plate by whatever 90% of your model height is so only the top 10% is exposed. It should slice OK like that and you wouldn't have those jaggies to deal with. The support should generate OK as well.

This is the stock Creality Ender 5 StartUp Gcode from the Machine Settings in Cura. This depends on Cura adding the temperature setting lines. As a result of that, When this code runs the hot end is up to temperature. You could put that code in here anywhere but it is good practice to put it after the G28 command, or G29/M420 if you have ABL. M201 X500.00 Y500.00 Z100.00 E5000.00 ;Setup machine max acceleration M203 X500.00 Y500.00 Z10.00 E50.00 ;Setup machine max feedrate M204 P500.00 R1000.00 T500.00 ;Setup Print/Retract/Travel acceleration M205 X8.00 Y8.00 Z0.40 E5.00 ;Setup Jerk M220 S100 ;Reset Feedrate M221 S100 ;Reset Flowrate G28 ;Home G92 E0 ;Reset Extruder G1 Z2.0 F3000 ;Move Z Axis up G1 X10.1 Y20 Z0.28 F5000.0 ;Move to start position G1 X10.1 Y200.0 Z0.28 F1500.0 E15 ;Draw the first line G1 X10.4 Y200.0 Z0.28 F5000.0 ;Move to side a little G1 X10.4 Y20 Z0.28 F1500.0 E30 ;Draw the second line G92 E0 ;Reset Extruder G1 Z2.0 F3000 ;Move Z Axis up The new lines are in bold type. I went down a couple of lines to make sure the nozzle has room under it. G28 ;Home G92 E0 ;Reset Extruder G1 Z2.0 F3000 ;Move Z Axis up G1 F2100 E15 ;extrude 15mm of filament at 35mm/sec G92 E0 ;reset extruder location G1 X10.1 Y20 Z0.28 F5000.0 ;Move to start position

If you happen to "Tune" a print while it is running (Ex. You use the LCD to slow a print down to 80% feed rate) then that setting will stay active until you change it (or cycle the printer on/off, which will also reset it). So the M220 and M221 lines are a reset in case a print was tuned on the fly. The M201 and M203 commands are setting up the firmware "speed limits". The M204 and M205 lines are the numbers that the printer will use in the calculations of movements. If you DO NOT enable Accel and Jerk control in Cura, then the printer will use the numbers in the M203 and M204 lines in it's movement calculations. They are the defaults. There are a couple of ways to get that prime move in. The simplest is probably: M82 ;Absolute extrusion - if this line is already in your gcode then you don't need to put it in again. G92 E0 ;reset extruder location G1 F2100 E15 ;extrude 15mm of filament at 35mm/sec G92 E0 ;reset extruder location Make sure those lines go in AFTER the hot end is at printing temperature, and the print head is located somewhere like the left front corner so the oozing doesn't land on the build plate. The nozzle should be at a Z of 5 or 10 as well so there is room to ooze. The MarlinFW site has all the Marlin G and M codes listed. You should go over them to familiarize yourself with the common ones.

That resolution is in the model file. You would have to alter the settings of the STL generator/translator in the CAD software. The model file consists of triangles and the size of the triangles determines the faceting of any circle. In a glaring show of common sense: the setting in the AutoCad STL exporter is called "facetres". Below are two cylinders shown in MS 3D Builder. The left is at the default 0.5 facetres and the right one is at the max of 10 facetres and you can see how much denser the triangles are. The right one would make a nicer print.

Is the portion of the model covered with those top layers solid? You might have to set the infill density to 0% as well.

It sounds like something is going on with the End Gcode when it switches to relative extrusion and/or relative movement. Copy the ending gcode from the Cura machine settings (you will have to use CTRL+C) and paste them into a post here. Cura uses it's own "keywords" and curly brackets where PrusaSlicer keywords are in square brackets. So if there are keywords in the ending gcode there could be problems. The fact that it "doesn't happen all the time" is troublesome and might point to the firmware. Has this been going on long? What printer are we talking about?

10 minutes is plenty so that G4 experiment probably won't change anything. That problem sure looks like someone threw the "screw up the print now" switch. It happens all-of-a-sudden so I'm still considering that it's something on the printer end rather than something going on with the gcode.

