Looking for beta testers.

[owen 19]

What's your layer height and temperature Lars. Maybe you just can't extrude that much volume at that speed, height and temperature.

 

[lars86 42]

What's your layer height and temperature Lars. Maybe you just can't extrude that much volume at that speed, height and temperature.

 

0.9 mm and 190*. I tried all the way up to 215 with no improvement. This printbl white PLA really likes lower temps. I really don't think it is a volumetric flow limitation though.

 

[Daid 306]

Ok I think I found a bug, I don't know if it has been reported yet, but here it is, I attached a video for you to see.

I used cura 13.06 to slice this one.

I'm printing the legs of a character, turned upside down. Because I'm kinda in a hurry (this is for a gift) I used cura's supports instead of building my own like I usually do.

During the printing, I noticed an unusual amount a stringing while I have retraction turned on, and I'm not using a very high temperature (210). I have printed models with much more retraction involved and very little to almost no stringing.

For a sec I thought maybe I forgot to enable retraction, but I can hear the retraction noise.

So I observed the pattern of the head and paid close attention to when the retraction happened, and I notice something: It does not retract when moving from the support located on the left side of the object to the support on the right side. Problem is, the object is right between the two. However it retracts correctly when moving from the support on the right to the leg on the right and from the leg on the right to the leg on the left. So I'm wondering, does cura check if retraction is necessary when moving between supports?

Look at the video and listen to the retraction. Sorry, I filmed with my phone

 

 

Sorry if this has been reported before

 

EDIT: Another problem that I noticed only since I have been using the beta: when the printer automatically slows down when the area get smaller at the end of a print (like the top of a sphere), it does not adjust the flow rate too, and it creates big blobs of PLA

 

1) Yes, support material lacks some retraction right now. Support does need some more work.

2) On slow down the flow does slow down, however, if you are printing on 220C, then you have quite a bit of pressure and molten PLA build up which flows out of the nozzle. On small prints drop down to 200C and you'll see a lot of improvements there.

 

I want to print two models in one run but I don't want cura to start the second model until the first model is done. The old cura could do this in project planner.

Can the new cura do this?

I notice that there is only a start and end gcode setting whereas older Cura had two for project planner so I'm thinking "no".

 

Yes, it can still do this. The "switch object" gcode has been removed because the internals handle this switching a bit smarter now. You just need to load multiple objects in the main interface, and it will do what you want.

 

Hey Daid, I'm trying to print 4 items with 13.06 and can't find the old option to print all items together (versus one at a time).

 

There is no easy setting for this. Except that if 1 of the objects is higher then the gantry it will print them all at once, of if you set all the head sizes to 0 in the preferences then it will also print all objects at once.

 

Still seeing what I feel is unnecessary movement in the tool path. It seems to look ahead at what will be happening in subsequent layers to determine the strategy. Maybe at lower infill densities it makes sense to do solid infill underneath what will be exposed surface, but at 100% infill (and likely 75% and up), it creates a lot of unneeded movement. In cases where it is necessary, having those paths run parallel to the longer dimension would be nice. This would prevent the ugly surface caused by rapid zig-zags.

 

100% infill causes some over-extrusion right now, I think that's what you mean that some bits are filled twice and that there are some odd zigzags. (if you want 100% fill you could also put the bottom thickness on 1000mm, this would work around the problem I think)

 

I love having the separation of print speeds between perimeter and infill (thank you!). I'm finding that I tend to see under extrusion on infill moves (especially at lower densities). Right now I'm printing at 50 mm/s on perimeters and 100 on infills, at 100% density. Even when tuning the Ulticontroller flow override so that the perimeters are slighty over-extruded, the infill shows under-extrusion and incomplete bonding between passes.

 

First I tell people, having different infill speeds causes some extrusion problems because of different pressure build ups when switching. Then people tell me they still want the feature. And then they are surprised that you get some extrusion issues? Shocking.

Your filament might also be slightly slipping at 100mm/s, you might also want to check that.

 

[olivierc 3]

2) On slow down the flow does slow down, however, if you are printing on 220C, then you have quite a bit of pressure and molten PLA build up which flows out of the nozzle. On small prints drop down to 200C and you'll see a lot of improvements there.

 

I am printing at 210° and my prints are not that small, but the object generally ends with layers getting smaller on top (the top of a head for instance). the thing is, that was not happening before, but now it has been doing it for every print since I use the beta of cura, something is different here.

I'll try 200 but in the past I had under-extrusion at that temperature so I have been avoiding it. But my machine is better tuned now, especially the extruder spring, so it might work. It might help the stringing issue too

EDIT: sorry for being a bitch about that, this automatic slicing thing really has to go. Sorry I don't have a brand new computer with the latest video card. This is killing my computer while not really necessary. It's not like I'm going import my model, tune the setting and then forget to slice it before quitting. It was working very well in the previous version of cura. Don't dumb it down to much

 

[lars86 42]

There is no easy setting for this. Except that if 1 of the objects is higher then the gantry it will print them all at once, of if you set all the head sizes to 0 in the preferences then it will also print all objects at once.

