Benjamin4456

True, quite true. Thank you for the reply. It's worth mentioning that "outside to Inside" isn't a completely new setting as it's been in 4.x.x for some time - this is what I was referring to in the photos and my tests. The default value and visibility did change though as you said, as did it going from a check-box to a drop-down. I'll take a look at combing as it's not something I'm sure if I've used in the past. I know it is enabled presently though, and the worst example I'm running into is on a sorta half-a-horseshoe, so that makes some sense by how you described it. Coasting is disabled, although linear advance is in use. I did notice the issue get slightly worse when using linear advance vs without, but it cleans up the other corners enough to out-weigh it. I'll continue experimenting and see if anything clears it up. For the time being I've swapped to working on the same issue with my dual extrusion printer, but I'll probably bounce back and forth. The normal Ender 3 is at least usable now, so long as I can stand seeing the wall glitch; my dual extruder setup has yet to be tuned in, so I'll multitask with it.

Just updating that disabling square-wave stepping changed nothing. What's most annoying is that the rest of these parts looks great, except for wherever the seam is. Everything else is tuned in pretty darn well.

Hey all, I'm fighting an artifacting issue that has now been plaguing me ever since I installed an SKR Mini E3 V3.0 board in one of my Ender 3 Pros. The issue in particular is that at the beginning of some wall segments there is significant under-extrusion. On some parts, printing inner walls first hides it, but on others it is still visible. I prefer printing outer walls first, but that's an aside. I've messed with retraction settings, extra prime distances up to absurd levels (higher than retraction values), disabling retraction when moving to the outer-wall, wall speeds etc. all with little effect. The only thing that has sort of helped was the high extra restart (prime) distances, up to 2.0mm, but even then it doesn't solve the issue completely and seems indicative of another issue. I've also tried fresh installs and default profiles of Cura, both 4.13.1 and the new 5.0 beta (the beta actually works a tad better). Material in question is just some eSun PETG, which I've printed lots of successfully in the past. The machine is a modified Ender 3 Pro: Micro-Swiss all metal hotend, garolite bed, metal tensioner, tighter bowden tube, etc. - nothing crazy. Any slop in the bowden tube fittings is below the level I can detect with my eyes. The printer is otherwise tight and well-behaved, and it had been printing fine for over a year before swapping boards. The only other change I made at that time was taking my microswiss hotend from another printer and installing it on this one. I don't see that as a likely cause, but it is a possibility I suppose. I've also tried many many firmware compilations, ranging from bare minimum Ender defaults to every combination of junction deviation, linear advance, s-curve accel., etc. Writing this now I did however just realize that I never tried disabling square-wave stepping, so I'll test that. Attached below are a couple photos showing the glitches. My apologies for the photo quality, it's a shiny PETG filament and that's as close as my phone can focus. The parts on the bottom row have the inner wall printed first, and the top is the opposite. I'm getting close to reinstalling the old board as a sanity check, although I'd of course rather avoid that. Last time I troubleshot this was about three months ago before giving up for a while. I'd like to get this printer up and going again though, as I have some things I would like to use it for. If anyone has ideas please do share, I'm just about out of my own. Thanks in advance.

I know from when I configured the firmware that the fans are 0 and 1. Fan 2 is the hotend cooling fan. This also matches what I can control either directly on the printer or though the terminal.

Well after getting tired of staring gcode, I took your advice Greg and tried messing with the original Creality definition. I certainly don't understand it, but it seems to be working again, though I have noticed a couple things. For one, the time estimates between the two (with identical material profiles) were radically different. I don't recall how accurate the custom machine was, but the Creality based config is pretty accurate while being nearly double the time of the custom machine. Perhaps this is because I did not define the accel and jerk values in the custom definition. I did edit the Creality definition to match my firmware settings though. The fans/extruder swap also do not work as perfectly with the Creality setup vs the custom one. I noticed that the first time the material swaps, the second extruder stays at the Initial temp rather than ramping up fully to Print temp. After the second switch it acts as expected. The fans are the opposite in that they swap back and forth the first extruder change, but from then on they both stay on full time. Not really sure what is going on there, but the print finished successfully and the slight amount of extra cooling isn't the worst thing in the world when the build chamber is already 50C+. For now I'm not going to try and figure out what the heck caused these variations (I've already spent hours going back and forth trying to do so). Looking at the Creality_Base definition I did not see anything that would appear mission critical that I was missing in my custom definition, but who knows. Mostly it was just material settings that I didn't care about having defaults for anyway. I'll fiddle with the setup again at some point here, but I've had enough headaches getting dual extrusion to work properly for the time being. I'm sure I'll throw some more info in here if I discover something (or if something else breaks...). Thanks for the help Greg.

Ok, I had just typed out my conclusion and then figured I should test a couple other files. Unfortunately doing so threw my findings right out the window (good thing I checked). What I had first thought was the issue was altering the location of the prime tower. Moving it anywhere from the default location on the first model would make the retraction issue appear. If it stayed put, all the layer heights I tested worked fine. Then I tried a completely different model with no profile changes from the above and now it's back to the same issue. This was a profile I made completely from scratch (second time now) while testing every profile setting change by slicing it each time and inspecting the gcode. Guess I get to do it over again here and see if anything different rears itself... Yippee....

