Fan Speed (Cura 3.6)

[displaynamenotallowed 2]

I'm wanting to have the ability to use the part cooling fan on my printer for bridging but have it off otherwise. A model I'm working on right now has relatively short bridges but using LW PLA there is a tendency for the bridges to sag heavily.

 

Having part cooling during the bridging would probably help quite a bit. I however can't seem to figure out how to get the fan to run (only) during bridging/top three layers. 

 

As of right now I have cooling set to enable but with 0 fan Speed then bridging detected and part cooling fan set to 100% in those settings.

 

My part cooling fan dosen't come on at all during the print.

[Dustin 130]

Cura 3.6.. is almost 6yrs old.... its very outdated.. 

[displaynamenotallowed 2]

The developers put more time and effort into a number of aspects of 3.6

 

The GUI for example is better than in version 4 that I've seen. 

 

I like 3.6 for what I'm doing aside from the slow refresh rate of the GUI.

 

Dustin do you know what I need to do to get my part cooling fan to run only on bridging/top layers?

[Slashee_the_Cow 269]

4 hours ago, displaynamenotallowed said:

Dustin do you know what I need to do to get my part cooling fan to run only on bridging/top layers?

You keep saying "part cooling fan" - does your printer have more than one addressable fan (in which case you check the gcode to make sure there are M106 lines using the correct fan index) or just as opposed to the one that cools the hot end and is controlled by the printer's motherboard?

 

Also... why do you want the fan on only for the bridges? PLA is usually printed with the fan on (in my experience) and by the sounds of it it's even more important for your lightweight PLA, even when not bridging (the quicker it sets, the less chance it will be affected by the future moves of the print head, or sag if you're doing an overhang).

 

It might be possible to brute force it using a post-processing script, but I've only used Cura versions older than 3.6 and significantly newer than 3.6, so I don't know if it even supports those (and if it does, how different they are to newer ones).

 

It's also worth trying in the latest version, at the very least to see if it works. If it works in 5.6 then I don't know if we can offer much more help because 3.6 is so old and hasn't been officially supported for years.

[displaynamenotallowed 2]

Hi Slashee the fan Im referring to is not the hotend heatsink fan. I'm referring to the actual part cooling fan and there is only one of them on my printer. LW PLA at least in my experience doesnt need part cooling. It actually does good without. I try to avoid using part cooling unless its necessary. In this case it is necessary to have acceptable bridging results.

 

Its weird to me that this isn't possible in the standard settings. 

 

It would seem that I would have enable part cooling checked then have fan speed set to 0 and in bridge settings fan set to 100.

 

That doesnt work though.

 

As far as using newer versions of Cura I'm fine with that (if they're as good as previous versions) (should be better than previous versions)

 

I downloaded v5.x.x. on my newer laptop and it didn't install a desktop icon. I went through all the folders looking for an icon to drag and drop on my desktop and couldn't find one. I couldn't get Cura v5 to launch reliably.

 

I guess I should uninstall and try again? 

Edited February 28 by displaynamenotallowed

[Slashee_the_Cow 269]

3 hours ago, displaynamenotallowed said:

As far as using newer versions of Cura I'm fine with that (if they're as good as previous versions) (should be better than previous versions)

 

I downloaded v5.x.x. on my newer laptop and it didn't install a desktop icon. I went through all the folders looking for an icon to drag and drop on my desktop and couldn't find one. I couldn't get Cura v5 to launch reliably.

 

I guess I should uninstall and try again? 

I'm not sure if the Cura installer creates a desktop icon but it does add an entry in the start menu. On Windows, by default, it will install to (depending on version number of course, but this pattern):

C:\Program Files\UltiMaker Cura 5.6.0\UltiMaker-Cura.exe

 

3 hours ago, displaynamenotallowed said:

LW PLA at least in my experience doesnt need part cooling. It actually does good without. I try to avoid using part cooling unless its necessary. In this case it is necessary to have acceptable bridging results.

Most PLA doesn't need cooling either (it doesn't even need a heated bed) but I find I get better - or at least practically identical - results with cooling on (excluding the first couple of layers, which need to take longer to set to help adhesion)... but I'm not using your (or any) LW PLA so obviously I can't speak to that.

 

3 hours ago, displaynamenotallowed said:

Its weird to me that this isn't possible in the standard settings. 

 

It would seem that I would have enable part cooling checked then have fan speed set to 0 and in bridge settings fan set to 100.

 

That doesnt work though.

I will admit that it does seem a bit weird, but if programs never acted weird, then... programmers would be a lot happier because they wouldn't have to spend half their time tracking down bugs 🙂. It is possible that it's intentional behaviour, but I don't know.

[displaynamenotallowed 2]

The Part Cooling is working as it should now specifically running during bridging. When I closed Cura I hadn't updated the settings to the profile or something like that.

 

I'll look at what you said about the installation related matter a little closer in detail a bit later. 

 

Thank You 

 

 

Edited March 1 by displaynamenotallowed