trouble placing parts close together in cura

[lance-greene 7]

so if i was printing multiple of the same L shaped piece, i shuld be able to place them very close together for multiple prints, but cura wont let me. i can do it with makerware though. is there a way to do this? cura puts a shadow around the part and wont let you place another part within that shadow.

[Titus 170]

Can you check the following setting at the top menu:

Tools

If it is set to print one at a time, cura places them further away from eachother. Print all at once will allow you to put them closer together.

[avogra 68]

I think with the new Beta 2.1.x, you can place them as close as you want as long as the actual models don't touch.

Edited May 23, 2016 by Guest

[ultiarjan 1,215]

I think with the new Beta 2.1.x, you can place them as close as you want as long as the actual models don't touch.

 

Does not look that way..... but maybe it's a setting I'm not aware of ....

Edited May 23, 2016 by Guest

[avogra 68]

I think the the shaded areas are the same, but when you place a part inside the shaded area of another part, it will still slice both as long as they don't touch. Oh, and don't forget to disable auto-placing in the preferences. Don't remember how it is called exactly.

But you might be right and it doesn't work, it's just from memory when I played with V1.99 when it came out.

[geert_2 543]

Maybe you can get it done with newer versions of Cura, but for older versions (I use 14.09), the following might be a work-around: if you designed these parts or you can open them in a 3D-editor, you could arrange them in the editor, and save that composition as a new design. Then Cura will consider this as one single model and print it.

I am not sure why Cura draws the grey unusable area around models, also in all-at-once mode, but I guess it is to avoid the nozzle bumping into other model parts when moving from one part another, when combing is off.

[berndjm 15]

In 2.1 it's possible to place the parts as close as you want. You have just to disable Settings -> Preferences -> General -> "Ensure objects are kept apart"

you can even do "funny" things then

although the printpath-planing isn't very "intelligent" in this case

Edited May 23, 2016 by Guest
added pics

[lordnimon 1]

I hate to revive an old thread, but this doesn't work in Cura 3.2.  If I put these pieces close together, Cura will refuse to slice one of them.  Is this supposed to work?

Edited March 11, 2018 by lordnimon

[robobartz 3]

I struggled with this for hours today and discovered i had the skirt turned on which was overlapping in the "preview" but didn't show up in the "prepare". Once i turned the skirt off (I would think same thing would happen with brim) I placed the parts within a millimeter of one another and the edge.

 

Another thing you can try is lock model under the move commmand. You cant drag it with the arrows, but you can type new values to force it wherever you want. It still allows you to rotate the part also dynamically with the wheels.

 

Another thing i found is if the file is saved exactly like it is in the picture, and reopened all the models "explode" and are pushed apart.

This maybe due to the fact that under Preferences-->Configure Cura(Ensure Models Are Kept Apart) was checked on. Am scared to try it because i have to print many sets of these and don't want to redo the placement.

 

 

 

 

 

Edited April 2, 2020 by robobartz

[sfarnsworth 0]

I was having similar problems with placement of parts and using the move arrows. Seems like these should not be issues at this point in the software's evolution.

But one thing I started doing was opening the parts with another slicer ( I used simplify) and recreating the build size of your bed and then placing all of the parts on that and then saving the whole thing as one stl file. Then bring that stl file into Cura.