Pridanc

Folks, As an education to me, do y'all know if a simple printer like the Ender 3 V2 will display the current flow as requested by CURA or ? I ran some tests to see what flow appears to print best on my machine using PP which was 120%. (this is obviously 20% more than what was standard at the start of the test.) Because of the test, I now have Flow set at 120% when sliced in CURA for the print I'm doing now. (Material-Flow-120%) What I am wondering is this: If CURA calls for 120%, would the printer's little display show 120% (where it shows E in the picture below) or does the printer accept that the 120% that what CURA is calling for is "full flow" or 100%? Thus I don't see 120% unless I make on-the-fly changes through the screen to another number? Does anyone know that how I'm seeing it is right or should I stop that thinking and go have more coffee? Just curious not to mention I've not looked at the G-Code to even see if the flow has been adjusted/set by CURA during the slice. OK, I'm baby stepping. TY in advance for the enlightenment. PDC

Slash, OK many thanks as I will look into it. I've yet to find a solution to some of the larger ABS or PP part prints I've done / I do staying successfully down on the build plate without a raft regardless of what is used between the part and the plate. Without question, rafts have done the best job of helping me reach success. I'll keep you informed when I try the PP print next. I'm close.... As always, TYVM PDC

Folks, After successfully printing some smaller PP parts, I decided to step up to printing a larger part out of PP as well. At first I found the warping of this larger part to be a bit pesky but after some messing around, I've reduced the warping to an almost imperceptible level which leaves me with a question about adjusting the connection between a raft and the part. If you look at the picture of the raft pulled from the most recent part, you will see 4 red circles. If you look even closer, you will notice that inside each red circle is a white mark (spot?) at the juncture of two straight lines. Interestingly, three of the white marks are nearly identical with one being a lone wolf as it were. This oddity (the lone wolf) is the only corner of the part that remained 100% stuck to the raft, with the other three having pulled away from the raft the smallest amount. No question, the part is perfectly usable with only the slightest indication of warping seen at those three corners when looking. The imperfections are hard to even notice at a glance. My question is this: How do I adjust the settings in CURA to make the contact between the raft and the part stronger? CURA 5.5.0-beta.1 (let me know if you feel I'm silly not to upgrade. So far, very happy) Many thanks and as always, all suggestions are welcome. Sincerely, PDC

Folks, so that I don't go down a road of delusion (happens all the time, sadly) I wanted to bounce this off y'all to see if I'm using the Post Processing Script Max Flow correctly. I wanted to build a test to verify the exact flow I needed for a particular filament whilst printing parts that I needed. I know I didn't invent this but darned if I can remember who offered the suggestion. I've since printed the test with what I feel are the changes by layer and I'm happy so I think I was successful. I've yet to print a part with what I've discovered but that will happen shortly. Here is what I feel I was doing, and below are a question or two. If I look at my initial CURA setup, flow is depicted as 100% (appears to be kind of standard or default if you will). After printing my part with this filament, and although the print was successful for it's purpose, it appeared as if there was a bit of under extrusion in places. In an efforet to make the print appear better, I thought I'd print a test part with varying flow rates to see which (if any) looked better. With that in mind, and knowing that I'm happy to start the first 10mm or so with the "stock" setting of 100% flow, I wanted the first change to happen at layer 30 and that change would be to 105% from 100, and then to change every 25 layers by 5% each time. Do you feel, after looking at the picture above, that this is what I achieved in the settings I gave the Post Processing Script? The final test print sure looks like it but I've fooled myself before. Next question which seems obvious but I'm still learning too much so here goes. If I started my test print at 100% flow, and after looking at the test when finished and find that I like the flow of 120%, is 120% the number I go back into CURA and insert 120 under flow when printing this material? Suggestions if not? Thanks in advance, PDC

Thanks Greg, I will snag them anyway as this might make seeing all things easier regardless of screen size. All the best, PDC

I would have thought it was already "full screen" but then... :-)

OK, I tripped across "toggle full screen" and found a fix

Folks, Is there a way to move the "drop downs" so that I can see the X coordinate in the pain seen in the picture below? I've done all the pushing, pulling, prodding, clicking, cursing and begging I know to do but I am still stuck. Using: CURA 5.5.0 beta 1 Win 10 machine Let me know your thoughts and TY for dealing with my silly questions. Huge thanks in advance, All the best, PDC

Slash, My usual slow response. Travel is killing me and my single braincell keeps me blissfully ignorant of things I seek. Just like this. All me and I apologize. Thanks for the response but I did something that seemed much easier for me. I went back to CAD, added an "ear" with very thin connections to the model, mirrored that and bingo. Once printed they break off easily. Works a charm. I'll try to remember your thoughts and give them a go next time. Let us mark this as closed. Many thanks, PC

