General issue with ironing

[MarkM 0]

I often use ironing option to smooth PLA prints. Ironing using concentric pattern is never a good choice as it always either leaves a little elevated spot in the center or irons suboptimally. It's expected, maybe some fine tuning would help, but thresholds of values are too small to having it repeatable. This isn't an issue though.

I would prefer a zig-zag pattern instead. However this pattern has an issue this post addresses. If applied on round or rectangular surface it works almost well. However if the surface is more complex some parts of it aren't covered with the pattern. It's a matter of an algorithm, more specifically probably a choice not to return to already ironed areas. But it nullifies the purpose of ironing.

There would be several ways to mitigate this issue. Add an option to fill all space with zig-zags regardless of potential seams that can occur, or include another pattern that could fill irregular spaces with minimum number of returns (some space filling approach, maze like, Peano curve or Hilbert's maybe).

[pdzamore 1]

I have a related question about ironing. Does ironing apply to the top layer of support? Is there a simple way to apply ironing only to support? 

[Dim3nsioneer 558]

19 hours ago, pdzamore said:

I have a related question about ironing. Does ironing apply to the top layer of support? Is there a simple way to apply ironing only to support? 

 

Not directly but if you design your own support as an object you can load that into Cura, assign it to the extruder with the support material and then enable ironing for that extruder. Of course you will have to disable support in Cura.