3 weeks of usage, how does saving preferences work?

[thrown 0]

I've been using Cura for 3 weeks with my only filament tweaking stuff, but just today I went to save preferences and realized I have no clue how saving them works. 3 weeks ago I either clicked on the "Fine" profile (or it just was default). Today when I went to save them I realized I didn't really know how. I looked for a button that might indicate this, but didn't seen one. So I clicked off the "Fine" profile and it asked me if I want to save. Great,  but save to where? The old "Fine" setting or the new one I want?

 

In the machine settings I added a few lines to adjust my PID values for this filament, but are those saved per machine or per filament profile (I'm hoping per filament)? Also, I'm using 2 macros in the machine settings I found on the net; {material_bed_temp_wait} and {material_print_temperature}, but where's a complete list of those?

 

CURA is wonderful. I like how the meshes work to help tweak the settings of the model(s) and like the fact you can just search for a setting by typing it. People said this and Slic3r where settings overload, but it seems like just the right amount. Everything is very straight forward. But damn, the saving of settings is a little confusing to what gets saved to where and which files. I feel kinda of stupid as I spent a lot of time reading everything in CURA related to slicing and when to use it, using all of what I learned, but the 1 important fact of saving all my tweaks leaves me questioning what is going on (I guess something has to right).

Edited September 24, 2019 by thrown

[gr5 2,167]

They are called profiles.  You can save profiles.  I have a different method that seems to work better as I have heard all manner of horror stories related to profiles but have NEVER had a problem with my own method.

 

First of all when I think everything is sliced right I click on the text in the bottom left corner and name what I want to call the project.  This is of course optional but saves you time as you will be creating 2 files not one.  Then in the bottom right I do "save to disk" which creates either a gcode file, or ufp, or what have you depending on the printer.  Then I do menu item "file" "save" which creates the 3mf file.  Also known as a "project" file (not a profile).

 

The 3mf file is amazing - it saves what profile you used (e.g. "fine") and it saves all your overrides.  It also saves your model (or models) and where you positioned the model and how you scaled it and rotated it.  It also saves your machine settings!  So if you send the 3mf file to someone else they will get all that plus your machine settings!  It's just very very useful and the file is barely larger than the STL file(s) in it.

 

I have upgrades cura many times and never had a problem reading in an old stl file.  The profiles on the other hand - don't always work when you upgrade (I hear - never tried it myself).

 

Once you have loaded a saved profile or a 3mf file you can see what settings were overridden.  Make sure you are in advanced settings mode and where it has the name of the profile (e.g. "fine 0.1mm") there is a star.  Click that star and there is a popup.  This part isn't perfect but I find it very very useful.  Look at the columns of settings and see which changed but more importantly click on the "extruder 1" tab and you can see most of the settings changes (from the basic profile) there.

 

[thrown 0]

So to create an all inclusive settings glob, name the project as something like "ACME PLA 1.75", then save a 3mf without a model loaded. Since I'm always using the GUI that should work. Thank you.

 

Do you have a link to all the macros that are for the machine settings?

[gr5 2,167]

I don't know a lot about machine settings but I have all Ultimaker printers and if someone on the forum has a non-ultimaker printer and they post the .3mf file then it's good that their machine settings come across (for example print bed size) so we get the same slicing result.