Ultimaker Cura 5.0 beta

[Lupus52 3]

22 minutes ago, nallath said:

Correct, but Ultimaker is paying the vast majority of Cura development. So we will focus on on things that benefit our printers.

I have no more words for such an attitude towards other users. 😞

[ahoeben 2,011]

@Lupus52, it is a bit like Ultimaker is having a party, and everyone is invited. Your printer manufacturer is also giving a party, but they did not want to spend money on cake. So they tell their guests to head on over to Ultimaker because Ultimaker are handing out cake for free. You come to the Ultimaker party and are offered cake, but complain that it is not the flavor you wanted.

[Lupus52 3]

13 minutes ago, gr5 said:

This sounds like a very recent hardware problem.  Try printing the exact same file through something else like pronterface and see if it's a problem that just started today and unrelated to cura.

I am sure that this is no hardware problem! It occurs only with CURA BETA 5.0.0. printing over USB.

 

Programs like earlier Versions of Cura, Pronterface, my Excel-VBA, some Terminalprograms etc. don't have any problems with USB-printing on my Mega X!

 

[Lupus52 3]

20 minutes ago, ahoeben said:

@Lupus52, it is a bit like Ultimaker is having a party, and everyone is invited. Your printer manufacturer is also giving a party, but they did not want to spend money on cake. So they tell their guests to head on over to Ultimaker because Ultimaker are handing out cake for free. You come to the Ultimaker party and are offered cake, but complain that it is not the flavor you wanted.

Very nice - so users of printers other than Ultimaker are parasites here, eating their way through for free.

[Smithy 1,146]

1 hour ago, Lupus52 said:

Very nice - so users of printers other than Ultimaker are parasites here, eating their way through for free.

 

Bingo, you got it! With one big exception, most users with other printers are fair enough to understand that they got and use an enterprise-grade software for free with their China printers and are happy that Ultimaker still offers Cura for everyone at no charge. Even when Cura is not fully optimized for their specific printer type.

 

But why do you use Cura when it is so bad? It would be better for you to use the slicer software from your printer vendor. Then you can expect 100% support for all features you need and don't need to spend time ranting about things that have been deprecated and unsupported for years. If your vendor has no slicer software, yes, that's a problem, but certainly not the problem of Ultimaker or the community.

 

So please cool down. Feel free to use Cura if you are happy with it or use the 4.x version if it fits better for you, or use something else if not, but it is annoying  to endless discuss such things.

[gr5 2,265]

1 hour ago, Lupus52 said:

Very nice - so users of printers other than Ultimaker are parasites here, eating their way through for free.

Not parasites, no.  You are all very welcome to use Cura and Ultimaker tries to support what it can.  And Ultimaker appreciates the feedback to help them make Cura better.

 

Some of the contributors to Cura (for example ahoeben  above) are not employees of Ultimaker.

 

Sometimes companies that sell printers (like Lulzbot) contribute to Cura.  But it's rare.  Most companies can't even be bothered to contribute a profile (often those come from users of the printers).

 

But most of Cura is done by Ultimaker employees and their bosses are Ultimaker employees and their bosses have a HUGE list of desperately need features.  Features needed now or it could impact sales.  Printing over USB is definitely not on that list.  Sometimes a UM employee might fix a feature on their own time.  During non work hours.  Sometimes someone who wants to add a feature will do it and the Cura team will pull that feature in.  But printing over USB is trending downwards.  TCP/IP (ethernet and wifi) is this more popular, newer technology.  I hope all the printers standardize on that and I hope Cura interfaces with it.

 

 

[GregValiant 1,409]

I'm a retired Fireman / Pirate / Ski Bum / Forensic Engineer / Bon Vivant Man-About -Town / Tool Designer and I know pretty much nothing about Ultimakers.  Here is my little Covid Corner.

 

 

No, I did not Photoshop my Ender 3 Pro out of an Ultimaker.  (I did carefully crop the image to eliminate the mess on the desk to the right.)

You can see my trusty, crusty piece of parchment paper that I use for leveling (4 months so far on that piece) and the SD Card Printing Panel of my printing app (Visual Basic BTW.)  Yes, I copy the file to the SD, then I pull the DOS 8.3 name out in case of multiple files on the card, then I have to reach 10cm and pull the card out, and then stretch out all the way to that copper SD card adapter that is plugged into the mini-SD card slot.  I'm old and my eyes aren't what they used to be.

