Slice at an angle

[msundman 4]

I have a situation where I would like the layer lines to be at an angle, instead of parallel to the build surface. Similar to a belt printer, except with a smaller angle than 45 degrees, and without having tilted z-axis.

 

Is there any plugin/script that can do this?

 

If not then maybe I could make one myself. My first idea was to simply modify the gcode file, transforming all moves, rotating them around the x-axis. However, rotating the layers around the x-axis causes movements in the y-axis to also move in the z-axis, which has a much lower max speed than the y-axis. If the rotation angle is small there's not much z-movement, but it still needs to be taken into account.

 

Any ideas?

[gr5 2,267]

I'd prefer you to show a diagram of how you want it ideally and how it's different if you use cura but then rotate the points after it slices (which doesn't sound like it would work).  Maybe sketch something on a napkin, take a picture and post it.

 

having said that, the slicer for the blackbelt is a modified version of cura and is open source.  It has a few features - you can set angles and things and maybe you can do exactly what you want with that slicer.  If not you could modify the code a bit to do some transformations possibly.  Anyway the guy who did that is also on this forum as @ahoeben.

 

Anyway - first step - please show diagrams of what you mean.  In the diagram show the orientation of the printing axes as well (which are not perpendicular on a blackbelt but maybe *are* perpendicular in what you want?).

[gr5 2,267]

Don't worry about printing speeds.  Almost every printer runs Marlin or some fork of Marlin and the firmware has a speed limit for all 4 axes (yes all 4, including extruder).  For every move you specify the requested feed rate but if that means it would go too fast for any axis for a particular move it slows down such that the limiting axis is right at it's speed limit.  Anyway the point is - don't worry about that.

[msundman 4]

30 minutes ago, gr5 said:

I'd prefer you to show a diagram of how you want it ideally and how it's different if you use cura but then rotate the points after it slices (which doesn't sound like it would work).  Maybe sketch something on a napkin, take a picture and post it.

This is a side-view of the shape to print (black outline) and the extruded material (blue lines in layers).

 

Now, the 1-2 bottom layers probably should be directly on the buildplate anyway, so I'll leave a couple of those in, but instead of the other layers I'll start printing them at an angle (layers extruded at an angle are in green instead of blue, with the bottom-right green layer getting extruded first after the blue ones, then the one above it, etc):

 

Is the explanation more clear now?

[ahoeben 2,012]

Yes, this is very clear. I might have something for you in half a year or so. Maybe sooner.

[geert_2 558]

In the mean time, could printing it sideways be an option, if the design has a flat side panel?

 

[GregValiant 1,410]

Geert_2, that takes all the fun out of it.

Fortunately, Cura can be fooled into providing proper assembly geometry if each sub-assembly has a plate the same size as the build surface.  What I propose is a hardware solution.  A Sine Plate would introduce another axis.

 

Please understand that this is quick and dirty and just off the top of my head.

A hinge affixed to a piece of aluminum that replaces the build plate.  A simple wedge to set the angle.  There are two parts to print...the first is just the bottom layers.  The second is the upper portion of the part missing the bottom layers.

Scribble this up in design software and export the STL once with just the bottom layers on the sine plate, and again with the top part rotated about the sine plate axis into it's print position.

Strategically place a couple of Cutting Meshes.  Slice a part that represents just the bottom layers.

Bring in the rest of the part (bottom layers missing) and slice it.

Combine the files with a pause at the transition so the angle can be adjusted.

Dependent on part geometry, this may still require a long nozzle to provide clearance for the print head.

 

AHoeben's solution would be more elegant.  I'm more of a sledge hammer guy.

 

Here is a hinge.  The bottom layers get printed.

 

 

 

Here is the second portion of the part sans the bottom layers (and with the hinge missing).  Slice with no supports.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[msundman 4]

6 hours ago, ahoeben said:

Yes, this is very clear. I might have something for you in half a year or so. Maybe sooner.

Sounds interesting. What kind of solution do you have in mind?

 

2 hours ago, geert_2 said:

In the mean time, could printing it sideways be an option, if the design has a flat side panel?

Well, the end goal might be to get different parts to print at different layer angles. In my case it can't be printed on its side.

 

7 minutes ago, GregValiant said:

A hinge affixed to a piece of aluminum that replaces the build plate.  A simple wedge to set the angle.

That's creative. However, in my case I'm printing it diagonally just so it fits inside my printing volume.

[gr5 2,267]

Great!  yes, very clear.  A sketch with a pencil would have been fine.  So your idea already exists in the wild but it's a bit rare as the software is complicated.  You don't really want to switch suddenly from blue horizontal layers to green tilted layers but do it gradually.  I've actually printed something like this - I did it by creating the geometry of the part "warped" and then undoing the warp in a post processing plugin for cura.  But it was pretty simple like your example where I gradually tilted the printing planes.  The z stepper works hard, lol!  You really hear it as the Z stepper has a louder/different sound to it.

 

Here is an article of one person who did it really nicely:

https://hackaday.com/2016/07/27/3d-printering-non-planar-layer-fdm/

 

I've seen other people do this.  I've also seen 3d printers with 2 more axes where for example the entire print bed can tilt on two axes (either x,y axis rotation or x,z axis rotation).  But the software isn't really out there to do this kind of stuff.  Yet.

[ahoeben 2,012]

3 hours ago, msundman said:

What kind of solution do you have in mind?