Alrighty, for the sake of completeness I went ahead and made a new quality preset/profile from scratch, only adjusting settings that I needed and... still the exact same issue. I've gone ahead and put all the relevant files that I can think of into the zip folder attached below. I hope that it's enough that someone might be able to replicate this issue on their end. Realistically this isn't an end of the world sort of problem, especially since supports are always printed first after leaving the prime tower. However it's still a nuisance and if anybody happens to figure out what's going on that would be awesome. I'll keep toying around with things on my end, but I'm just about out of ideas. Thanks. Dual Extruder Problem Files.zip

Thanks for taking a look. I tried downloading your 3mf but ran into the same "printer does not exist" issue, and I can't set an Ender 3 Pro up a dual extruder unless I go modify the definition files to allow more than one extruder which just puts us back to square one with a custom machine again. I included the definition files for my printer in the second post - they're in the zip folder since the forum doesn't allow the upload of json files. That paired with my material profile which was also attach should allow you to open it up. I'll attach the original stl file below so that we don't have to worry about Cura not recognizing the name of the printer in the 3mf. Thanks again for the help. Edit: Even without matching machines, shouldn't the material profile still be able to be imported? That would then give us equivalent slicer settings aside from machine parameters. Chimera_Carriage_for_E3P_v8.stl

Ok.... New part model and now the layer height work around doesn't work. Genuinely confused here. Am I nuts and there's a setting somewhere that I've missed, or is this a bug? I'd really love to know because getting strings and then areas of slight under extrusion at the beginning of a layer is not something I'm particularly fond of. Attached is the model where the issue pops up again. E3PROC_Chimera Carriage for E3P v8_ASA.gcode

Well I've managed to figure out a way around the problem, but not the problem itself. Using the exact same profile if I have the layer height set to 0.24mm the prime tower retraction issue presents itself. If I drop it to 0.20mm the retraction before leaving the prime tower gets added back in. I have no clue why this is happening and it'd be great if someone could take a look here and see if they notice anything weird. Below I'll attach the two gcode files and the profile I was using for folks to take a look at. I'll also zip the machine definition files below, but note that the issue persists even with the default Cura custom machine. Let me know if there's anything else I can provide. E3PROC_Cable_Strain_Relief_Cover_v19gcodetest (0.24).gcode E3PROC_Cable_Strain_Relief_Cover_v19gcodetest (0.20).gcode ASA - DualE Base Profile.curaprofile Ender 3 Pro Chimera.zip

Hey all, I've been sorting out a Chimera Ender 3 setup and have managed to get most of the kinks worked out, but I just ran into this odd problem. When leaving the prime tower the extruder is not retracting. The prime tower looks normal since linear advance is taking care of the residual pressure, but upon arriving at the part enough filament has oozed that it deposits a few blobs/strands. The nozzle change g-code works and looks fine, but rather it's when it is printing a consistent material and building up the prime tower that this issue occurs. This is confirmed by looking at the g-code files where sure enough there is no retraction on these moves. I was running 4.12.1 and now I'm on 4.13.1 and the issue persists. It could be that I'm missing a setting, although if so I certainly am having trouble finding it. The prime tower is located at (45,20). Attached are the relevant files I can think of. Let me know if anything else is needed. E3PROC_Cable_Strain_Relief_Cover_v19gcodetest.gcode E3PROC_Cable_Strain_Relief_Cover_v19gcodetest.3mf

Hey all, I'm working out the details of an Ender 3 Chimera setup and so far this Cura situation has been my only bump in the road. On the Ender 3 the x-gantry has the travel for the Chimera hotend to reach the edge of the bed on both sides with both nozzles, however, in Cura it of course limits the x-width thinking that this is not the case. My first thought was to just oversize the bed in the printer config, but then the prime line would end up off the bed, not to mention it's more of a Band-Aid than a fix. Sure the prime line can be moved, but I'm still wondering if there's a proper way that Cura supports this. Is it possible for Cura to see the whole bed as printable area even with dual extrusion? Said another way, can the axis travel limits be defined separately from the printable area? I've been cruising through Cura settings and so far haven't found anything that does the trick. It seems like something that would exist, I just can't find it. Open to any thoughts you folks might have.

Just my two cents, but I've always understood that thinner layers are stronger - less area to heat, closer contact to the previous layer, etc. Anyway, ASA is definitely something that has applications, but the strength issue is an interesting one. I ought to do some more testing, but even a little layer cooling massively improves overhangs in my experience, although I can't say how much it decreases layer adhesion. So far layer adhesion seems adequate, but not stellar. Certainly not in the same ballpark as PETG. This is with an enclosed, modified E3P, with a recirculating filtration fan on Raise3D ASA. Subbing in case anything else develops.

Hot indeed. At first I tried a couple PLA parts just for kicks and sure enough after not even a day they had practically fallen out of their install locations. Now the benchmark I'm using is 150F to consider it "suitable". PETG holds up fairly well, although parts under stress deform slightly in high heat (tabs on clips and whatnot). ASA does well although has worse layer adhesion. Haven't looked into nGen yet.