100% infill causes some over-extrusion right now, I think that's what you mean that some bits are filled twice and that there are some odd zigzags. (if you want 100% fill you could also put the bottom thickness on 1000mm, this would work around the problem I think)

First I tell people, having different infill speeds causes some extrusion problems because of different pressure build ups when switching. Then people tell me they still want the feature. And then they are surprised that you get some extrusion issues? Shocking.

Your filament might also be slightly slipping at 100mm/s, you might also want to check that.

 

Thanks Daid, I'll try that trick.

I understand that when making an abrupt switch between print speeds, there will be a lag for the nozzle pressure to equalize, and it will either under or over-extrude during that time. From what I can tell, within about 1-2 seconds, pressure is stable again. What I'm seeing isn't a case of that, since the under-extrusion persists for the entire infill section. That transition is really only going to be an issue on very small objects, where that perimeter to infill switch happens very frequently. Luckily, you don't stand to benefit much from fast infill speeds on those objects, so the solution is to command speeds that are equal, or close. I really think that adding a simple infill flow multiplier would allow us to get great extrusion, with a large speed difference, for prints that can take advantage.

I took a good picture of this issue. I'll post it up.

 

[lars86 42]

 

[lars86 42]

EDIT: sorry for being a bitch about that, this automatic slicing thing really has to go. Sorry I don't have a brand new computer with the latest video card. This is killing my computer while not really necessary. It's not like I'm going import my model, tune the setting and then forget to slice it before quitting. It was working very well in the previous version of cura. Don't dumb it down to much

 

My laptop is pretty fast (SSD, plenty of RAM...) and it is sooo slow to set a print up. All the time saved by the awesome new steam engine (thanks Daid!) is lost again in waiting for the program to become responsive. Every single field changed, box checked, or part moved on the bed, comes along with a 3-5 second period of unresponsiveness.

Daid, what is the resistance to adding a check box that enables/disables this auto slicing?

 

[gr5 2,172]

First I tell people, having different infill speeds causes some extrusion problems because of different pressure build ups when switching. Then people tell me they still want the feature. And then they are surprised that you get some extrusion issues?

 

Hmm. Maybe there needs to be a 3 second transition whenever speeds change. In other words if infill is speed A and perimeter speed B, the speed should change gradually on each successive segment (in the infill portion of course) so that stabilization at the new extruder nozzle pressure and speed is gradual. When changing back to perimeter speed B it would change gradually when finishing up the infill so that it is back to speed B before starting the perimeter.

 

[Daid 306]

My laptop is pretty fast (SSD, plenty of RAM...) and it is sooo slow to set a print up. All the time saved by the awesome new steam engine (thanks Daid!) is lost again in waiting for the program to become responsive. Every single field changed, box checked, or part moved on the bed, comes along with a 3-5 second period of unresponsiveness.

 

I also run test on a HP Pavilion dv2 from 2007. Which has windows Vista, a bootup time of 3 minutes, 2GB of ram, a 1.6Ghz AMD MV-40 CPU and a ATI X1270 mobility GPU. Which is pretty much lot grade to crap these days. And it runs the beta fine unless I load high poly models. And the slicing doesn't cause any noticeable slowdown.

As it should, as the slicing is run as lowest priority on your system. The only thing that might be causing a slowdown is the fact that the 3D window gets re-drawn during slicing to update the progress bar. If this is the cause, then you have something that is causing the 3D drawing to be really slow. Maybe no 3D drivers installed, or something else hogging the GPU.

Why am I not adding a setting for it? Two reasons. First because if I would add settings for everything that people ask settings for we would be at Skeinforge again at this point. Second, because I still think that this is the best idea. Any performance issues can be solved, and I have already made a few adjustments in respect to this. (As the GCode loader was a much bigger performance offender then the slicer)

 

[lars86 42]

Daid,

I hear you about being selective on what features you add, to keep the interface manageable, but come on. I don't know what is slowing it down, but it's slow as hell! Would it be helpful to record my screen, so you can see? This cannot be what you intend for the interface, because it's almost unusable.

 

[lars86 42]

That trick about using floor thickness maxed out for 100% infill is working great, thanks! I'm printing a redesigned print head, and it's looking nice.

I like how it will now rapid over infill space without retract. Would it be hard to have it look ahead and use a path from the infill, at print speed rather than rapid, to avoid the bump caused by the random path partial bead?

 

[Daid 306]

I hear you about being selective on what features you add, to keep the interface manageable, but come on. I don't know what is slowing it down, but it's slow as hell! Would it be helpful to record my screen, so you can see? This cannot be what you intend for the interface, because it's almost unusable.

 

The problem with adding a workaround is that the workaround stops finding a proper solution. I do have made some tweaks for the release out today which could help.

