Cura settings explained

[SandervG 1,521]

Hello there, do you also love Cura but sometimes get lost in all its beautiful settings? 

In our knowledgebase on Ultimaker.com we have dedicated many articles explaining how those settings work. So if you find yourself wondering how a certain setting works or if you just want to learn more about what Cura can do, visit this link; 

 

Cura settings explained.

 

We put a lot of effort in writing these guides so let us know what you think! Looking forward to hear from you! 

 

edit by gr5 - the above link doesn't work anymore.  I'm not sure what it linked to but maybe this:

https://support.makerbot.com/s/topic/0TO5b000000Q4w3GAC/cura-print-settings

Edited October 9, 2023 by gr5
broken link

[TMicke 23]

This is very good indeed, and with lots of pictures explaining it even better. I for one have misinterpreted some settings that now makes perfect sense again. 

 

Sorry for bringing this up, but isn’t there a typo here? (Under shell settings)

 

 

Quote

 

No skin in Z gaps

Small gaps between the layers in the Z-direction of a model can be “fixed” by using this setting. Disabling it will ensure the layers will fuse together by printing infill between the bottom and top of the gap. If you disable this setting, it won’t fill the gap and will simply print the bottom and top as they appear in the model.

 

 

[Guest maht]

We're considering updating some settings and descriptions, I made a thread here. Feedback appreciated!

 

 

[SandervG 1,521]

6 hours ago, TMicke said:

This is very good indeed, and with lots of pictures explaining it even better. I for one have misinterpreted some settings that now makes perfect sense again. 

 

Sorry for bringing this up, but isn’t there a typo here? (Under shell settings)

 

 

 

 

Great! I'm very happy to hear you found it useful. This is the best feedback we can receive. 

 

I'm sorry, perhaps I've grown blind to it. What would be the typo specifically? 🧐

 

Thanks! 

[Abraxas 0]

This may just be what I'm looking for, for my Dremel 3D45. They are using a Cura based on V2.6 for their Digilab slicer. Has much changed between that and this tutorial ? Is a printable version available. I love my books.

[TMicke 23]

6 hours ago, SandervG said:

 

Great! I'm very happy to hear you found it useful. This is the best feedback we can receive. 

 

I'm sorry, perhaps I've grown blind to it. What would be the typo specifically? 🧐

 

Thanks! 

Now that I should try to explain I’m not entirely sure anymore 😂

Maybe it’s just my poor language skills, but doesn’t the two explanations I marked with bold text contradict each other? Or are they saying the same thing in other words?

And typo was probably the wrong word to use.
 

[leliep 28]

Thanks for creating this very helpful document, I like it!

 

BTW, there is an error in „Support distance priority“, where at one place there should be „Z overrides X/Y“ instead of „X/Y overrides Z“

 

Cheers, -pl

 

[sr1329 3]

It says disable for both situations and gives different results for them. One should be disabled and the other enabled. I’m so confused by which is which.

Also really confused by what exactly it means regarding skin vs infill. So if I disable this setting it will print infill only and allow the Z gaps? If I enable it then it will print both infill and skin? 
 

Or 

 

If I enable it then it won’t print infill in the Z gaps and if I disable it then it will print infill in the Z gaps? 
 

Also what constitutes a Z gap? If I am printing a honeycomb vertically (I have had to so for size reasons and it printed surprisingly well) which parts are Z gaps and which just parts of the model? 
 

I suppose I mean if I want nice vertical honeycombs should I enable or disable this? 

Edited August 14, 2020 by sr1329

[SandervG 1,521]

Hi @sr1329, could you give a little bit more context about what you are asking / referring to? 

[sr1329 3]

Hi. So I looked at the description in the slicer itself. It’s pretty clear there how it says that if you enable this feature the infill will be exposed to air. 
 

It’s not a feature I would personally use. 

Edited August 31, 2020 by sr1329

[TheRealDoc 0]

The whole 'series' was a very useful explanation of all the settings.

 

Thanks to the team for taking the time to write up the guides.

[sr1329 3]

The series? I’ll have to look for that. 
 

Anyway disabling combing seems to have worked. Also I upgraded my bed leveling to 5x5. It seems to have solved the problem. 

[Grenex 1]

This is a great guide!  Thank you so much!

[sr1329 3]

Found it. Amazing. Thank you. 

[acwest 1]

is there an explanation of the file formats that define the default settings? sometime after my computer updated Cura from 4.4 to 4.7 (I think it was the update to 4.5 that broke it) the default Ender 3 setting have totally broken on slicing Benchy for my printer. I want to compare the settings between the two, but the defaults seem to be written in files in ~/.cache/cura/4.7/definitions/4.7.1/... which are some sort of partially binary format, so it isn't obvious how to export them. In the case of the current version, it is likely not too difficult, but I don't see any way to export the 4.4 version without installing Cura 4.4 again, which seems non-trivial

 

[Smithy 1,144]

Not sure if it is the same with the windows version of Cura, I use a Mac, but when you go to your Cura configuration folder (Cura Help menu - show configuration) then the current configuration folders should open. When you now go one level back there should be still the folder for the older version. 

 

There you should find all the config files you need and they are plain text files, so should be easily to compare them.

[acwest 1]

the user configuration files are plain text, but they only contain the changes from the original base they started with. The actual base files are binary, although they contain a lot of text strings...

The update to 4.5 made a LOT of changes in the base configurations, including things like changing the print layer heights. Unfortunately, a number of those changes have had severe effects on my print quality

 

Edited October 28, 2020 by acwest

[Smithy 1,144]

The machine definitions and quality profiles are normal json files, so also plain text.

But check the Github page here https://github.com/Ultimaker/Cura 

There you should find all configuration files to compare and you can also switch back to the 4.4 or 4.5 branch whatever you need.

[acwest 1]

That helped. It would be useful if there was a way to do an export of a profile that contains ALL of the settings, instead of just the name of the base and modified settings. It shouldn't be necessary to go rooting through github to figure out what changed between two versions of the profile

[Smithy 1,144]

I guess the problem here is that the Ender profile has changed and now everything behind the profile has now different settings. With UM printers and profiles a simple export from Cura is enough. But the profiles for 3rd party printer are contributed by the community so they are not well tested for backwards compatibility.

[nallath 1,120]

9 hours ago, acwest said:

The actual base files are binary, although they contain a lot of text strings...

Binary files? Cura doens't have any binary files for configurations. All of them are text files (XML, JSON, CFG).

You can find more info about it on the wiki on github

[ahoeben 1,948]

2 hours ago, nallath said:

Binary files? Cura doens't have any binary files for configurations

Exported profiles are technically binaries; they are zip archives containing multiple text files.

[nallath 1,120]

Oh wait. I understand the confusion. He was looking in the cache. Those are binary files, but they are generated based on json files.

[acwest 1]

yes, I was looking in the cache, I couldn't find the local copies of the json files. they are likely in /usr/share or something... In any case, I found them in git. It would still be very useful to be able to export a profile containing ALL settings, not just the ones that have been modified, however

[nallath 1,120]

It posts them in the logs. There is also a plugin that uploads the flattend profiles.