Cura 5.1 slicing hangs or is taking a really long time. What can I do?

[burhop 14]

I have a model that when I go to slice it, it just hangs with the CPU pegged at 100% at about 1.3 Gig of memory used. After about 15 minutes, I'm here:

 

I'd give out the model but its a confidential.  Is this normal for complex models?  If not, anyway to check for errors or check the file?  It seems to load just fine into Cura, our CAD software and Meshlab. Meshlab says it has 4mill faces so size could be the problem.

[GregValiant 1,408]

There is an often reported slicing bug in 5.1 running on Windows systems.  (I was getting real tired of explaining it over on GitHub.)

If you are running Windows I would suggest that you move to the 5.2beta version which so far (it's only been a few days) seems much better.  (The Linux version of 5.2beta is getting some hits about a slicing bug.)

A workaround for the bug seems to be to move and/or rotate the model on the Cura build plate.  I guess when the slicing is done from a different direction it can fool the bug(?).  Any way, that worked quite often.

 

That is a large model.  Windows has a program MS 3D Builder which has a repair function and a "Simplify" tool.  I'm seeing some models lately that are extremely high resolution and well beyond what FDM is capable of.  Making the model simpler will result in more "faceting" but again, the nozzle wasn't going to follow .0000001mm line segments anyway.

[burhop 14]

I let it run for about 45 minutes and it finally finished.  So it is not hung, just  s l o w w w w . I rotated it by 30 degrees but still had the problem. Also tried 3MF (just facets, no extensions) with the same problem.

 

You are right about it being overly precise.  I just hate tuning my STLs for where it is going to be used and Cura generally deals with it ok (just not today 😞 )  But it didn't crash and I did finally get some gcode so that is good 🙂 

Edited October 4, 2022 by burhop