Why is my layer height orange?

[lordnimon 1]

I'm creating a custom printer definition, but there are lots of things about my printer that I don't know, and so I'm starting with a blank template.  When I set my layer height to 0.4mm or larger, the text field turns orange.  Any other value makes the text box white.  So I'm guessing that Cura thinks that 0.4mm layer height is a problem.  I have a few questions:

 

1. Why does Cura think that 0.4mm is a problem?

2. How can I tell what the minimum and maximum layer heights for my printer are?  I have a Printrbot Simple Makers Kit 1405.

3. How do I specify these limits in the JSON file?

[gr5 2,167]

I don't know most of these answers but the orange is because you want a layer height around 20% to 75% of the nozzle diameter.  So I'm guessing somehow it thinks your nozzle diameter is 0.4mm and thinks that 0.4mm layer height is pushing things a bit (the quality will be worse, you will be pushing too much material through the nozzle possibly for the feeder to keep up unless you also slow down the print speed so why not thinner layer and faster print speed for same overall speed and thirdly layer adhesion won't be great).

[lordnimon 1]

So in my printer definition, I should create new values for "Extra Fine", "Fine", "Low Quality", etc to match my nozzle width?  The nozzle with is 0.4mm.

[tinkergnome 927]

3 hours ago, lordnimon said:

3. How do I specify these limits in the JSON file?

 

I found out that most of the settings can have a "minimum_value_warning" and a "maximum_value_warning".

Here is an example:

https://github.com/Ultimaker/Cura/blob/master/resources/definitions/fdmprinter.def.json#L652

[lordnimon 1]

Looks like something I shouldn't touch in my printer definition.

[ahoeben 1,948]

There is no reason you cannot change min/max value warnings in the definition. In this particular case though, the warning makes a lot of sense: printing with a layerheight of 0.4 or higher using a 0.4 mm nozzle is not going to give you good results.

[lordnimon 1]

Shouldn't Cura automatically scale the quality levels for the nozzle size?  That is, "Extra Course" is always the nozzle width, and will be Orange, then Course is 75% of the nozzle width, and so on.

[KingKELLY 0]

I have the same problem in Cura 4.10! gr5 is right, it is a warning indicator if the layer height exceeds 80% of the nozzle diameter to protect your prints from layer adhesion issues; it can be seen on line 781 in the file that tinkergnome posted here:
https://github.com/Ultimaker/Cura/blob/master/resources/definitions/fdmprinter.def.json#L781
So if you are rocking a 0.4mm nozzle and trying to print over 0.4mm layer height the program is right to warn you, but I have a 1.00mm nozzle and trying to set the print at 0.7 layer height and it is still throwing up an issue. 
Any thoughts?

[gr5 2,167]

Even though it's orange I think it will still slice.  I think it's just a warning - not an error.  Or am I wrong?  Let me know.

[ahoeben 1,948]

13 hours ago, KingKELLY said:

I have a 1.00mm nozzle and trying to set the print at 0.7 layer height and it is still throwing up an issue.

If you install the Printer Settings plugin, you can tell Cura you have a 1.0 mm nozzle (without having to edit configuration files manually).