AlWilson666

I always try to give consideration to whether a print would be better printing the outer perimeter first or whether to print the inner first. Usually the decision is based on what curved outer surfaces the model has and whether curving inwards (in which case print the outer first) or outwards (in which case print the inner first). This decision can usually prevent the first perimeter, either outer or inner, printing with no neighbouring perimeter to stick to and half overhanging nothing. However, when printing something like a ball shape that curves outwards for the first half and then curves inwards, it's impossible to decide and the problem is that once sliced you can do nothing about it half way through. Cura really needs an option to add a bit of intelligence to this option and automatically print either outer or inner perimeters first depending on the slope of the curved wall being printed. Does anyone else think that this would be a useful option to add to Cura and, if so, how to go about making the suggestion to them. Thanks for "listening".

An everyone knows, the "Elephant foot" problem can be quite well mitigated by using this setting (Initial Layer Horizontal Expansion) with a small negative value. However, the Elephant Foot effect can span more than one layer so I believe it would be a fine improvement if there was a related setting for the number of layers over which it should apply. However, rather than applying the same negative expansion value to this number of layers the value should gradually reduce over those layers. That would be more in line with how Elephant Foot appears on most actual prints. As an example, If an expansion value of -0.04 was set, and the number of layers (proposed new option) was set to 4, then the expansion would be -0.04 for the first layer, -0.03 for the next, -0.02 for the next and 0.01 for the fourth. All following layers would be printed with zero horizontal expansion. I think this work work very well and provide a better mitigation for the dreaded elephant foot affect.