 

When I got into this sport this forum was the only one I received good advice from.  (Two of the gentleman who gave that good advice have responded here.)  If I can add a little contribution to the community I feel things will be in balance.  Chasing down other peoples issues has taught me a lot about 3D printing in general and Cura in particular.

 

The only thing I'm disappointed with is that @kmanstudios promised me there would be free beer tomorrow.  I'm a patient man though.  I just hope it isn't one of those virtual beers though.  They suck.

 

 

 

[ahoeben 2,011]

19 hours ago, Lupus52 said:

so users of printers other than Ultimaker are parasites here, eating their way through for free.

I would not call people I invite to my party "parasites", but if they start complaining I will call them "ungrateful". I do appreciate guests that (respectfully) give me tips on how I can make my cake even tastier (especially if they also bring the ingredients). But this party thing was just a metaphor to try to show you how you come across to some other people here, biting the hand that feeds you your free cake. And metaphors don't always work 100%.

 

Off-metaphor and on-topic: Ultimaker has no interest in improving the USB Printing capability of Cura. If a third party (me, or you, or your printer manufacturer) improves the USB printing capability of Cura in a way that does not break things for other users of Cura, then Ultimaker will be glad to incorporate those changes into Cura for the benefit of other people still using USB printing.

Edited April 28, 2022 by ahoeben

[neute 16]

12 hours ago, Lupus52 said:

I am sure that this is no hardware problem! It occurs only with CURA BETA 5.0.0. printing over USB.

 

printing over USB is so 2014 and there are so much better ways of bringing the GCode to your printer (Octoprint should be the easiest and best for your use case). Take a look at this solution and be amazed.

 

"Wer nicht mit der Zeit geht, geht mit der Zeit..."

[ndimensional 7]

USB printing may also be a security topic. LAN and WLAN are not so secure than a PtP connection ....

 

But anyway, the discussion about the development approach in Ultimaker is not a very useful one. At the end everybody who is not in line with the approach can select another software where the developers may be more "user friendly".

 

But also, if USB is an option in the software it should work and be supported - else it should be removed. ( I personally use LAN due to the printer being located in another room...).

 

My 5 ¢

[Lupus52 3]

1 hour ago, ndimensional said:

USB printing may also be a security topic.

Not relevant here! I Have 3 Document printers via USB running. Where is the problem? A simple 3D-Printing USB-Handling is much easier to program. For example my Printer Levelingcheck- and Testprogramm runs via Excel-VBA. It can send Gcode-files too!

1 hour ago, ndimensional said:

 

LAN and WLAN are not so secure than a PtP connection ....

You can see problems where no problems are!

 

1 hour ago, ndimensional said:

But anyway, the discussion about the development approach in Ultimaker is not a very useful one. At the end everybody who is not in line with the approach can select another software where the developers may be more "user friendly".

 

But also, if USB is an option in the software it should work and be supported - else it should be removed.

 

The previous USB implementation is a disgrace. Every decent programmer should be ashamed of such rubbish! You can't choose a port. And you can't specifically connect or disconnect. As is the case with Pronterface, for example. Cura does it randomly. Sometimes you can print to USB after slicing. Then again not. Sometimes the printing option comes when you unplug the printer and plug it in again, or even have to switch it off and on first. Sometimes you have to slice again. It's a gamble whether USB printing is offered after slicing or just saving to hard drive.

 

And Cura cheekily connects to anything that looks like "Arduino" at launch. And kills e.g. my weather station with Arduino on another port when starting.

 

Or Cura kills a running print job that is currently printing from the SD card if the USB cable is still plugged in when Cura starts.

 

The USB handling is simply rubbish. And I swear at the programmer(s) several times a day. If something is offered, it should work reasonably well! It doesn't matter if it's free or it costs something.

 

But the arrogant attitude towards users of other printers here in the forum, some of which can be found here, pisses me off. And therefore I say Goodbye!

 

[Smithy 1,146]

8 hours ago, Lupus52 said:

But the arrogant attitude towards users of other printers here in the forum, some of which can be found here, pisses me off. And therefore I say Goodbye!

As always in real life, it is a question of the tone of voice and how someone gives feedback or reports bugs or problems. Most here follow the rules, and we can communicate in a friendly fashion.  