Yeah, that's about what I was seeing it go for. Cost realistically won't be much of a hurdle, it's the UV resistance over time that I'm really wondering about. So far I haven't found much anything except some articles about increasing the SPF of fabric for better sun protection of the wearer, not necessarily the pigment itself. As long as it can last a few years without fading I'm good, but so far I haven't come across anything to say so or otherwise. It's also inside a car, so the glass and shadows will block some amount of UV, though a fair amount still gets through. Eh, I'll keep scouring the web I suppose :).

Interesting, I've honestly never looked into the dying process - I figured they would look more liked dyed fabric or something, but the parts in that link you shared look great. Natural nylon is what I already use because for those parts I generally don't care about the color, although now you've got me intrigued. It would also solve the issue of matching some of the more specific vehicles interior colors, such as red, charcoal, etc. that are hard to find filament the right shade for. The primary concern I have is the UV resistance of the dyes. Cost-wise it would work out to be almost equal with ASA, with perhaps a little bit more being spent with nylon for the dyes. I'm still kinda bummed that PETG doesn't quite withstand high enough temps, because the layer adhesion is superb. Nylon of course would solve both of those issues, although again, it's the post-processing and dye's long term UV resistance that has me curious.

Thanks again for the response Torgeir. I was just headed back here to report that I have the issue (mostly) solved. After about five combinations of outer wall first vs second, single wall with infill vs all walls, and fan combinations, I've got things to a fairly acceptable level (see attached photo; left is original, right is new). Up until recently I've been using PETG for these parts, but unfortunately it's not quite holding up to the temps seen inside a vehicle when under load (ie. the tabs lose some tension). Now I'm switching over to ASA and the seam issue became much worse as seen in my first post. Turns out that via the combination of "moving" the Z-Seam, using a single wall printed first, line infill with connected paths, and adding 20% layer cooling fan I have drastically improved finish quality. I still need to do some destructive testing to ensure the parts are not notably weaker due to the layer cooling fan, but I have a feeling it's going to be fine. There is still some slight deformation at the very bottom of the part, and I believe this is due to the Z-Seam still being on the edge here (I can't add the center bump in this area due to application constraints). Addressing your nylon suggestion, yes nylon is a great filament and I've had good luck with it for a number of things. Unfortunately, I need to be able to post-process these parts with sanding, painting, etc. which nylon doesn't lend itself well to as far as I know. I think ASA is going to work out pretty well here, but of course time will tell. Pre-Post Edit :). Whoops, almost missed your response gr5. Your idea of printing them in two pieces for strength and looks, and then attaching them somehow is a good one - funny enough I contemplated that two months ago 🙂 (I've been working on these things for too long...). I ended up dismissing it because I figured it would be more work than it's worth, but perhaps I'll have to revisit it if I can't get these other methods working consistently. And interesting point about the part being "wobbly", I hadn't thought of that. Now that you've mentioned it, I do notice a small horizontal line at the very bottom of where the tabs begin - perhaps that's in part thanks to the wobble. Huh, neat. Going back to nylon again, it really is great stuff. I was seriously impressed when I first picked some up and couldn't break a strand by pulling on it. I've used it for gears, bushings, etc. but as I mentioned above (in what is becoming a rather long post, criminy...) for this application I don't think it will work. Anyway, I think that wraps this up for now, unless anyone else has some more ideas on how to further improve finish quality. I do have some other clips to do still so it'd be nice if the thread doesn't get closed just yet, or is that even possible here? Thanks again for the suggestions.

Thanks @Torgeir for the response. I actually started with the parts oriented that way (flat on the build surface) originally, but the issue is that the tabs are too weak when printed in this orientation - they're functional, but not idiot proof, and since this is a product I am selling I can't take chances on that :). I literally just fired up a print based on my second idea in the original post, so we'll see how it turns out here in about an hour. It allows me to have the seam in the middle like I wanted, although I'm still curious if there's a way to do this in Cura alone. Attached is a screenshot of the updated model showing the new seam location.

Hello, I've been working on some relatively thin trim clips and the position of the Z-Seam has been causing the model to "collapse" where the seam is. Essentially the nozzle pauses a hair where the seam is which results in the existing print sticking to it a little. As this area is so thin, when the nozzle begins to move again it takes a tiny bit of this edge with it, causing a deformation. So far I've done a lot of fiddling with the Z-Seam, and it's gotten a little better, but ideally I would place it in the middle of the rear wall as you can't see that area anyway. Is there a way to do this or will Cura always use a corner if there is one? So far I have been unable to place it in the middle of a flat surface. My second idea is to add a small bump/line in the center of the back of the model so that Cura will place the seam there instead. It's probably the easiest solution, but for the sake of future models and just solving the issue itself, it'd be nice to be able to fix this in Cura if it's possible. Curious if anyone has any ideas. This one has been driving me nuts. In the photo, the deformation is on the top left corner of the parts. When printing, this is actually the bottom right corner - where the seam is. This issue persists across different hot ends, printers, and materials. Thanks. CE3PRO_Bolt Hole Cover Clip v3_petg.3mf