Cura 3.4.1 UM3 Dual Extrusion - No Prime Tower?

[StephanK 30]

Hi there,

is there a reason why all the default profiles for the UM3 have the prime tower turned off? Looks like an oversight in the default template to me - or am I missing something? Basically renders Recommended Settings (I call it Easy Mode) useless for any Dual Extrusion attempts, be it DualColor or the usual PLA&PVA.. Kinda looks to me like "Recommended" is not useable for anything but Single Extrusion, ist that a fair verdict?

Thanks,
Stephan

[Dim3nsioneer 557]

There is always a reason. In this case, the print time gets smaller. And afaik it was decided by the people in charge of the profiles at Ultimaker that the tower is not necessary for a number of materials.

 

Personally, I recommend to use the tower if you need a good dual print quality. But the tower thickness for combinations of two different materials (aka lower adhesion on each other than with two colors of the same material) is ridiculously small. It's very likely those towers are going to break if your objects are higher than something like 5cm. I recommend to use 3-4mm prime tower thickness.

 

To come back to your question @StephanK, the recommended settings are indeed not ideal for dual prints from my point of view.

[ahoeben 1,948]

When prime towers were still turned on by default for dual extrusion prints, there was a surprising number of support questions “why is there an additional box in layerview?”

 

Also prime towers tended to topple over, at which point they could ruin a print.

[StephanK 30]

Thanks.. I guess these are somewhat ( <g> ) valid reasons. I don't necessarily agree with the decision by the profile team, I would have wished for "print quality" over "print speed" or "less support questions" being the primary focus. (Sorry if this sounds harsh, its not meant as such)

To me "Recommended" Settings means - or should mean imho - that I can tell an inexperienced employee to to just hit print in "Recommend" and end up with a decent print without having to go to Cura University first to learn what all of the 500+ settings in Custom mode mean..

Hence, if 2 materials are used, we get a prime tower that is thick enough to not break (as mine just did with my first CPE & Breakaway print - trial and error with any new material & machine, no biggie). My recommended settings would lean to overdo it to make triple sure the print works well - and sell more filament ?

Cura is getting a nightmare to train folks in - or to support them if questions arise, so I hoped for Recommended to be the easy way out. NFC reads the tag and recommended switches to "guaranteed" (as much as possible) working settings for this combination. While the experienced folks use Custom and disable the prime tower if they think they can get away with it.

I shall have to create a bunch my own profiles then. Dratts, but I think I'll manage ? 

[aag 6]

I have experimented with "oozing shields", since I read somewhere that they can substitute prime towers. The shields are fine, except that they sometimes melt with the corners of the model, and then some postprocessing is needed to remove them (and the result may not be optimal).