 

The exciting part is that there are more users here with 3rd party printers than Ultimaker customers. They get the same help as others, but they have a normal friendly tone. 

 

If you can't or won't abide by it for whatever reason, then it's probably better to draw the consequences.

 

Have a nice day....

[nallath 1,124]

19 hours ago, Lupus52 said:

Very nice - so users of printers other than Ultimaker are parasites here, eating their way through for free.

No, but I would argue that some of those manufacturers are parasites in the way that they handle things. I fully understand how it's annoying that you're on the receiving end of their shady business practices.
 

 

7 hours ago, ndimensional said:

But also, if USB is an option in the software it should work and be supported - else it should be removed. ( I personally use LAN due to the printer being located in another room...).

I'm also starting to lean towards that yeah. I'm getting really fed up with being called a monster by some people for not fixing something.

[ndimensional 7]

I would think it depends also on the hardware. My S3 has an USB port - and the data sheet says also that there is a USB port. So - I have to admit I did not grasped all the complaints - if Cura and an Ultimaker are having USB problems, then it should be fixed asap. If it is another brand, than I fully agree that there is no support.

Again, dropping USB is not an option as long as the Ultimaker Printers have an USB port ...

 

And no, you are not 😊 a monster , but Ultimaker as a company should give a much clearer statement about such things. I worked for a big IT company (two characters) and I know that not all HW and SW configurations can be economically supported... my last words regarding this ...

[nallath 1,124]

1 hour ago, ndimensional said:

My S3 has an USB port - and the data sheet says also that there is a USB port.

Aah, yeah. But that doesn't allow you to stream gcode from cura to to the printer. That's what this is about. The first Ultimaker printer originally didn't have a way to load g-code from memory / SD card and needed a PC to constantly stream the g-code to the printer. Almost all of these have had upgrades (the ulti-controller) to no longer need that.

The UM2+ was the last printer to even support USB printing in any way, but it was strongly recommended to not do this, as this generally causes a lot of issues.

That's also why we're not pouring in the money needed to fix this. We support our hardware and ensure that our software works with that. We can't (and won't) provide support for our software with random third party 3D printers. There is simply a limit to how much we are giving away for free.

[ndimensional 7]

ok, that (stream directly Gcode) I did not know.... the only thing I am expecting is, that Cura works with an Ultimaker Printer via USB - so you are absolutely right about third party printers .... and as far as I understood, the third party printer manufacturer could provide by himself the necessary USB connection software in Cura, so it is anyway up top him to fix and care about this.

[HarryJM 0]

I am experiencing Wacom tablet issues in Cura 5.0 Beta.  I basically cannot control Cura 5 at all.  I use my Wacom for everything and I never had a problem before.  PS>  I am on Mac Monterey.  

[DFief 0]

I have had great success with the 4.13 version, and tried the new 5.0.0 beta.  Most things I have tried have printed well, except for the Beard Comb I use to test my settings.  It printed the 'tines' of the comb 'double', and unusable.  I actually spent quite a bit of time trouble shooting my printer thinking I had messed it up, until I tried it on another machine, and got the same results.  I have attached a pic of the results.  The comb on the left is sliced with the 4.13 version, the one on the right with the 5.0 beta.  Same stl file, and same settings, just different result.  Any ideas how to fix it?  I try to be an early adopter of tech, and like the new version overall, but need to be able to rely on the results.  

[neute 16]

6 hours ago, DFief said:

Any ideas how to fix it?  

 

it might be that in 4.13, Cura included a back & forth path for each comb tooth. In 5.0, it might only do a single line, retract and move to the next line, which would be the next tooth right next to it, unretract and start again. the "bridge" that you are seeing is probably stringing from the retraction, aka a printer problem. Possibly cura is doing a very thick extrusion, it seems to do that since you can't specify a maximum line width IIRC, which would make clean retractions more difficult since it is pushing more plastic than usual.

It might help to set combing to "all" so that the nozzle will travel back over the already printed line and start at the beginning of the next tooth and not at the end.

take a look at the gcode preview to validate this.

[GregValiant 1,409]

I responded on Github.  What I found was 5.0 has a setting for "Split Middle Line Threshold" that doesn't exist in 4.13.  Try setting that to 50% (default is 70%).  That forces 5.0 to make two passes up each tine and eliminates the oozing during the travel move between tines that occurs with a single pass.

