Details not printed

[pineirod 2]

Hi,

 

I'm building a plate to put nuts on it of with screws to have on my desk.

 

Designed in Catia, exported to STL, imported in Cura 3.6.

 

When I see the part with the solid view, I can see the letters (picture attached); one can see clearly the M, but when slicing it, in the layer view the M becomes 2 sticks and 1 point (no diagonal bars). It is very strange, can't the Ultimaker make this small detail?

 

thanks

regards,

Edited February 27, 2019 by pineirod

[Smithy 1,144]

When the wall thickness of these characters are too small then Cura ignores it. You should manage your object to have at least a wall thickness > your nozzle size. So if you print with a 0.4 nozzle, make your walls at least 0.41mm thick.

 

If this is not possible, you can turn on an experimental Cura feature which is called "print thin walls" and your thin walls will be sliced as well, but can still be too thin to print fine.

[pineirod 2]

that was a fast answer!

 

It will be some work to redo the letters (with Catia is very annoying); with the thin walls option it makes something a bit weird, but now it is readable; I'll print and see what happens 

 

thanks

 

[Smithy 1,144]

You are welcome.

 

Additionally you have also the option to reduce the line width  a little bit in Cura. So if your wall thickness is for example 0.35mm you could try to set the line width to 0.34, but it will affect the whole object, so do it only, if you are near the 0.4 or whatever nozzle size you have.

[danielkrice 4]

Just as an alternative idea, recess the lettering into the print instead of it being proud, then thickness becomes less of an issue.

[stu_le_brew 42]

It may be worth trying a smaller nozzle like a 0.25 for instance, sure it will take longer but it could make the difference

[geert_2 557]

On 2/27/2019 at 3:17 PM, danielkrice said:

Just as an alternative idea, recess the lettering into the print instead of it being proud, then thickness becomes less of an issue.

 

Yes, but this might be ugly, since the printer outlines every character. And for letters like E, N, H, etc, the problem is the same: here it may not be able to fill the openings.

 

Some time ago I made character test sets with extruded text, recessed text, positive watermark text (=characters are solid, surrounded by voids, all below the surface of the model), negative watermark text (=characters are voids). Recessed text came out worst.

 

For opaque materials usually I prefer raised text of 0.2mm high, leg width 0.5mm, caps height 3.5mm. For transparent materials I use watermark text (=just below surface) of 0.5mm to 1mm high, leg width 0.5mm, caps height 3.5mm. Some of the pictures below show this watermark text.

 

For my 0.4mm nozzle I prefer text legs to be 0.5mm wide. When converting a curved shape to STL, it all become straight segment lines. If the width of the curved shape is exactly 0.40mm, then in STL it may variate between 0.39mm and 0.41mm. In which case the 0.39mm part might not print. So, I prefer to be safe and take 0.5mm as width in the design.

 

See here for the character test set (STL-files and JPG-images):

https://www.uantwerpen.be/nl/personeel/geert-keteleer/manuals/