Cura 15.10 Open Beta

[nallath 1,120]

I don't know by heart. I'm not that active anymore for Cura as some other things popped up.

[mastory 44]

I have to say I like the look and feel of the new Cura iterations. Haven't yet printed with it.

note that I can't get the new engine to slice a model to print at the same overall rate as the old Cura. I have a part I print repeatedly. I want to try out the new software to see if I can get a better finishes. Because I do print this item as a psuedo production item, the print time is important. I have tried to duplicate the settings as closely as possibly and I am getting a time of 1hr30m, whereas with the old engine I can print the item in 1hr5m (predicted by Cura and timed accurately). I played with lots of settings and can't get the speed down. Possibly the there is a difference in the requested print speed vs the real life averages causing a longer forecasted time? This is really annecdotal like so many things with printing.

Question: Where can I edit the Start and End Gcodes in the new software?

Thanks and keep up the good work.

Matt

[LePaul 321]

I can't find that either....I see the gcode plug-ins....but not how to edit the Start and End ones

[nallath 1,120]

The start-end code is in the setting json file. There is no easy plugin just yet to change those.

[drayson 75]

hmmm... but would be great to have such a plugin...

Unfortunately programming is like rocket science for me - maybe somebody would jump into??? :-)

[calinb 11]

It's too bad that you let M$ dictate the development efforts of Cura and dropped support for XP. I suspect that a far greater number of people are still on XP than Linux in the world. As much as I hate M$ and love Linux, I think it will also be quite a long time before the installed world base of good ol' XP falls below the installed world base of Linux! Would it really be too hard to retain XP compatibility in Cura--even unofficially? I don't see much that's special in the way of Cura's presentation and look or functionality to justify some kind of new-fangled M$ dev kit or code library!

I cannot afford to upgrade the software on my CAD station (and actually, my severe hatred for M$ keeps me from spending money on their new OSs that will not function any better in meeting my CAD needs than my existing system). I have an old 3.8 GHz Prescott running XP Pro x64 that features nearly full memory map access to all of its 8 GB of ECC memory. As an old "clock burner," it's actually still pretty fast for CAD applications, which even today are typically far from optimally threaded. If I "upgrade" my hardware or Windows to M$'s latest spyware-infested offerings (Snowden proved it with his outing of the NSA "Prism" program), I must also spend considerably more money for new CAD software licenses, in addition to the cost of the otherwise (other than Cura) completely unneeded OS.

I don't like being forced to spin an industry "treadmill!" At least the latest release of Rhino5 still works with XP--even the 64-bit version, which is not officially supported.

I tried to run Cura 15 in a Virtualbox Xubuntu VM, but it's too slow. I'm actually better off running it on my old dual Atom Ubuntu netbook that I use for general personal computing and travel.

Edited October 12, 2015 by Guest

[LePaul 321]

Oh cry me a river, XP has been old for a very long time. Complaining they do not support Windows XP is the craziest thing I've read in these forums. Upgrade to Windows 7/8/10!

[calinb 11]

Oh cry me a river, XP has been old for a very long time.  Complaining they do not support Windows XP is the craziest thing I've read in these forums.  Upgrade to Windows 7/8/10!

 

Cura is not a good reason for wasting my money and supporting a business that I despise (M$). I'm not a gamer. I don't need CPU and GPU-sucking eye candy and I explained my other reasons. My Dodge pickup truck works just as well as a new pickup truck for its utilitarian purposes (better in many ways). It is not at all crazy that I should wish to retain it too--especially given the cost to buy something new. I worked as a Senior Engineer at Intel for over 20 years. I know the computer industry's "tread mill" as well as anyone and it's sometimes just plain crazy! I'd rather suffer with FreeCAD and OpenSCAD than upgrade to another M$ OS offering that in no significant way improves my CAD capabilities over what I have now--or even aids Cura development, I suspect.

I will counter your sage advice by telling you to boycott M$; it and its long parade of executive staff and former executive staff comprise some of the most evil members of both the computer industry and society in general. They are monopolistic economic fascists--pure and simple!

