The lastest versions of Cura are designed to work with any printer including some really obscure printers from China. I don't think there is such a correlation. I see you have a UM3 which is the most complicated as far as cura is concerned. You should be able to have the original firmware installed that came with your UM3 and it should be fine with Cura 5.3.0. Personally I don't update firmware unless there is a really good reason. And that means some of my printers sometimes have 5 year old firmware. My Um3 certainly has pretty old firmware. Or am I missing something? Some new feature that has a new kind of gcode that older printers won't recognize? Nothing I can think of.
Hey @JohnInOttawa,
I'm not aware of any issues that would be a result between an old version of UMO or UM3 firmware and a newer version of Cura. But that might be because if we need to fix an issue, we ask you to upgrade either your Cura or firmware to see the fix.
Is there a specific issue you are encountering?
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JohnInOttawa 104
Thank you @MariMakes! Much appreciated.
I am not encountering any issues with my current setup of Cura and firmware, but both are very old. It's one of those situations where I don't want to fix something that isn't broken.... At the same time, there are print quality and speed improvements in newer versions of Cura that look very good, so I wanted to learn what I could before trying it out.
It sounds safe for me to at least run a parallel installation of the latest Cura and give it a try on my UM3. We'll see how it goes.
All the best
John
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On 12/22/2022 at 2:47 PM, MariMakes said:.
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called 5.3.0 Alpha + Xmas
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With less filament extruded
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significant decrease in printing time.
Less filament Yes! I think so! Decrease in printing time, sorry NO! Actually on my test part (attached) I think the traditionally supports are faster but harder to remove, probably just a setting. Printed with 0,4m nozzle 0,2mm layers, material ABS,
printer Flashforge Guider 2S ... The best thing with Cura is "invisible" Z seam compared to easier to use
Flashprint. Makes Cura my choice for ducting and fans (RC plane parts).
Thank you for the work, solved a problem I've been battling for a while. A vertical wall, where a portion of it is slightly off vertical (2 degrees), on that section, there is a 4mm tab, at a right angle. I want supports on the base of the model, so tree supports were the only way to go. But could NOT get them to support the overhang. A support would go up, and touch the very edge, but NOT support it. If I added an overhang that was 90 (from vertical), in addition. ALL get supported. designed in Solidworks, sliced in Cura 5.1. When searching for a solution, I happened to come across this 5.3 pre-release.
I also like the cleaner design.
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Hey @Ohyst60,
Thanks for sharing your model! Good find 💪
There is something odd going on where there is support generated that supports nothing.
I'll bring it up to the team to see what they can do to improve it. Fingers crossed 🤞
Oh, Hi it's Thomas! 👑
That issue looks definetly similar.
We've added a ticket to the backlog with the intent to improve this.
I'll make sure that it's included as a testcase 💪
Hey folks, just wondering if there is an alpha 2 or beta perhaps coming soon? Loving Cura but some of the supports in this alpha are having same issues as pointed out above. TIA
- MariMakes changed the title to UltiMaker Cura Alpha 🎄 Tree Support Spotlight 🎄
- 3 weeks later...
I saw a little benefit if only small areas need to be supported but in my case the new tree needs more time and more filament :-(
and also it's much louder to print as this high amount of circles and travels is louder (and/or the noise is objectionable) than the old smooth curves all around
to have "prefered angle" and "max angle" now is nice, wish to have that in old tree support also
Hey @Tschintna,
Sorry to hear the new tree support didn't give you the improvements you were looking for.
Do you have a screenshot or a project file so we can use it as a test case?
A project file contains the printer and settings we need for troubleshooting.
To save a project file go to File -> Save project.
If the default circles are too small you can consider increasing the following settings:
- Tree Support Branch Diameter
- Tree support Trunk Diameter
Unfortunately, the noise that your printer produces when printing in circles changes per printer and is related to your hardware, it's not something we can resolve in Cura. You can also scout on the internet to find the type of upgrade you need for your printer to reduce the noise.
I'll try to make some screenshots in near future, thanks
one single curve is always the pleasanter noise than a lot a circles with travels
what I mean is the difference of 'constant driving' towards 'stop and go' - my printer doesn't make bad noise, all fine 🙂
also the new support needs to do a lot more retractions - that's bad for some filaments and needs a lot of time
on bigger prints (tree's >10-20cm high) there is a big loss in stability combare to the old tree support
I tried different settings and 'Prefered Branch Angle' helped to reduce to number of single trees
without a high Z-Hop I had some fallen trees in my tests (Nozzle touched the curled part of the tree 5 times - the old tree didn't care as it was high stable)
also I'll test to change the diameters - just I can't imagine to get back the one-piece-bottom
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OK. WOW. Revelation.
I make many smaller models (for a weekly in-person D&D game) ... and this new support regime is ... just WOW. It's easier to take off ... it respects smaller details ... everything is just better.
Was printing some Kobolds today. even smaller than usual. Just WOW.
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So... Doing even better today. I'll link in a project file. So... the Otyugh here is best printed on it's side. In general, the teeth are not something you want to support (easy to break) ... but printing it in this orientation on the deck --- only a small part is initially on the build plate. Now, I think there's a problem with using a raft ... so I instead I just decided to have something that is all supported. It works amazingly well.
Watching it print, as I sometimes do, there's an obvious change from the big round shapes to the many little fingers in close proximity to the print. This is done well enough that different parts of the print are held accurately enough to join.
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- 2 weeks later...
The algorithm looks nice! It would be great if one prints with cheap material to only have the support material between the model and the rest of the tree. That way one can use the expensive support material more sparingly.
So to clarify the tree is mainly constructed from the main material with only a few layers support material between the model and the rest of the tree. Obviously if the base of the tree is on the model it should also be with a few layers support material.
Edited by NTwoOMore clarification
9 hours ago, NTwoO said:It would be great if one prints with cheap material to only have the support material between the model and the rest of the tree.
You can already print the "support interface" with a different extruder than the rest of the supports. See the "support extruder" and "support interface extruder" settings.
I must admit I am not 100% sure if and how support interfaces apply to the new tree supports. Try it out and let us know!
Edited by ahoeben
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GregValiant 1,342
Tree Supports have some reach. They can't get everywhere and sometimes it's still necessary to allow the supports to grow on the model. There are a lot of support settings (73 I think) and tweaking them to get a good support structure is often necessary (and tedious).
The XY distance comes into play as well as the "XY Overrides Z" or "Z overrides XY" setting. Your "Minimum Support Area", "Minimum Support Interface Area" and maybe "Support Horizontal Expansion" can be used to move the support so it catches the overhang. The Support Interface Density will come into play...there are a lot of settings.
I've settled on running Support and Support Interface at 90% flow and with the air gap to the support floor at 2X layer height. The supports are weaker and easier to remove. Printing the Support Interface slow can help as well because a cooler interface doesn't stick as well when the roof gets put on. For large roofs I'll sometimes put in a Pause at Height and then replace the pause command with a G4 S180 to give a 3 minute break and allow the interface to cool further. The G4 allows the print to restart without any input from me.
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svrkprabhakar 2
Thank you for the clarification, much appreciated. I was worried about how difficult it would be to remove the support structure but I am very excited to see how easy it is to remove them, they just came off just by touching. Amazong feature indeed, thank you so much for developing this feature.
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JohnInOttawa 104
Is there any correlation with printer firmware and Cura version? - i.e. what is the oldest firmware version that will run 5.3.0?
Thanks!
John
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