How to Save Cura Files Properly

[Coustillac 0]

This may have been answered before, so if so, please let me know. My office owns an Ultimaker 3 Extended and we print using the LAN cable over our network. We cannot export files onto usb drives due to our software policy. How to we store files so we can easily print them months from now. Say we have a template, and 6 months from now it breaks, how to we print it with the click of a button? As of now, when we save in Cura 2.3(2.3.1 does not work with our network, see my other post about this) the file saves as GCODE. We cannot open a GCODE file in Cura which means there is no way to send the file to the printer. Are we not saving the file properly? Can we save the settings, orientation, and STL all in one file? OR, is there a way to save the files we send to the printer directly on a usb drive installed in the printer. I know we could normally save the GCODE to a usb drive and print from there as many times as we'd like. Unfortunately, we cannot do that and need another solution. A solution other than writing down our settings and screen shotting the information? Please help everyone.

[nallath 744]

Download 2.4, it has project saving & loading.

As for loading g-code, Lulzbot created this for Cura 2.x, but it was just too late for the 2.4 release. I expect it to be in 2.5

[neotko 1,411]

Download 2.4, it has project saving & loading.

As for loading g-code, Lulzbot created this for Cura 2.x, but it was just too late for the 2.4 release. I expect it to be in 2.5

 

That's great! Specially for non Cura users that want to send gcode through wifi to um3. Atm the um3 app doesn't allow files of 15MB through gcode upload to the um3 and recommends to use Cura for that.

[Coustillac 0]

Sounds like the 2.4 Beta answered all of my prayers. When are you expecting this version to go from a Beta to a final release? In an office with 15+ engineers wanting this software on their computers, it can be time consuming for our IT department to install the software on all the computers, especially if the final release will be published soon.

[Coustillac 0]

I have another question to add to my previous one. Will the saved project format be compatible with future versions of Cura? This feature is fantastic for us so we can archive our prints and print them months in the future when neede. If the future Cura versions cannot read these project files, the files will become useless, assuming we have updated Cura. Archiving our prints is essential to our use of the printer and without future compatibility, the function is flawed.

[nallath 744]

Sounds like the 2.4 Beta answered all of my prayers. When are you expecting this version to go from a Beta to a final release? In an office with 15+ engineers wanting this software on their computers, it can be time consuming for our IT department to install the software on all the computers, especially if the final release will be published soon.

 

Soon. Probably won't take more than a month. This is also the reason why I don't let the IT touch my laptop I want software as soon as it's there.

 

I have another question to add to my previous one. Will the saved project format be compatible with future versions of Cura? This feature is fantastic for us so we can archive our prints and print them months in the future when neede. If the future Cura versions cannot read these project files, the files will become useless, assuming we have updated Cura. Archiving our prints is essential to our use of the printer and without future compatibility, the function is flawed.

 

Guaranteeing that something will work exactly the way it is working is always a tricky business. But I do agree with the sentiment; the feature only works nice if future version also support it. It is something that we aim for, but it might always be that certain settings trigger slightly different behaviour (aka; I can't and won't guarantee that the g-code will be the same)

[ultiarjan 1,207]

If it's really important you can ofc also save a version of the gcode.... and/or keep a version of cura...

For this it would be nice if new version would create new data folders to run multiple version next to each other...

[nallath 744]

For this it would be nice if new version would create new data folders to run multiple version next to each other...

 

Even then it's not possible to guarantee the exact same results

[ultiarjan 1,207]

 

For this it would be nice if new version would create new data folders to run multiple version next to each other...

 

Even then it's not possible to guarantee the exact same results

 

hmm, that I don't understand, if you stick to using the same CURA version I would hope for a guaranteed same g-code.

[Nicolinux 286]

Maybe Nallath implies that if you update the firmware, it might be possible it reads/interprets gcode differently.

[nallath 744]

Nope. I mean that using the exact same version of Cura with the exact same settings is not guaranteed to give the same g-code.

I doubt it will be noticable (or any change at all) if you do it on the same computer, but different hardware can lead to slight changes.