B_STJ

Anyone??

Hi all, Our support material roll has been opened for a while and our prints don't use that much of it. What I have noticed recently, and I'm not sure if this can be fixed by changing the temperature or if it's just caused by the material to be too old, but it appears that when the support filament is being applied to my print, when the head moves to change position to go apply support somewhere else which is not a contiguous location of where it was printing, rather than cleanly breaking away, it seems to stretch the filament and it becomes really small, like the diameter of a hair. Then what happens is that quite often, this stretched piece of filament will overlap the PLA material where it last printed and then when the printer goes to switch the head back to PLA, when the PLA filament gets applied to the location where the support filament overlapped the PLA, the PLA will print over this fine piece of support. Then as the PLA gets printed over time, there will be many of thes support filament across many PLA layers and when the print is finished and I put the print in a ultrasonic bath to remove the support, everywhere where there was 'accidental' support filaments between PLA layers will cause a gap.... or in other words, the face will be covered with pits. Not sure if this is clear or not. I attached a picture of what I mean. All the white lines and the evident gaps were caused by this support filament overlapping PLA layers. How can I fix this? Printer is S5. Thanks.

Hi Ahoeben, It's already unchecked. Actually, I forgot to mention it but I had already tried this option and it doesn't change the way it behaves. So even with that option unchecked, Cura will always fail to open if I don't have my secondary monitor connected. Last time I experienced this was a few weeks ago when I brought my laptop in the room where the printer is located and when I launched Cura, I could see it appear in Task Manager but then it went away. I repeated this a few times and it kept failing... and that option was unchecked. The only way I was able to open Cura was to walk back to my office, put my laptop on my docking station so that my monitor was connected, then I launched Cura and it worked... so at that point I just saved my file to a USB key and did the print that way. Thanks. Ben

Hi guys, Sorry for the late response. 1) No, it is not a Mac. 2) The external monitor (Dell U3818DW on Display Port) resolution is 2560 x 1080. The max resolution for the laptop screen itself is 1980 x 1080 (an old Dell Latitude E6530). I don' think the problem is due to the resolution and here's why... As I explained in my original post, this probelm is repeatable. If I uninstall and re-install Cura from scratch without an external monitor connected and use only my laptop screen at a 1980 x 1080 resolution, all works fine. If I leave my laptop 'closed' to use only the external Dell monitor at the 2560x1080 resolution, all works fine. But after I hook-up a monitor to my laptop and start Cura at least once (therefore making the monitor the primary and only monitor), from this point-on, Cura will always and only open when an external monitor is connected. When I brought my laptop home a few weeks back, that's when I realized what was happening so I grabbed an old cheap 19" monitor I had kicking around (with the blue VGA plug) and re-launched Cura then it opened fine because I had a monitor connected. If it was a resolution issue, then it would have failed to open on my 19" monitor because that is definitely not an HD monitor and its resolution is less than that of the laptop screen. So it's like if Cura has a flag somewhere indicating that if it has previously launched on an external monitor, any attempt to open it afterwards will always attempt to open on the external monitor, even if nothing is connected.... it takes for granted that it is connected to a monitor even when it's not so it's like if it's failing to detect that the secondary monitor is present or not.... Let me know if this is clearer. Cheers! Ben

Hi all, I saw a few people with multi-monitor problems but couldn't find any solution to fix what I am experimenting: I usually have my laptop "closed" while it is on its docking station because I use an external monitor therefore it is my main - and only - monitor. Since the very begining when I started using Cura last year, I never had any problems. Last week, I had to take my laptop off the docking station (therefore without the external monitor) and when I launched Cura, it failed to open. I tried a few times and it kept failing to open. So I put my laptop back on my docking station and re-launched Cura and this time it worked. So I re-tried the dock > launch Cura > close Cura > undock > launch Cura pattern a few times and it consistently failed to open when it was off the docking station. I read somewhere online that if I unchecked the option Cura > Preferences > Configure Cura > General > Restore window position on start it could fix that issue but it doesn't; regardless if that option is checked or not, the problem remains. I brought my laptop home the other day and Cura failed to open so I had to hooked-up a cheap monitor I had kicking around just so that I could open Cura then once opened, I removed the monitor and all was fine. So.... how can I fix this once and for all? Thanks! Ben

Got the following message today when powering-up the printer: "Difference between detected height of both print cores exceeds realistic values". See attached image. After reading many posts online with troubleshooting solutions such as 'bad ground causing capacitive sensor to fail' or 'removing at least one print head fixed the problem', I opened the fan door and looked at the capacitive sensor (white PCB with two wires labelled 'sensor' and 'shield'). On both sides are two bent pins coming-out of the plated PCB holes (pins are bent outwards). I guess the company will need to confirm this but maybe these pins are required to come into contact with brass nozzels on each head to complete the circuit or maybe the pin is not required for an electrical contact but the thickness of the plastic caused the head to be out of alignment. Anyhow, in my case, the right pin was covered with a thin layer of molten plastic (no idea how it got there) and the left pin was bear metal so I simply removed the plastic using tweezers, replaced the print head and proceeded with a full calibration test and all was successful. Given the problem consistently appeared after powering-up the printer, I powered-off the printer then powered-it back on and the problem no longer appeared (tried a few times). Hope this helps anyone else having this issue. Ben