I'm in talks with a client who wants me to develop a slice-at-an-angle plugin. It will be an open sourced plugin for Cura. I can't divulge much detail at this point, but I would be surprised if it had not materialised in half a year.

[JohnInOttawa 104]

Depending on the design, I'd have to think collision avoidance would be a serious constraint.

 

That said, the applications would be huge, especially in a dual extruder machine.  I can imagine a drone part, fairing or  aerodynamic section where something like glass or CF reinforced stiff but rough material was covered in non-planar layers of filament that could be chemically smoothed or coated with an epoxy like XTC-3D.  Removing the aliasing effect of the traditional print would really change the exercise.

 

I wonder how such a part would respond to annealing?

 

Imagine the possibilities with the Ultrafuse metal system.  Wow.

 

Will watch this development with interest!!

John

Edited February 2, 2021 by JohnInOttawa

[LukasHuss 0]

Hello everyone,
 

 

the passion for 3D Printers got me all over. So i build my own 3D Printer an need help with Slicing.

 

I have 4 Nozzels on my 45° Angeld Belt-Printer. No Slicer on the Marked right now supports Multinozzel for Beltprinters.

 

I saw @ahoeben is working on a Plugin for slice-at-an-angle for Cura which would be greatly appreciated.

 

So my question for you ahoeben would be: Do you think your Plugin will support Multinozzel? Is your Plugin even useable for a Beltprinter?

And if all of the above is not true is there anyway to get a Plugin or even a Support in Cura in the Future to make this possible? 

 

I would do almost anything to get every Nozzel on my Printer working.

 

With best regards

 

Lukas

 

[ahoeben 2,012]

No, the plugin I was talking about would not work for a belt-printer.

But I am also the creator of Blackbelt Cura, so nothing is impossible.

[Hoops40 0]

On 6/29/2021 at 10:37 PM, ahoeben said:

No, the plugin I was talking about would not work for a belt-printer.

But I am also the creator of Blackbelt Cura, so nothing is impossible.

How's progress? Very interesting been waiting for this. Software is my absolute weakness but would love to print at 45 degrees on a standard style printer. Obviously I'll ad an angle nozzle 😁.

Would love to be able to print some garden furniture like The New Raw style.

[ahoeben 2,012]

Unfortunately, there is no progress to speak of. I have a burnout to attend to.

[stenkluts 2]

Hi guys, 

 

i'm Sten from the Netherlands and i'm building an XXXXL printer WxHxL: 3x3x11 meters. 

On this printer i want to print in a 45'' angle. only the hotend/nozzle will be tilted, the rest of the system will be like a regular 3D printer. Doing research i came across this thread with great hopes. 

At the moment i can find basically nothing regarding this way of printing....

@ahoeben i hope you're doing better these days. i understand the seriousness of a burnout. 
If so, can you provide any update or solution / workaround?

Kind regards, Sten

Edited November 26, 2022 by stenkluts
tag

[stenkluts 2]

On 7/14/2022 at 10:38 AM, ahoeben said:

Unfortunately, there is no progress to speak of. I have a burnout to attend to.

Hope you are feeling well!

[cosineadditive 0]

Cosine has made angled slicing operations in our slicer-- check it out: https://www.cosineadditive.com/en/blog/2023/1/4/angled-slicing

 

Our slicer is a Solidworks plugin/addin https://www.cosineadditive.com/en/blog/solidworksslicingengine

[sinus50hz 0]

On 7/14/2022 at 11:38 AM, ahoeben said:

Unfortunately, there is no progress to speak of. I have a burnout to attend to.

Is work on the plugin completely stopped?

[ahoeben 2,012]

On 10/6/2023 at 12:34 AM, sinus50hz said:

Is work on the plugin completely stopped?

Mostly, yes. That does not mean I can never pick it up again, especially with the recent introduction of CuraEngine plugins, but I have not done so since july 2022.

[sinus50hz 0]

I want to tell you how I was looking for a slicer that does slicing at an angle.

 

The first thing I found was Slicer4RTN

https://github.com/Spiritdude/Slicer4RTN

It works as follows:

first the model is distorted

Then the distorted model is sliced with a slicer

Then the inverse transformation is applied.

 

No additional layer on the wall

In reality it looks like this

 

 

After much thought I realized
that it would be more correct not to distort
model before slicing
and turn to the angle we need

then slice and apply the inverse transformation

 

Here is an example of a rotated model sliced Cura

as you can see there are additional layers

 

Here is the reference result received in BlackBelt Cura

This is the result I would like to get

Edited June 13 by sinus50hz

[ahoeben 2,012]

47 minutes ago, sinus50hz said:

first the model is distorted

This is also what Blackbelt Cura does under the hood.

[sinus50hz 0]

Yes, I know.

But I want to do 3D printing under angle on a regular 3D printer.

To print in 3 axis, x,y,z like in the video above

[sinus50hz 0]

Next I came across a conical slicer

https://github.com/RotBotSlicer/Transform

I managed to get him to do the same thing he does Slicer4RTN

But this also did not give the correct result.

 

Posted on github by Ultimaker Cura
with a question about adding such functionality

https://github.com/Ultimaker/Cura/issues/18333

 

My hope is that this will be implemented properly.

Edited June 13 by sinus50hz

[sinus50hz 0]

Unfortunately, Ultimaker Cura refused to add such functionality to the slicer.

Edited June 25 by sinus50hz