As an FYI, I made a usable workaround but I'd still love to know how to properly use the Custom support features of the Marketplace download for this. As always, many thanks. PDC

Folks, having successfully printed some specific use open-top boxes in other materials, I'm now working on a PP version and am a bit stumped. My first issue was the warping off the build plate and feel that has been overcome. (I'll take the small victories). But... For some reason the walls are bowing which could point to several things however, it seems to me that if I added a support to each of the long side walls of the part, then about midway in their span, we'd have a winner. My issue is that yes, I have the Custom Supports app off of the Market place but am not terribly adept at using them. Seems to me that using the Custom Abutment support would be a great start but I've not successfully figured out how to get the triangular look as shown/seen here. Let me know your thoughts as I've included my 3mf file for fun. Many thanks and I look forward to hearing thoughts including..."are you nuts?" All the best, PC Slightly modified Ender 3 v2 CURA 5.5.0 beta 1 EFF SF Duc 112 PP .6nzl Layer.3mf

Dustin, TYVM and no worries. I already have a PP profile and from their own literature feel that I can make the changes necessary. Lets call this one closed OK? Stay well, PC

Dustin, Thanks for the info. By chance if I change the name of my printer to one of the Ultimaker models, will that work? If not, and you are saying there is no possible work around no worries and TY! PC

Folks, I am trying to download a material file ( FL105-PP Braskem/Extellar) into my list of materials. From Marketplace, I chose the file and then close and reopening the slicer. For some reason I never see the file under Prepare where I typically go to select a filament. Now I realize that I can, through a bit of testing, set all the parameters myself but I like it when I can get the material file to begin with and make changes from there. Perhaps it is because my "not stock but close" Ender 3 V2 is seen as not good enough for PP? (although I print with it now) Love to know your thoughts and if there is an override if that is what is needed to get the material to appear in my list. Thanks in advance, PC

Truth be told I'm not sure what you are saying here. However, now that I know a bit more about this printing process, I may start ditching some of my profiles as they were made from fear. IE, not knowing how I got there but "just in case" the print came out nice, I wanted to keep that profile setting. Now I save .3mf files and can always open one of those again not to mention the HTML files I keep as well. This way, I'll have fewer choices in the profile category which might be simpler!? If I read the latest CURA info correctly, folks will be able to start adding to CURA to help it stay up with some of the others on the market. Fingers crossed as I am now comfortable with CURA and don't really want to find another...to learn. Stay well, PC

Slash, Although I've been working away just fine after having found and moved the files we discussed above, just because it bugs me I decided to reach out and see if you have words of wisdom for this. Please note that I copied all the files I had from the old Hard drives (from the failed computer) into the folders as you indicated for both CURA 5.4 and 5.5. I have both at hand just in case. 5.4 has been great so if 5.5 stumbled for any reason before I could get with y'all as to why, I could always open 5.4 and keep right on. Since then, when I open 5.4, it opens 100% as it always did. However, when I open 5.5 I get this note. (attached image) So far I've ignored it without issue but it bugs me so thought I'd ask if you had any thoughts? And I'm loath (too lazy) to do a reset as then I'll have to copy the files from 5.4 and paste them in. I know, sounds pathetic but I'm not sure that anything will change if I do that. IE, this same warning will probably come right back up. No matter what, thanks upfront. Sincerely , PDC

As usual, so many thanks. Can I put them back into the same area of CURA on the "new" computer? I'll try and see. If the answer is Yes, no need to respond. If No, I'm all ears. Otherwise, too, lets consider this closed. You so rock. PDC

Hey everyone. Just had a computer melt down. All hard drives are good so I can read them just fine connected to another computer. What I'd like to find are all the Print Settings Profiles I'd created (with everyone's help) but not sure in what file I should look. Clearly, with the old computer up and running, open Cura and all the choices were in CURA under print setting Profiles. I know they are on the hard drive, I just need a point in the right direction. All the best and Thanks in advance. PDC

Slash, TYVM and I'm betting you are 100% correct. And I wear the "crazy old coot" as a badge of honor. Lets call this solved... Stay well, PC

