Please include an "Iron every layer" option, for clearer prints.

[nubnubbud 7]

Earlier, I began printing in PETG, and my first prints got successively better, till little parts of the prints I made were clear enough for me to hold against a screen and see the details through it! but no more. I was printing little 1cm cubes, and I began noticing that the issue lies in extrusion...lines? Essentially, little bubbles between the extrusion lines were left behind, even after dialing in my settings to the best of my ability. I believe ironing may be the solution here, but therein lies the issue. Cura only supports ironing on exposed upper surfaces. I believe it should be an option, and not hard to add a little check box to "iron everything". it should come with a warning that it will slow down prints immensely, but after spending 3 hours on a 1cm cube in an attempt to get it a little clearer, I think the feature can stand on its own. 

I'm not sure it will make things clerar, but I'd say there's a decent chance, and some extra heating on the top of every layer may actually help strengthen prints by removing fracture points and ensuring better layer adhesion, in any case. another option would be the ability to list which layers should be ironed and a checkbox for whether to include the entire layer or just exposed faces. I know a few people that wanted to iron only a couple layers.

Edited February 12, 2019 by nubnubbud

[nubnubbud 7]

played with some manual gcode. yes, this works, at least somewhat. printed in PETG. the clouds are in the print, and are all the same shape, so it is either a retraction setting in the model, or due to the model's shape and settings. they are, however, not just uniform shapes, leasing me to believe taller prints may not suffer from it as much.

Edited February 13, 2019 by nubnubbud

[LazaroFilm 0]

Any updates on this? 

I cross posted on the github but no answers... https://github.com/Ultimaker/Cura/issues/5302

Edited March 6, 2019 by LazaroFilm
added git hub link

[neotko 1,417]

Fun fact. I found out about ironing (neosanding) year before writing about it, because forcing the second pass does indeed strength the parts.

 

The way I use it is to print 2 parts that actually hit and reprint on the same area, then neosand it. 

 

I never published it because everyone would ask for ‘scientific proof’ and I don’t have the time to do the necessary tests. This being said, my proof is that 2 delicate items stopped snapping on poat office after I realized this 🙂

 

Slighly better explained on my twitter

 

Edited March 7, 2019 by neotko

[nubnubbud 7]

11 hours ago, LazaroFilm said:

Any updates on this? 

I cross posted on the github but no answers... https://github.com/Ultimaker/Cura/issues/5302

yes, I'm actually in contact with Slic3r pursa edition devs because they reached out to me, though I'm having a bit of trouble implementing it because the code has almost no documentation, and my printer is having some quality control issues at the moment (it's an old cr-10s and can't hit its projected temps due to hotend and capacitor issues.)  the file attached was my last attempt before these issues started, but I was able to make an optically clear part to within .1mm of the projected width. Because it's clear at over a centimeter thick, I also have reason to believe it has crystallized very well, and is extremely strong.

because this gcode is edited by hand, it's extremely tedious, and the relative extrusion makes it less predictable, depending completely on the machine to know exactly how much to extrude.

Edited March 7, 2019 by nubnubbud

[pleasantatk 1]

Quote

because this gcode is edited by hand, it's extremely tedious, and the relative extrusion makes it less predictable, depending completely on the machine to know exactly how much to extrude.

If you can go over how you make those gcode edits, I might be able to write a GCode post-processor.

[nubnubbud 7]

15 hours ago, pleasantatk said:

If you can go over how you make those gcode edits, I might be able to write a GCode post-processor.

well, it would be the same as ironing, hopefully. here's what ironing does:

1. moves the printhead in a pattern over the entirety of the prints upper surface. this means it will not go back and forth over the air unless there's a disconnected part.
   1. the pattern can be changed, but it's usually concentric or zig-zag.
   2. the movements must make the flat part of the printhead move over every surface at least once. this means for a .4mm nozzle, for example, it must be treated as if it was a .1 to .2 mm nozzle to make enough lines close together
   3. printhead must be able to move to the very edge 
   4. usually much slower than the original layer, (10-20mm/s)
   5. if the top surface is zigzag or lines, iron perpendicular to it.
2. extrudes a tiny amount. (usually expressed as a percent, like 10% normal line flow) this helps it fill in and even out the surface, partially annealing and filling gaps that would normally cause bubbles and fracture points
    

Ironing is already enabled in Cura, just load in a calibration cube and see what it does to the topmost layer. you'll see it even without travels enabled because it renders the tiny extrusions made to fill gaps

[pleasantatk 1]

On 6/22/2019 at 6:24 AM, nubnubbud said:

well, it would be the same as ironing, hopefully. here's what ironing does:

I know what ironing does, I meant the actual GCode changes - 

Quote

because this gcode is edited by hand, it's extremely tedious

What changes are you making by hand?

 

Manually calculating every exact position? Copying the previous layer and adjusting speed and extrustion?

[nubnubbud 7]

8 hours ago, pleasantatk said:

I know what ironing does, I meant the actual GCode changes - 

What changes are you making by hand?

 

Manually calculating every exact position? Copying the previous layer and adjusting speed and extrustion?

no, I only copied and pasted ironing moves from different files to make a frankenfile. I edit the part, and export it once for every layer, each time one layer higher, then take the ironing moves from the last layer in each file and paste it at the end of the corresponding layer in the full print.

that's why they're cubes. if it's a tower, the ironing moves will be the same every layer! (hence the ignored corners being cloudy all the way up)

I set it to relative, letting me put a flag at the end of each layer so I could just replace the flag with the same ironing gcode each layer using a script. It was still inaccurate, but after about a minute of sanding, I got those parts in the images above.

any tower shaped object works like this, but the relative extrusion mode is a bit inaccurate at times, or more likely, the inaccuracies build up over time.

this is why I'm pretty sure it would work. I was literally using Cura's own ironing algorithm on every layer for my tests.

Edited July 11, 2019 by nubnubbud

[Vitis 0]

Any news regarding this topic? For transparent filament it is very useful.