UltiMaker Cura 5.3 beta Released

[ArunC 31]

We have another incredible UltiMaker Cura beta release ready for you! Cura users can look forward to improved print quality, an expanded and improved recommended print settings menu, and our biggest new feature since the Cura 5.0 release, multi-material interlocking!

 

Also, as a cherry on top, this release includes a huge amount of new printer profiles for some of the most popular non-UltiMaker printers.

 

Combine previously incompatible materials with material interlocking

 

Every now and again, something comes along that makes you rethink the fundamental rules of 3D printing. When that happens, incredible new possibilities are created. This release is one of those moments. With the introduction of material interlocking, it’s now possible to combine two completely incompatible materials and have them be fully bonded without any adhesives or fasteners required. This feature exists thanks to our beloved former colleague Tim Kuijper, who also introduced the Arachne variable line width engine! This great improvement for multi-material prints is based on research that resulted in him earning his PhD.

 

This can be done on any printer capable of printing with two or more materials at once. It is achieved by generating an alternating overlapping pattern at the interface of two materials that physically ‘locks’ them together. Inside of Cura, it looks like this:

 

 

The result is that a completed print that uses material interlocking will have a bond between the two materials that can withstand mechanical pressures which are only limited by the strength of the weakest of the two materials, and not the compatibility of those materials.

 

To understand how exciting this is, we need to talk about material compatibility in multi-material prints. In an ideal world, it would be possible to combine any two materials when printing a multi-material print and have them bond together just like two layers of the same material would. Unfortunately, that is not how it works. 

 

In reality, some materials require extremely different printing temperatures and others are just chemically incompatible. The result is that when printing with two incompatible materials like PLA and TPU, the completed print would be extremely fragile at the interface layer, causing them to break away from each other easily. And that’s if the incompatibility does not result in a failed print before it was finished. You can find a full chart of which materials are compatible with each other here.

 

Traditional solutions to this problem included novel print-in-place designs and parts that include a joint similar to one that would be used in woodworking. Or, more traditional solutions like adhesives, fasteners, and clips. One particularly handy solution is heat set inserts which you can read all about in a previous post we published on the subject. 

 

Thankfully, many of these solutions are no longer necessary when using material interlocking! Instead, all you need to do is enable the ‘Generate Interlocking Structure’ setting under the ‘Experimental’ heading. Experimental settings are only visible when enabled via the ‘Setting Visibility’ section of the ‘Preferences’ menu. 

 

Then, after slicing your multi-material part, you can view the new interlocking structure by going to the preview tab in Cura, and using the scroll bar on the right side of the screen to scrub to a part of the print where the two materials meet:

 

 

 

One of our early experiments with this new feature was to create a functioning clip with a flexible TPU hinge and rigid PLA teeth which works perfectly despite being printed with incompatible materials: 

 

 

 

You can find the part here on Thingiverse if you want to try printing it yourself. We hope you enjoy testing out this fascinating new feature and we look forward to seeing what you can do with it. 

 

Improved print quality and better brims 

 

As always, we continue in this release to make small (and not-so-small) changes to improve overall print quality. 

 

Firstly, the Z seam should now be aligned more consistently when using the ‘Sharpest Corner’ Z seam alignment setting and then selecting ‘None’ under the ‘Seam Corner Preference’ dropdown.

 

Printing with brims has also been improved. Brims will now print faster and should be easier to remove. Brims can also now be printed with two materials in a single model resulting in better adhesion and cleaner print post-processing.

 

Next, concentric ordering has been improved for initial layers. Now, when selecting the ‘Concentric ‘ option under the ‘Bottom Pattern Initial Layer’ setting, your first layer will print sequentially from the outside in, rather than printing out of order.

 

 

 

Supports have also been improved. When printing with ‘Normal’ supports, fewer unnecessary support structures will be generated and supports will be more reliable overall. Particularly when printing parts with small complex details. There is also less chance of useless supports being generated on top of your model.

 

Finally, printing speeds and minimum layer time behavior has been tuned to improve the quality of small layers. The result is that small spikes, cones, and pointy details will now print better. 

 

For anyone paying attention to our previous releases, our improved Xmas tree supports did not make it into this release. You can still go and download the alpha release to try them out right now, though.

