If you print an STL file that looks like a table and it's upright on 4 legs then the "initial bottom layers" are those at the bottom of the legs of the table that touch the bed. However, the "bottom layers" are those that are on the underside of the flat portion of the table. Normally these settings are set to the same value.
If you go to PREVIEW mode and use the scroll bar on the right side of the display you can see what you will be getting.
The "initial layer height" only affects the layer touching the print bed. No other layers. The purpose is that your print bed may be out of flat by 0.1mm or so (thickness of typical paper). So you want a thick bottom layer. This reasoning is probably bad for other reasons but that was the idea.
So if initial layer height is 0.1 and layer height is 0.1 then all the layers you see in PREVIEW are 0.1mm. If "initial bottom layers" is 4 then you are getting a bottom skin thickness of 0.4mm. If initial layer height is 0.2 and layer height is 0.1 then 3 layers will give you a bottom skin thickness of 0.4mm.
Does all that help?
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Nick51 1
Thank you for taking the time to provide all that information on settings.
I'm struggling with the relationship between initial bottom layer, bottom layer and layer heights.
In the standard quality profile 0.2mm layer height, both the initial bottom layer height and layer height are 0.2mm.
The bottom thickness is 0.8mm and there are 4 initial bottom layers and 4 bottom layers. This looks like 8 layers total for a 0.8mm thickness which would indicate a 0.1mm initial layer height and layer height.
If I change the initial bottom layer height to 0.4mm and leave layer height at 0.2mm the bottom thickness goes up to 1.0mm and both the initial bottom layers and bottom layers increase to 5. This looks like 10 layers total which again is 0.1mm layer height for a bottom thickness of 1.0mm.
So basically I cannot make the math work out between the respective layers heights, number of layers and bottom thickness. I'm obviously missing something (probably something obvious) but that is where I'm at. (Using Cura 4.8.0)
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