(It's not quite 8:00AM here and I've already learned something today!  I printed the comb - but it will be for a mustache.  Z seam anywhere but "back" would be a better choice.)  After printing, I think a skirt would be better as well.  Adhesion was not a problem.

Edited April 29, 2022 by GregValiant

[DeeJayOne 0]

On 4/25/2022 at 5:35 PM, nallath said:

Cura 5.0 will not work on Windows 7. We have stopped supporting windows 7 as it isn't even supported by Windows anymore. This meant that when we stopped supporting it, we stopped testing if it worked (which also saved us a lot of time and effort). It kept working for a bit longer, but for Cura 5.0 we also switched to Python 3.10 (which is also one of the reasons why Cura 5.0's interface is much faster). Python 3.10 does not support windows 7, for the same reasons as us.

The support for windows 7 was already ended on January 14, 2020, but we even kept supporting it a bit longer. But at a certain point, we have no other choice than to stop doing so.

Updating to windows 10 is a breeze and should even be free. I would strongly recommend doing that, as windows 7 is no longer getting any security updates, which is just putting yourself at risk.

What is the officially last version of Cura supported for Windows 7 ?
Where to find this info ?

[GregValiant 1,409]

On 4/25/2022 at 5:14 PM, ahoeben said:

Like so? https://support.ultimaker.com/hc/en-us/articles/360011889579

On the downloads page (https://ultimaker.com/software/ultimaker-cura), click on System Requirements and then follow the link about supported operating system versions.

 

It takes some clicking, but the info is there.

I have Cura 2.3 loaded on my Win 7 32bit computer I do my CAD work on.  I think that's the last version that ran on 32 bit.

[FlightRisk 0]

I agree that "tone" is important, though not everyone is a politician. The response from an ultimaker representative saying they focus of things that benefit their own printers could have been better phrased, but he was just stating a fact. Another employee posted a longer reply later and that person clearly has emotional intelligence and should train support staff 😉 I think a lot of online experiences could be improved if everyone took time to take their emotional temperature and only post when it was at zen student level. 😉

 

That said, I am appreciative of what Ultimaker is providing the community. I see their challenge. I could be wrong, but I think they see Cura mostly as a tool they have to have to run their printers. A slight change in perspective and you see Cura as a commercial for Ultimaker that brings people to their hardware offerings who wouldn't have otherwise (me), and as a standalone, industry leading, software package.

If you look at Cura outside of the Ultimaker lens, then what do you see? For one, they might want to get another revenue stream by charging for it. 😉 That is hard to do once something is "free" and the howling at the moon from users would be deafening. But there might be other opportunities by seeing the product as its own entity for the entire market. Maybe there could be some distinction between a "Professional" and "Enterprise" version and they charge a low $49 for Enterprise. They would be smart enough to not get greedy and use the subscription model that Adobe went to. Or maybe if you want phone support, you pay a fee. Or perhaps $29 for an add-on with custom profiles and other tweaks for your supported, but non-Ultimaker printer. And since it is under a GNU Lesser General Public License, it would be interesting to see what they do with it. The bottom line is that anyone with coding experience can contribute. There are 88 pending pull requests right now!

I'm curious to know which manufacturers are partners in some way. For example, Voxelab uses some form of Cura, do they not? Did they contribute in any way?

[FlightRisk 0]

Does anyone have an insight as to when most of the plugins may get updated? That's a biggie. Normally, when there are breaking changes, there is some direct contact to work with other vendors to have their updates be announced with a new version. For example, Octoprint, The hover help manual, and anything related to custom supports are fairly critical.

[GregValiant 1,409]

@ahoeben is a prolific contributor to Cura and has posted this Update Schedule for his plugins (Octoprint is included).

As to the rest - I assume each individual or entity has their own time frame they are working in.
 

Looking from afar I'm guessing that a lot of the effort in updating is getting the plugins to work with the new dialog controls(?).  I'd imagine there is some debug time involved in that as well.  Then they need to be submitted to Ultimaker for approval.

 

As a workaround (and maybe specific to Cylindrical Supports) if I want cylindrical supports then I create and save a project in 4.13 and then open it in 5.0.  The cylinders come in and I can alter them as needed in 5.0.  I'm just unable to add them in 5.0.