How best to customise profiles for retraction and bed temp?

[maker842 0]

My Ender 3 is very heavily customised; and so I need to change two things at least every time I print:

 

• Retraction has to be 0.5mm (it defaults to 5mm) - due to Hemera hotend
• Bed temp for PLA has to be 30 (it defaults to 50) - due to LokBuild bed

 

I'm quite confused how the profiles work - there seems to be some hidden relationship between custom profiles, nozzle size and the default profiles, because when I change nozzle size then sometimes the custom profiles are filtered away.

 

I've tried to read https://github.com/Ultimaker/Cura/wiki/Profiles-&-Settings#quality-changes

 

I'd also like to make a 0.15 nozzle and a 0.25 nozzle . I understand effectively this can be done just by changing the line width, but does that mean I should make some profiles which are unrelated to nozzle size drop down? When I want to use those profiles, should I remember to not worry about what the Nozzle Size drop down is set to? However nozzle size does seem important, due to that it filters out the custom profiles...

 

The default profiles all have a layer height number which shows up in the drop down list, yet my custom profiles don't:

 

 

However, when I Manage Profiles, those height heights do NOT show as part of the name:

 

 

 

I've tried duplicating each of the default profiles, since I think my custom ones are somehow tied back to them (related to nozzle size)?, and then starting to edit Retraction and Build Plate Temperature in each. Build Plate Temperature shows in italics for some reason, and retraction doesn't show up at all?

 

 

For the Build Plate temperature, maybe I should be doing that in Generic->Pla material profile instead?

 

But that can't be edited:

 

 

Oh, I see there's Retraction Distance there too!

 

Can anyone help me out? I'd just like to say "Always use retraction 0.5mm (apart from for TPU!) and "PLA gets bed 30".

 

And then I'd like to send all these settings over to another Cura instance too, to make sure it doesn't matter which PC I use for slicing...

 

(Cura 4.8.0)

 

Edited April 4, 2021 by maker842
mention cura version

[gr5 2,094]

I don't use profiles - I use a different process.  What you describe sounds so damn complicated and makes me glad (again) that I don't use profiles.  Instead I always save the gcode file and also the *project file* (not profile) in the same folder.  The project file stores everything a profile stores and much more.  Then when I want to slice something I locate the closest related project file.  I load that and all my settings are ready to go.  I add in the new STL and slice.  So for example if I have been printing Nylon brackets and lots of other PLA items and then one day I have to slice a new type of Nylon bracket or a new version of the old nylon bracket, I load that old project, delete the old bracket and load in the new bracket and I know I have all the same settings from that last successful bracket.

 

I'm sorry this doesn't answer your question.  I hope someone else can answer your question.  But maybe you'll try out using projects instead.

[maker842 0]

Thanks for the thoughts on that @gr5 - it's a good idea, and I do similar with a laser cutter. Maybe I'll start to do the same for the 3d printer!

 

Still hoping to get my head around how the profiles are _supposed_ to work, but if I don't manage that, making a set of 'starter projects' might be the way to go...