I'm just thinking out loud here. I believe the bed on your printer is controlled by a thermostat. If the bed cools a bit, the thermostat turns in on. When it gets up to temp the thermostat turns it off. So it cycles from fully on, to fully off and all that current for the bed heater goes through the mainboard. It's a "Bang-Bang" setup. The hot end is PWM controlled. It's running constantly with a fairly constant current draw when all of a sudden the bed goes on and sucks current away from the hot end causing the hot end go cool until the mainboard can balance things again, and then the bed turns off and the problem reverses itself. That's pretty big build surface. Maybe it's just taking a while before the bed comes to a stable state with a uniform temperature across the whole surface. If that is the case then it's possible that just adding a pause of 3 or 4 minutes minutes after the heating commands (in your StartUp Gcode) would allow the bed to settle down. It would still be a "bang-bang" cycle but the high (and long) initial high current draws might be over with when the print starts. The Marlin "Dwell" command is G4 so "G4 S300" would be a 5 minute pause. If you try that, remember that the hot end will want to ooze during that period so the nozzle needs to be at the Auto-Home location and will the Z at about 10 so the nozzle is off the bed, or you could put off heating the hot end until the bed was stable. I added one of these 24v MOSFET Power Supply to my Ender 3 Pro. It moves the bed current off the mainboard and uses the bed heater output wires from the mainboard as it's control.

@gr5 you know I'm not an Ultimaker guy so I need to ask...can the glass of the bed be shimmed? A couple pieces of aluminum foil under the glass at that right rear corner?

Well Congratulations. For being a good listener and sticking with it as I stumbled through the dark, you win todays build of the aptly named "Greg's Toolbox". This is my Windows app for controlling the printer, some post-processing of gcode files, tuning prints in progress, etc, etc.. It comes complete with a readme and instructions. What it does not come with is a digital signature because I would have had to pay for that. If you decide to install it, just extract the files and run the Setup file. You might have to fool your anti-virus into allowing it to install. (Visual Basic does not port to Linux or Mac so if you run on those it won't work.) If you do install it then I'd appreciate a PM on how it works with your Longer and any issues you might experience. Enjoy. Greg's Toolbox.zip

A fella named CHEP has a YouTube series called Filament Friday. I'm sure he has a video on calibrating the E-steps. It isn't difficult. It needs to be done because the Steps/mm of the E motor determines how much filament is actually pushed. When Cura asks for 10mm of filament it should get exactly 10mm of filament. If it 9 then there will be under-extrusion. If it pushes 11 then there will be over-extrusion. Over-extrusion could be a reason why your nozzle is dragging. When the E-steps are calibrated the prints turn out better so it's worth doing even if it isn't the main cause of your problem.

Enabling Z-Hops at .2 to .5 will fix it but the noise might be a symptom and not the real problem. If you have calibrated your E-steps then I would leave the flow numbers alone. If there is sloppiness in your Z system on the printer, then it won't increment upwards consistently. That can cause the rubbing as well. Make sure your Z couplers are tight and they don't rub on the Z motor housings. Some dry lubricant on the threaded rods can help. Make sure your Z trolley wheels are adjusted correctly. You shouldn't be able to wiggle the ends of the X gantry up and down. You want that gantry to be nice and rigid but it should move smoothly up and down. If the print head has looseness in it's trolley wheels then it can wobble and cause the problem as well. Since yours is doing it up higher then the Z system could likely use an inspection and maybe some attention.

Those Print Head settings and the Gantry Height only come into play when printing "One at a Time". They describe the physical size of the print head as measured from the nozzle centerline. They are what describes the "don't put a model here" area around a model when in "One at a Time" mode. Get a ruler and measure from the nozzle to the left edge of whatever would be in the way there (for me it is the side of the hot end housing) and that will be MinX and will be a negative number. Then measure to the right from the nozzle to the edge of whatever is there (for me that would be the outside of the blower housing of the 5010 I have stuck over there) and that will be MaxX and is a positive number. Do the same for the Y numbers with towards the front a negative Y number and to the rear a positive Y number. Your gantry height is about 25mm. "...the doc says the Y offset is -9mm" I don't know how they mean that. When I think of an "offset" I think Home Offset. I don't know how an offset would apply to your duct and mount. Your YMin is -32 and -9 would be -41. Does that look about right?

