Could Cura be causing this?

MFettinger · December 14, 2015

I'm just starting out and I've made a few things successfully and now I was trying to see if I could make something big. So I did this complicated design in SketchUp and I thought it might be a good idea to try a 1/4 scale print just to make sure it was good and it literally printed a gray ball of fluff. So I backed up to the basic shape I started with and found Solidworks2. Checked the mesh for holes and it printed it out (see picture, shape on the right). Then I went to the next step and added a couple shapes and ran it through Solidworks2 again. When it printed it went back to a giant blob (see picture,shape on the left). I'm just not sure what to do next? Here is where it gets really complicated, I have to use Cura 17.10 because the computer designs for the Ultimaker2 and the Lulzbot Taz 5. You just pick your machine in Cura and it loads the profile of the machine you are outputting to. I'll open to any ideas at this point I've been beating my head on the desk for 17 days trying to get this to work. I've thrown it all away and restarted from scratch four times.

Here is the picture, https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B6Qt_aaNkZ8kOFJrT1FkaHgxNEE/view?usp=sharing

Here is the model. https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B6Qt_aaNkZ8kVHRFVUFrMjlidUE/view?usp=sharing

Here is the gcode. https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B6Qt_aaNkZ8kb3pQWjNiOWk0UHc/view?usp=sharing

Here are the settings for Cura, sorry I'm not sure what is important here.

:Running: /Applications/Cura/Cura.app/Contents/Resources/CuraEngine -v -p -s initialSpeedupLayers=4 -s minimalFeedrate=10 -s preSwitchExtruderCode= -s supportXYDistance=700 -s insetXSpeed=25 -s retractionZHop=0 -s extruderOffset[3].X=0 -s extruderOffset[3].Y=0 -s gcodeFlavor=1 -s postSwitchExtruderCode= -s retractionSpeed=40 -s filamentFlow=100 -s infillOverlap=15 -s inset0Speed=25 -s coolHeadLift=0 -s extrusionWidth=400 -s upSkinCount=6 -s initialLayerSpeed=20 -s minimalLayerTime=5 -s infillSpeed=25 -s supportExtruder=-1 -s fanSpeedMax=100 -s supportType=1 -s enableCombing=1 -s fanSpeedMin=100 -s supportZDistance=150 -s supportEverywhere=0 -s filamentDiameter=2850 -s initialLayerThickness=300 -s supportAngle=-1 -s fanFullOnLayerNr=47 -s extruderOffset[1].X=18000 -s extruderOffset[1].Y=0 -s layerThickness=100 -s endCode=M25 ;Stop reading from this point on.

;CURA_PROFILE_STRING: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

-s minimalExtrusionBeforeRetraction=20 -s retractionMinimalDistance=2500 -s skirtMinLength=150000 -s objectSink=0 -s retractionAmount=4500 -s skinSpeed=25 -s skirtLineCount=1 -s startCode= -s skirtDistance=3000 -s zOffset=0 -s extruderOffset[2].Y=0 -s extruderOffset[2].X=0 -s perimeterBeforeInfill=1 -s printSpeed=25 -s fixHorrible=1 -s layer0extrusionWidth=400 -s moveSpeed=150 -s supportLineDistance=2666 -s retractionAmountExtruderSwitch=16500 -s sparseInfillLineDistance=4000 -s insetCount=2 -s downSkinCount=6 -s multiVolumeOverlap=150 -g 49674 -s posx=115000 -s posy=112500 $

Cura_SteamEngine version 17.10

This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify

it under the terms of the GNU Affero General Public License as published by

the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or

(at your option) any later version.

This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,

but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of

MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the

GNU Affero General Public License for more details.

You should have received a copy of the GNU Affero General Public License

along with this program. If not, see .

Default config 'default.cfg' not used

Reading mesh from socket with 972 vertexes

Loaded from disk in 0.004s

Analyzing and optimizing model...

Face counts: 324 -> 324 100.0%

Vertex counts: 972 -> 149 15.3%

Size: 49.032000 18.216000 44.257000

vMin: 90.484000 103.392000 0.000000

vMax: 139.516000 121.608000 44.257000

vMin: -24.516000 -9.108000 0.000000

vMax: 24.516000 9.108000 44.257000

Matrix: 1.000000 0.000000 0.000000

Matrix: 0.000000 1.000000 0.000000

Matrix: 0.000000 0.000000 1.000000

Optimize model 0.000s

Slicing model...

Layer count: 441

Sliced model in 0.022s

Generating support map...

Generating layer parts...

Generated layer parts in 0.007s

Generated inset in 0.032s

Generated up/down skin in 0.031s

Wrote layers in 0.04s.

Total time elapsed 0.14s.

Slicer process returned : 0

gr5 · December 14, 2015

First of all never print anything without checking in cura layer view first. I assume your model is skipping over some layers (happens a lot with sketchup models). This should be visible in layer view. When you get real good at it you can zip through every layer in well under a minute. However is it possible your part wasn't sticking to the surface and getting dragged around? I'm going to assume not.

Sketchup isn't very good at making 3d real things. It's great for making photos and videos and drawings but not physical things. Solidworks and other modern CAD programs work better. having said that I have made many models using sketchup and printed them. The best trick is to look at your model in cura xray view. anything red or brown is a problem. blue or white is fine. It indicates you have internal walls or holes. You have to fix all the red. sometimes you can hack your way through using "fix horrible" checkboxes on the cura expert settings window.