[nallath 1,120]

Would it really be too hard to retain XP compatibility in Cura--even unofficially?

 

Yes. There is no difference between official and unofficial. It's the same as trying to build websites for ie6, but worse. At a certain point new technologies that we simply -need- are no longer supported or will take weeks / months to implement (and often continue to be a drain of resources and a cause for a lot of issues). This forces us to make choices like this. We don't like it either.

[audioglass 0]

Is it actually going to work or end up being a frustration just like all previous releases?

I am currently stuck on 15.01.01 Stuck wasting hour after hour importing models only to have the save gcode button not work and the save to sd card button greyed out.

I spend hours modeling, reducing size, losing details, compromising my design because the most advanced 3d printing software cant even give me any feedback to why it is not working!

[calinb 11]

At a certain point new technologies that we simply -need- are no longer supported or will take weeks / months to implement (and often continue to be a drain of resources and a cause for a lot of issues).

 

And what is the magnitude of the drain of resources needed to support Cura for the relatively small customer base running Linux (not that I'm against it)? Be honest now. I'd like your truthful assessment.

[nallath 1,120]

And what is the magnitude of the drain of resources needed to support Cura for the relatively small customer base running Linux (not that I'm against it)? Be honest now. I'd like your truthful assessment.

 

Linux is actually the easiest platform to support. Max & linux are both equally easy with regards to build scripts. Windows is a lot harder, but once you have it right it keeps working (provided that you dump windows xp, which would force us to change everything). Mac is actually the hardest platform to support as it generates the most bugs / issues.

So all in all: Linux > Windows > Mac

Supporting windows XP would cost us several months of engineering, if it is at all possible with some of the new things that we do.

[berndjm 16]

Linux is actually the easiest platform to support. Max & linux are both equally easy with regards to build scripts. Windows is a lot harder ...

 

To be fair it should be said that Linux is the easiest platform solely because you've decided not to support older Linuxes. Otherwise you would have nearly the same hard way as supporting XP ...

[nallath 1,120]

If we supported old linux and XP, windows would still be harder because the build system is more difficult. So no, linux is not the easiest because we dropped some support. The dropping of support is so that its possible at all.

[audioglass 0]

I am spending an awfully long time trying to rotate my object once it has first been imported. The slicing calculation starts as soon as it has been imported. If I start rotating the object whilst it is slicing I get random crashes and hangs with no feedback to whether there is an error. It just hangs at the stage before the percentage slider starts its accent or after that stage. Maybe 66% maybe 95%.

The new rotation tool is making this problem a lot bigger than it needs to be. I cannot fathom how you rotate the model when if I move my mouse to the left is only moves 15 degrees then to the right maybe 135 degrees. Then when I move it back to the left it goes to 600 degrees!???

The calculation phase runs as soon as I change anything, which usually ends with a crash.

I need a button to start the calculation phase so that I can actually get it into position without crashing.

When I import a model it is always laying down so I “always” need to use rotate. Can you not at least follow the same xyz system of popular modelling programs?

[nallath 1,120]

Switching now would only increase the difficulties as a lot of people already have models converted into 'the way cura wants them'. We do have a feature request to look at the meta information of the 3D model to see if we need to pre rotate it, but we haven't gotten to it.

As for the rotation tool issues, make a issue report on github so we can keep track.

[gpb01 23]

Switching now would only increase the difficulties as a lot of people already have models converted into 'the way cura wants them'.

 

What about adding a simple switch (on/off) in Cura General Preferences to rotate or not ? Should be quite easy and anybody can choose

Guglielmo

[nallath 1,120]

 

@gpb01 Good idea. Make a enhancement request in github so we won't forget it.

Edited October 15, 2015 by Guest

[gpb01 23]

@gpb01 Good idea. Make a enhancement request in github so we won't forget it.