Better recommended setting menu and improved printer setup 

 

The recommended print settings menu has been updated to include many of the most commonly changed settings such as the option to choose an infill pattern, support placement, and more. It is also now possible to save changes to the recommended settings for future prints. 

 

 

 

Printer setup has also been streamlined. When configuring a new printer in Cura, you are now asked if you want to add an UltiMaker printer or a non-UltiMaker printer.

 

 

 

When selecting an UltiMaker printer, you are then guided through the process of connecting the printer to UltiMakerDigital Factory for remote monitoring. 

 

Additional improvements 

 

The following improvements have also been implemented in the UltiMaker Cura 5.3 beta:

• Added over 75 new 3rd party printer profiles

• UltiMaker branding updated throughout Cura

• Numerous bug fixes

 

Give us your feedback

 

Download this latest beta release to start discovering new 3D printing possibilities right now. Material interlocking is a cutting-edge new feature and we would love to find out how you’re using it. Let us know in the comments below!

[Cuq 206]

Attention, it is in my opinion better to make a backup of your configuration if you use the version 5.3 alpha Xmas.  It is possible that some profiles have compatibility problems with this new version. As the new beta and the Xmas alpha share the same Configuration folder.  could be dangerous.

 

Edited February 22, 2023 by Cuq

[Cuq 206]

For the Windows distribution the team also forgot to include in the installation program (I installed with the exe) the language folders in I18n resources directory. So the software is only in English (even if the language setting is well adjusted.

 

Edited February 22, 2023 by Cuq

[MariMakes 206]

Wow! @Cuq, thanks for the heads up. 😮
I'm bringing it up with the team to see what we can do to resolve this. 

[ahoeben 2,012]

As always, the Sidebar GUI plugin needs to be updated to be compatible with the new version of Cura. I am working on creating a compatible version now.

[Dadkitess 19]

Do you have some further detail regarding the Xmas tree support not being in this release ? Is it plan with optimization in another release ?

 

It actually saved me for a deadline, my UMS5 was completely out of service (... Happens a lot) and only had my Prusa mk3s+ along, without, obviously, dual material extruders. And it reaaaaaaaally was a complicated and intricated geometry where soluble support is a major help. Hell, had to try another way, standard support was out of question because of this very complicated geometry and "normal tree" did not do the trick. Xmas did though, and I was quite amazed of how it ended up.

 

Could have used the Prusa Slicer that also got something very similar or even better, but my CURA profile was quite complicated to reproduce, with a lot of tweaking here and there.

 

Anyway, yeah, please do you know if you plan to reintroduce it after some polishing ? It's good not to release something that might have cause more trouble than help for other people, if this is what happened, of course 🙂

 

Oh, and I'll definitely try this Dual Material interlocking : I was doing it myself in 3D, but did not have lot of success ^^

 

[MariMakes 206]

I know, the naming is confusing 😕, but this Beta does not contain the new tree supports.
There is still too much to tune and improve. It's more likely going to be released with Cura 5.4 so we can give it the proper attention. The attention it deserves, because it's super cool 💖

If you have input on how we can improve the tree support, we still would love to hear it here: https://github.com/Ultimaker/Cura/discussions/14111

[Cuq 206]

I have also with this release some crash ... when I try to load some existing 3MF file. 

 

Could have a link with the  Sidebar GUI plugin  (Even if it is not installed on this relase )  ... Got a message regarding a keyError "04mm Nozzle " ?  

 

Note : I have no issue with the 5.3 Alpha. 

[ahoeben 2,012]

28 minutes ago, Cuq said:

Could have a link with the  Sidebar GUI plugin  (Even if it is not installed on this relase )

Why would you say that? How even could a plugin that you don't have installed cause this, and how would it be related to the Sidebar GUI plugin?

Edited February 22, 2023 by ahoeben

[Cuq 206]

1 minute ago, ahoeben said:

Why would you say that?

Because this error and this key "0.4mm Nozzle" makes me think to this field.

 

Is it a specific value managed by the plugin? Or a Container already manage by Cura. I'm not sur but it's like if the key got a space in their name Cura 5.3 Beta crash. But it's not an issue for the other Cura Release ?

 

 

[CasperLamboo 0]

Hello Cuq thank you for bringing this to our attention, could you share your 3mf project file so we can investigate more what is going on?

