[Ceiling airduct cover]

Overall size is approximately 87x60x24 cm. When installed, visible height is ~17 cm . Printed with PLA+ on Ender-3 Max, made of 9 large parts joined together. Designed in Blender, sliced in Cura 5.2 & 5.3-alpha -- thank you Ultimaker for the new multiple tree support!

 

[UltiMaker Cura Alpha 🎄 Tree Support Spotlight 🎄]

Genius! Thank you! Gained 5+ h print time and saved 20 m filament.

 

[fieldOfView plugins for Cura 5.0]

Hi Aldo,

 

I'm new to Cura and 3D printing, I think this is awesome! Owning an Ender 3 Max.

 

Does any of your plugins support sending the extruder to the topmost Z axis position while printer is idle? This functionality would be useful when replacing the extruder nozzle, cleaning a clogged nozzle, or changing the filament.

 

Thanks.

[not watertigth error]

I suppose Blender's manifoldness and Mesh Tool's watertightness verification algorithms are significantly different. Most of my Blender models are found not to be watertight in Cura. They print as expected tough.

[Optimal Cura settings for large objects?]

To follow up on this, the Ender 3 Max fan is a beast. To avoid warping, I need to turn the fan on at a height of 10 mm or greater (layer 51 in my case). I get good glass bed adherence only if first layer temperature is at least 70 ⁰C. I realize this may be PLA brand-dependent as well so I have to experiment more.

 

[Optimal Cura settings for large objects?]

My interest in this topic is related to printing large objects that I intend to use around the house. I chose an Ender 3 Max (advertised to do 300 x 300 x 320 mm) and Cura.

 

After some trial and error I managed to print my first large project: a flat (~390 x 290 x 5 mm) divider for my freezer drawers, made of 2 overlapping parts designed in Blender and assembled together with snap-fit joints. I successfully printed out 2 copies and then I ran into a "not sticking to bed" problem that required a reevaluation of most adhesion parameters previously used.

 

Here is what works for me right now (brass nozzle 0.4 mm; PLA filament 1.75 mm; bed cleaned with 70% isopropyl alcohol, not 99%):

 

- Layer height: 0.2 mm

- Initial layer height: 0.2 mm

- Top/Bottom thickness: 0.8 mm

 

- Printing temperature: 200 °C

- Printing temperature initial layer: 210 °C

- Build plate temperature: 60 °C

- Build plate temperature initial layer: 70 °C

- Print speed: 40 mm/s

- Initial layer speed: 5 mm/s

- Enable print cooling = False

- Build plate adhesion = True

- Build plate adhesion type = Brim (8 mm)

- Z Offset = -0.05 mm [using 'Z Offset Setting' plugin by fieldOfView]

- Enable draft shield =  True [Experimental setting]

- Draft shield X/Y distance = 10 mm

 

Setting the offset to -0.05 mm after bed leveling is important as it seems to enhance bed adhesion. Enabling the draft shield is a condition to avoid warping; not sure whether it works by preventing drafts or by providing additional mechanical stability to the printout but I find this feature particularly useful in my case.

 

The parameters above give me a nice-looking printout. The problem is that it takes 25 h to print one part and 21 h the other. This is still acceptable for now as I only need 4 copies for this project. Soon I will start a new project, where I need to print 6 different parts of a ~900 x 600 x 250 mm object. I feel that, with the inevitable trial and error required for optimization, my next project may take months to complete.

 

Any suggestions?