 

I'm not a big GitHub expert, so ... I hope to have done properly ... HERE

Guglielmo

[calinb 11]

I am spending an awfully long time trying to rotate my object once it has first been imported. The slicing calculation starts as soon as it has been imported. If I start rotating the object whilst it is slicing I get random crashes and hangs with no feedback to whether there is an error. It just hangs at the stage before the percentage slider starts its accent or after that stage. Maybe 66% maybe 95%.....

 

 

Here's the workaround that I always use to slay that particular Cura annoyance. It doesn't work in "Quickprint" mode, but Quickprint poses only a minor annoyance (you can turn it off and it stays off):

Use the the Layer Height box to take back control of your computer and command when Cura slices. Leave it set to "0" or fill the field with only a single decimal point. Cura will display a red background in the field and red is what you want to see (and feel ). When you are ready to slice, then type the number you want into the field. Be sure to go through the pains of "turning it off" again after each file is processed. No--it's not anywhere near as easy or efficient to use as a "start" button, like with every other slicer, but AFAIK it's all we've got in Cura.

Cura has a couple of unique very useful features (like loading .ini settings from a gcode file) but autostart and Quickprint are not compelling features. Ditto for having to hit ctl+e to access the remainder of the settings menus, instead of having the "expert" setting selections consistent the menu tabs used for everything else (also only a very minor annoyance and of little consequence).

There is no compelling reason to have Cura pointlessly chewing up CPU and memory resources while a user is getting setup to slice, or nearly anytime they make a setting change. When this "feature" appeared in Cura, I figured it wouldn't last very long after users found out what a bad idea it was, but I was wrong about this feature's tenure in Cura.

Edited October 16, 2015 by Guest

[calinb 11]

Deleted (double post).

Edited October 23, 2015 by Guest

[StainlessLobster 0]

Slicing locks up 100% of the time when selecting "one at a time and normal quality" :(

Is there a work around? (I couldn't get the layer workaround to work)

System info:

OSX: 10.10.5

HW: Macbook Air mid 2012

App: 15.09.91

Printer: UM2 (stock)

[nallath 1,120]

Slicing locks up 100% of the time when selecting "one at a time and normal quality" :(

 

We're going to need more information if we are to help you. Please have a look at https://github.com/Ultimaker/Cura#logging-issues and log the issue there.

[Titus 170]

What is this version doing to support

Check this out:

[media=6979][/media]

[media=6980][/media]

The support starts mid air! What the hell? The goal of support is to not start in mid air xD

It looks like it takes the highest layer it has to put support on to start on, rather than let it grow. I checked 15.04.2 and that worked correctly.

File: http://www.thingiverse.com/download:1520868

I hope my print comes out fine, I noticed this only when my print started doing strange stuff :(

Just had to babysit the print to make sure two pieces got glued together rather than break off. Don't think it will be sweet looking :(

Edited October 23, 2015 by Guest

[mastory 44]

Trying to run Cura 15.09 with some difficulties. The problems I'm having seem to be with the user interface. Mine is a win7 64bit machine.

First thing is that every time I start the software, I have to define a new machine - again!. Of course, this requires a bypass of all the setup routines again. After that, I have to re-import my specialized slicing profile. Shouldn't these stay loaded after they have been loaded once?

-correction- The profiles are being saved, I just didn't recognize them by the generic names custom profiles appear as in Cura.

I noticed is that the 'support roof' does not display in layer view mode.

I am getting this notice after making custom changes to the print settings and turning options on and off:

"X hidden settings use custom values" There is no way to tell which settings have custom settings. I think if you have made custom settings, maybe the option should be locked ON so you can see that and somehow indicated that it is 'not default'.

Often, changes to the infill density are not recognized. I am trying to print 0 infill at the moment, and have had to resort to a legacy version.

-edit- when specifying a distance between infill lines it seems more reliable. Percentages not very well

When I try to rotate the model (low poly) the revolve motions work intermittently, and often in the wrong direction.

I will try to keep using it, because I like all the features and note any problems I see.

Matt

Edited October 25, 2015 by Guest