G10 is firmware retraction G11 is firmware un-retract "G11'G10" is not a command and so you got that response. Check your StartUp Gcode and see if it is in there. If you are not using "Firmware Retraction" then make sure the "Printer Settings / Firmware Retraction" command is unchecked. In the Mesh Fixes section is a setting "Remove all Holes". Make sure it is unchecked. There is also the command "Make Overhangs Printable" and make sure that is unchecked as well.

I am the self-proclaimed "King of Workarounds". This one is clumsy even for me. The M25 is calling a script in your firmware and it needs to be fooled. There might be a way. This works with my older firmware. In the PauseAtHeight dialog use the M25 pause command and in the "gcode before pause" box enter "M400" (which means "Complete All Moves" and will empty the planner buffer). Note where you decided to park the print head. Add the "Search and Replace" post-processor. It must be below "Pause at Height" in the list of active post-processors. The Search and Replace function will accept newline characters in the Replace box. That means you can add multiple gcode lines and we will use that to fool the firmware. Search and Replace - Search = M25 - Replace = M25\nG91\nG1 Z5\nG90\nG1 X0 Y0 F6000\nM117\nM117\nM117\nM117\nM117\nM117 The "G1 X0 Y0 Z15" portion should be the same X and Y that you park the print head at. The "\n" (backslash + n) is the newline character. The M117's will pad the printer/planner buffer with commands that don't do anything. Six of them should be sufficient but you might need a couple more as it is dependent on your mainboard buffer memory. That portion of the gcode file will end up looking like this: M400 M25 G91 G1 Z5 G90 G1 X0 Y0 M117 M117 M117 M117 M117 M117 ; Do the actual pause Here is another test print updated with that pause sequence. It worked on my printer. You will need to print it to see if it works on your printer. PauseTest2.gcode

They are knife edges. There isn't any way to slice those features out to the tip because their thickness approaches zero. That's one of the limitations of FDM manufacturing. This is a slice with a .15 nozzle at 0.1 line width and .10 layer height. You can see that it still can't get out to the tips.

In Cura 5 on my Windows machine they are located in: C:\Program Files\Ultimaker Cura 5.0.0\share\cura\resources\meshes and there are two FLSun files. FLSun_sr.STL and FLSun_qq_s.3mf. In your printer definition file there will be a line near the beginning: "platform": "flsun_sr.stl" (or the 3mf file as it depends which model printer you have). Usually they can be manipulated in MS 3D Builder or another program that will allow you to rotate the model.

I downloaded it but there is something wrong with the file and I can't open it in Cura or MS 3D Builder.

I have an app I wrote to give me full control of my printer via the USB. After seeing your post I added a post-processor that inserts M117 lines that send a "countdown to the pause layer" (regardless of how many pauses) to the LCD. I added a user supplied "fudge factor" since the Cura time calculation is rarely exactly right. I don't know that I will ever use it, I just wanted to see if I could do it. Thanks for the idea. I scribble code in Visual Basic and if I could do it then someone at your company who is good with VBA should have no trouble doing the same thing in MS Excel.

I'll respond just so you know this has been seen but I'm not the right person to comment. One of the Cura Team members (@nallath?) will need to chime in. I will say that I can duplicate this. It appears that the Infill Mesh is getting an extra set of walls on the inside. It's particularly odd that there is an outer wall sandwiched in there.

I think it would depend on the inner geometry of the model. With the model loaded in Cura and the settings the way you like, use the "File | Save Project" command and post the 3mf file here. Without a project file it is near impossible to troubleshoot.

Hold on there @geert_2. We may have the Z dimension to work with if the model was scaled "overall". @tigertr0ut - at the beginning of a Cura gcode file will be a line ";MAXZ". By comparing that to the Z height of your model you should get a good ballpark number of the scale. If the MAXZ in the gcode is 27.50 and you know the model is 23.00 then there ya go for a scale of 119.56%. If you only scaled the XY then you have to jump through some hoops by finding outside wall lines in the Gcode that are parallel, calculate the distance between them, and then add the Line Width to the dimension. If the print is an odd or organic shape this may not be possible. Cylinders and holes are tough to figure out even when reading the code into AutoCad.