Folks, I just jumped over to 5.5 and my prints are good as they were before but thought I'd mention something here. I'd just finished printing a part in 5.4 that was "perfect" , installed 5.5 and it too was perfect but I noticed something strange. The Brim began printing on the left side, OK not terribly strange but the norm for me is typically from the "front of build plate" and then the nozzle moving counter clockwise around the plate. Where it started is not what I found odd. The odd part was that the print laid down several lines of the brim on the left side only before adding any more anywhere else. But even after doing a full circumferential lap or two, the nozzle would suddenly add more yet to the left side and then carry on around the print. The norm, if such a word can be used, has always been front left corner traveling counter clockwise as it laid the filament down almost until it was done. None of this affected the print, just different and felt I should mention it to learn. Now, after you take a look at the included .3mf and y'all say what you see is as it has always been then dang, proof positive that I am ageing rapidly. That's it. Keep up the good work and let me know your thoughts. Oh, I did notice it organizes items on the plate better IMO. All the best, PC Ender 3 v2 now direct drive using existing bits. And yes, I've been using this setup for a while and am happy as a lark. PLA 5x2x.5 high no lip Std Q Grid.3mf

I am using CURA 5.4 today so most words stem from 5.4 until noted later on when I tried 5.3 Wanting to print some small bits for a project to verify settings etc, I gave it a go. Using PLA as the simple go-to I pushed print. Doing this test print, I found the parts curling up and getting knocked off. Hmmm Upon closer inspection, I noticed that the print also looked sketch on top of the curling (warping) so I was batting 1000 here. Not happy as I'd never had PLA warp before I was at a bit of a loss. Not one to casually toss in the towel I created a test matrix (for settings) of individual parameters to see if I could get the print to: a) stick to the bed and b) look better. As time and tests went on (4-5 min per print) I didn't seem to be making any real headway but hadn't reached the end of my test matrix so was not worried. As a relative newbie, I've come to this forum in the past with questions for my education and along the way y'all have taught me to look harder at a slice in preview as there can be all kinds of hidden bits of information in the slice when viewing it up close. So I followed that advice again. Right off the bat when I perused this up-close and personal view from the first print layer, I noticed that the skirt was "stacking" on itself. I'd never noticed that before so went in to the slicer's Build Plate Adhesion settings for a closer look. Huh, seems that if the "minimum" length of the skirt is not reached, the slicer just adds layers to get to the minimum length as set in the slicer. Reasonable enough IMO. As best I can tell the length default for the skirt is 250mm but don't quote me on that. There was no way I needed 250mm of skirt on such a tiny part so I began lowering that min length number yet not seeing expected change each time I re-sliced the part. For whatever reason, using this 3mf file the setting always left some extra stacked skirt lines in CURA 5.4 no matter what until I raised that min length number to 400mm to which 5.4 added more lines making the skirt wider. I expected more lines wider, but not the strange stacked lines under any circumstance. Learning! As I continued re-slicing with ever shorter skirt/brim minimum lengths, as I was convinced this was the logical choice, all seemed to work as I thought it would/should at first. Yet the more I messed with this setting the more it was becoming obvious that the slicer in my CURA 5.4 "kind of" followed my requests but then too, did its own thing. It was about this time that I thought "you know, I've never really had print quality issues or have I ever noticed skirt stacking in my previous version of CURA, 5.3" so I decided to open 5.3 and slice my part in it using all default settings from CURA of the Standard Quality .2mm profile. Long story short, even with the default 250mm min length, the preview showed only the 3 lines I wanted. No extras, not stacking. For the heck of it I even changed the min number to 0 which is said to tell CURA to ignore this setting which it did leaving me with my requested 3 lines of skirt with no stacking! And 5.3 did add lines at 400mm min length which I expected but I've always had the correct number of skirt lines in all prints from 5.3 no matter what having never adjusted this min line length before. After slicing in 5.3, I thn sent this to print on my Ender 3v2 and dang if the print wasn't almost perfect in every way. Now we get to the question or perhaps it is just me letting y'all know something is odd in 5.4 on my computer. ( IMO of course) I've included the 3mf file as well as jpeg snippets of the skirt found when reviewing the same sliced file in CURA 5.3 and then CURA 5.4. The pictures clearly show skirt differences even though the file is the same between them. For grins and giggles, I will be printing this 3mf file (project) from the slice file out of 5.4 to see how it prints vs how it printed out of 5.3. No question that slicing the project in 5.4 changes the skirt as can be seen, but what else might be different? The visually results might show me that there are other differences. I'm also going to compare the html "project files" from both slicers to see if there are differences that show up. Many thanks as always and I look forward to hearing back when time permits. Stay well, PDC Plate-to-Plate 5.3.3mf

Slash....LOL over the glutton gluten thing. I'm betting I chose it after leaving a T out of the first word and missed that. I'm such a dork. C'est la vie. Z hop is one of those that seem to be on by default. I'll deselect it and watch what may happen using your words as a guide just in case. Stay well and again, TYVM for your help and words. Onward and upward, PDC

