Don't be afraid to experiment with other slicers. Personally I'm a fan of KISSlicer and switch between that and cura depending on what I'm doing.
I find that cura does a slightly better job with thin walls but KS gives better surface finish. KS gives you many more parameters to play around with. cura allows you to set a thinner initial layer than the rest, KS only allows it to be fatter. KS allows you to set a different speed for the perimeter, cura does not. The list goes on.
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lars86 42
I think Cura has made some big steps forward in recent versions (Thanks Daid!), but I've noticed some of this too.
I've had trouble with the newer infill pattern. Someone mentioned to stick to 20%, because you get a different pattern than with higher values, and that works much better. But, you give up the ability to control your parts. With smaller parts, the size of the 20% infill grid is too big. Going to a higher infill percentage switches the pattern, and I just get a bunch of spikes, where the lines cross, rather than the correct fill. I honestly wish we could have the option for the random infill pattern, which I really liked.
Even with the infill and perimeters printed at the same speed, I sometimes have a hard time tuning for quality on both. One tends to under-extrude, while the other extrudes fine. I've been asking for an "infill flow multiplier" for a while now, so I'm not sure we will ever get it. It would really allow more control over prints, including faster infill speeds without under-extrusion.
Another thing I've noticed, is that when initially doing the perimeters, Cura jumps back and forth between the inner loops and outer loops. When it does so, it seems to choose a random point-to-point move, without retract, which lays a partial bead down, that is still visible when the infill is complete. On exposed flat surfaces, this sucks. I wish that when moving between inner and outer loops, Cura would just do a printing move along a line which is already part of the infill pattern. Then there would be no evidence.
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