 

Thank you in advance

[Cuq 206]

22 minutes ago, ahoeben said:

Why would you say that? How even could a plugin that you don't have installed cause this, and how would it be related to the Sidebar GUI plugin?

Yes I'm Sorry I was Wrong this Field exists also in a regular release. 

 

And in the Beta certainly due to my Profile Issue . This parameter is Empty. So when I try to load an existing file then Cura Crash . 

 

 

Edited February 22, 2023 by Cuq

[Cuq 206]

Test File NautilusGearCrash.3mf

NautilusGearCrash.zip

[ahoeben 2,012]

41 minutes ago, Cuq said:

Because this error and this key "0.4mm Nozzle" makes me think to this field.

The Sidebar GUI plugin does not "invent" that field, it just places it in a more logical spot of the UI. It is the exact same UI element that is normally hidden away in the extruder configuration that pops up when you click the extruder in the top bar.

 

On a related note: a prerelease of the Sidebar GUI for Cura 5.3 is now available here:

https://github.com/fieldOfView/Cura-SidebarGUIPlugin/releases/tag/v4.5.1-DEV

Download the curapackage for 5.0 and newer and drop it onto the buildplate in Cura as if you were loading a 3d model.

 

I have not tested this release on the 5.3 alpha. It could work, or it could break the UI.

Edited February 22, 2023 by ahoeben

[Cuq 206]

It looks good. As 5.3 Alpha and Beta share the same configuration folder. It's good for the 5.3 Alpha Xmas version and good for the 5.3 Beta 1 version.

Thanks for this update.

[ahoeben 2,012]

1 minute ago, Cuq said:

As 5.3 Alpha and Beta share the same configuration folder.

That is more of a problem than a benefit, given the configuration files conflict you are seeing. For the sidebar gui it is a problem because 5.3 alpha and 5.3 beta have a different SDK version but the same major and minor version number., and some major changes in the UI code that would normally break the plugin. Through somewhat sheer luck, my plugin regards the alpha as Cura 5.2 enough that it seems to work.

[MariMakes 206]

🌍 Update Translations should be available now.
If you are missing them, please upgrade from 5.3.0-beta.1 to 5.3.0-beta.2 🙏

[midmadn 1]

I was really hoping they added Klipper support as a choice under firmware. While it seems to work fine for the most part - Klipper is really becoming super popular, (for good reason) and it would be cool if our favorite slicer recognized it and took steps to embrace it. SuperSlicer is the only app available that has done so and gets recommended constantly for that reason alone. However, if you're used to Cura, (like myself) it's a hard change to make.

 

Thank You for all that Ultimaker has done for the 3D printing community and especially for offering Cura free to non Ultimaker customers.

 

Jack

Edited February 23, 2023 by midmadn
typo

[kwakefield 1]

Any chance this release includes a fix for the material profile sync to the printer that never completes?

[alfonsvh 13]

It seems that in this beta version, the function 'Select face to align to the build plate' does not work anymore. 

See attached project file.

I want to rotate the part with the two pins upwards, but when clicking the bottom of the part, it flips all over the place.

UMS5_rotation.3mf

[Cuq 206]

No It's Ok for me ... Perhaps hardware dependant 

 

[qwerty8224 16]

Horizontal extension support not working. (((

[iakten 0]

Hi all 

I started using beta 2 and found that small layer printing temperature blocking slicing. 

 

 

 

My initial temp is 235c, printing temp is 230c. nothing works and it doesn't allow it to start slicing. 

 

 

[ahoeben 2,012]

The minimum allowed value is now "Initial Printing Temperature" or "Final Printing Temperature", whichever is higher. You will have to lower both these values too.

[ClausJ 5]

22 hours ago, ahoeben said:

The minimum allowed value is now "Initial Printing Temperature" or "Final Printing Temperature", whichever is higher. You will have to lower both these values too.

I am not able to slice anything either. Don't understand what I'm supposed to do.

 

EDIT: Ok, "Initial printing temperature" has to be lowered while "Printing temperature initial layer" can be whatever. Not sure I understand. I want my initial layer to be printed at 230°, next layers at 210°. So if I want to have small layers printed at 210° I have to allow the printer to start printing the first layer at 210°. But I want the first layer printing at 230°, not at 210°...

Edited February 26, 2023 by ClausJ