 

[gr5 2,172]

Lars86 - I'm not sure what you are talking about. It doesn't matter if the model takes 10 minutes to slice, I have no problem rotating the model while it's slicing. I have no trouble changing other parameters - it just stops slicing a few seconds in and starts over. Everything is always responsive. I think you need to describe the problem better. For example are you in normal view or layers view when this happens? I think you will find if you are in layers view it's even snappier/faster as graphics are disabled while slicing in layers view. But I had no trouble in either view. Ovehang view was fine also.

I'm really not sure what it is you are talking about. I have 13.06.

 

[mostlyatomicbob 34]

Hi Daid,

Just a quick question. I am using Cura 13.05.2 on the Mac. I am 57% through a print. It is currently 8.5mm in Z but will be 36mm (in Z) when it finishes.

I thought ( i guess I am wrong) that the % done was based on layers?

What is the % done on the Ulticontroller based on?

Thanks

Bob

 

[gr5 2,172]

Lars86 I played some more.

With the yoda on thingiverse this time - takes a minute or so to slice with .06mm layers (1000 layers). .001mm and it gets to about 2GB and then crashes.

And I can not duplicate your problem on my old windows machine. I can change settings to my heart's content. Do you have a Mac by any chance? If Daid did what you ask for then you wouldn't complain and he wouldn't know about bugs that don't affect his machine (or my machine in this case). And you say you have "plenty of memory" but exactly how much? steam engine can be quite a memory hog - potentially using up to 3GB it sounds like all by itself. That's on top of the memory needed for the operating system and other programs. If you have windows please check memory usage on "task manager" performance tab. CuraEngine used about 1GB but only at the very begining before the progress bar started moving.

 

[gr5 2,172]

On the UC I believe it is based on the size of the file. So if the bottom part of your object is lots of long slow movements, and the top is lots of short quick segments, it will be much more than half way through when UC says 50%.

 

[mostlyatomicbob 34]

Gr5,

Thanks, I hoped so. thanks for you input.

Bob

 

[capn 0]

I recently upgraded to 13.06 and wow what a difference, it seems like everything is working much smoother and as expected now. Even with an older 8800gt video card slicing is fast and I have found cura to be all around quite responsive. The toolpath seems more intuative and i am getting much better fill inside the models. Very happy with current progress!

I have recently been running into some issues where prints hang part way through and it seems like this happens mostly when I complete a print, close the print window, delete the current model, load a new model and then click print. Part way through the following print it hangs on occasion, I experienced this 3 times this past weekend. My solution has been to just completely close down cura and unplug/plugin the printer between prints. Most of my prints were at .06m and in the 6-12 hours range. I have been printing regularly with cura for the past year and have not run into this issue before so I am fairly confident it is not hardware but cannot be 100% sure.

Keep up the great work!

 

[Daid 306]

Just because Lars has a problem and other people don't, that doesn't mean that the problem isn't there. (Just as the "context invalid problem" that was plaguing some users) But it makes it a lot harder to trace the problem down.

 

[valcrow 144]

I just ran a print a print with 13.06, (coming form 13.03) and it's really awesome the additions that have been made!

I think I can speak to Lars's issue as I've encountered the same thing. Upon first running, it would be in a non-responsive state for about 20 seconds every 10 seconds. I initially thought it was the slicing as well, but I rummaged through the preferences and turned off the Auto detect SD card, and check for updates. and it doesn't 'stall' anymore. I assume it's due to my million and three USB devices. But try that and see if it works for you. The auto slicer seems rediculously fast compared to .03 I thought it was just giving me an estimate at first.

 

[Daid 306]

Mmmm, the auto-detect SD card. Yes. That could be troublesome, it needs to do some checks on if a card is inserted, maybe this is causing huge lockups on some types of card-readers?

 

[Daid 306]

Oh, and 13.06.2 is live on http://software.ultimaker.com/ !

 

[olivierc 3]

but I rummaged through the preferences and turned off the Auto detect SD card, and check for updates.

 

Holly Crap!! Nice catch, that seems to be it. I had the same problems as Lars, now I tried that and everything is running very smoothly, super responsive. That was it Daid. Before that, the software was freezing on every action even when I had no model loaded.

if it can help you, maybe it's because I use one of those "all in one" usb card reader, which creates 4 drives because it has 4 slots for different card formats. I don't have a laptop with a built-in card reader.

I still keep cura 13.04 for some models because I have been having issues with printing thin walls in the new version, while the old one seems to handle them better.

EDIT: I have been messing a bit more with it, and it's smooth as butter now, even with big models. I only had to disable the sd card autodetect, I left check for updates on. As soon as I re-enable it, it freezes again. This is definitely not a video card or RAM issue. Oh and the auto-slice is no longer a problem for me, you won't hear me complain about it again

 

[lars86 42]

Doh, unfortunately disabling those check boxes didn't affect m issue at all. I recorded a short video which should help clarify it a lot.

Let me know what other diagnostic info would be helpful.

 

 

[peggyb 170]

Since 13.05 and 13.06 I am still missing the plug-ins tab (mac)

Did I overlook something to get it back?