Slash, Lots of great questions. First is yes, I forgot to change the words as the part is ABS and in an enclosure and printed with a .4nzl. Retraction tests actually want me to between .8mm and 1mm on my DD extruder and I float between .8 and 2mm to see if there is a difference. I've never seen any. A Bowden machine needs a much longer retraction setting do to the flex, flop, and compressible nature of all that makes up the Bowden mechanism. When using Bowden my machine loves 5-6 on PLA and ABS but wanted 10-12mm on the flexibles I've used. I've also been floating between 35mms and 45mms retraction speeds. I've seen nothing visible to point that I should use one speed over the others Next, filament can get tangled on the spool as it moves around being pulled and pushed as the extruder does its thing. When slack gets into the spool, filament can get under other "lines" of filament and then get stuck and can slow the feed enough to be an issue and can even outright stop the feed. I can only point to this as a fact one time. I can not say that this sticking happened this time. That one for sure time, the extruder pulled so hard it yanked the spool off its holder and if memory serves broke part of the x-z carriage. Boggles the mind. Although I have a camera watching the prints, I don't record them unless I feel there might be an issue. I know....sad huh? So my "is it possible" is just a pure guess but it makes me curious and that the print cleared up 100% at the exact line all the way around the print from that point on? Even more curious as this could have been filament feeding normally from that point on. Makes me want to get a filament sensor to monitor avg movement. Not as yet with printing, but I've been in a place where we recorded everything so I'm use to such silliness. The dual gear extruder is what was on my machine when I got it. (used, $109). Someone had replaced the stock plastic one-driven gear/idler extruder that comes with the Ender3 v2 to an aluminum dual driven gear extruder and it was perfect. Along the way I ended up with a similar looking aluminum extruder but one that is closer to the original Ender that has only one driven roller wheel and one idler wheel which presses the filament into the driven roller. This single driven wheel extruder is being used now only because the printed part I have to mount the Ender extruder motor on the hotend (to make it a DD extruder if you will) did not have the correct offset to use my dual drive extruder. That is being rectified. My personal experience has been better with the dual gear extruder so I will go back to what I know. Right or wrong, I figure that if there is some resistance with the filament spool, the single driven wheel extruder might lack pulling force as compared to the dual driven wheel extruder. I do not have any actual proof of this beyond my gut. Maybe I'll rig up a test stand. :-) Your words are very well taken. The machine was a good old Bowden tube essentially stock Ender 3v2 and did an admirable job, that is, until I started to print with flexibles. Some times it was still perfect, other times not so much. Hard as it may be to fathom but yes, I actually do follow the "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" credo. However, and here is where my weakness comes in, I love to freak with stuff but the overriding goal for me here is to have a machine that can print most any material without any concerns or changes needed beyond the slicer settings. While I have you here, is Z hop needed? I'm also a "if not needed, don't do it" kind of person. As many of these boxes as I've printed out of ABS, it is the first to have any external surface flaws. Now, for practice, off to print more boxes trying your flow suggestions etc. See? I'm a gluten for punishment. HUGE thanks for your input and thoughts as it is the only way I will figure this out. Stay well, PDC

Slash, of course the one time I don't make a .3mf project file this happens. So, here is an after the fact version. I did make an html "project file" for my records so I've been able to verify the slicer settings. No proof I've made this .3mf file 100% accurately but it is darned close. Only thing I don't see here is that the printer was in a chamber heated to 105F or 40c. I can make it hotter but this appears to work. Advice is what makes the world turn so never hesitate to give any and all to me. BTW, is it possible that this behavior is from under-extrusion by the filament getting temporarily stuck on the spool? I'm going to a dual gear extruder, just because I have one, but perhaps all my el-cheapo equipment somehow caused this? Please understand, I don't know under-extrude from over-extrude so the use of those words is just me grasping. Yes I know what the words mean but visually? I know very little. Sad, I know. :-) TYVM, PDC Steve 88.3mf

Folks, after printing several of this part without issue, today I wake up to a print that is more than useable (and will be) but has some strange visible artifacts that end suddenly at a certain height. I'm no longer a newbie but have no idea what might have caused this? I just want to avoid this in the future but hard to do if I've no clue why this happened in the first place. ABS on an Ender 3V2 converted to simple DD using all the original Ender extruder bits moved on top of the Ender Spyder hotend. This is printed in an enclosure and I had no warping etc. Couple of pictures. Notice how it all ends at the same height? I look forward to hearing anyone's thoughts.