Cura having trouble slicing thin meshes

[Vvix 0]

I'm printing some small-scale figurines and noticed that Cura has a hard time slicing thin meshes.

Here's a sword of one of the figures:

Not only the sliced lines are thinner than the sword is supposed to be, they also vary in width seemingly randomly and the top portion right before the tip fails to slice completely.

Additionally, there are some additional issues like that all over the model. Here for instance you can see a gap in the collar of a coat:

 

Is there a settings that would make slicing more precise?

Here are the preset settings I use. I should also specify that it's set to a .4mm nozzle:

[general]
version = 4
name = Miniature Quality
definition = creality_base

[metadata]
type = quality_changes
quality_type = standard
setting_version = 23

[values]
adhesion_type = none
layer_height = 0.12
support_enable = True
support_structure = tree
support_type = everywhere

 

 

[Slashee_the_Cow 382]

If you could share the Cura project file (.3mf, in Cura go to File > Save Project) and post it that would really help.

 

Off the top of my head, try setting Experimental > Slicing Tolerance to Inclusive (if you can't see the setting just search for it).

[Vvix 0]

8 minutes ago, Slashee_the_Cow said:

If you could share the Cura project file (.3mf, in Cura go to File > Save Project) and post it that would really help.

 

Off the top of my head, try setting Experimental > Slicing Tolerance to Inclusive (if you can't see the setting just search for it).

Here you go.

Slicing tolerance improved the problem slightly, but the general issue persists. As in: The holes are still there, they're just smaller/shaped differently 

figure.3mf

[Slashee_the_Cow 382]

If you're going to be printing at this scale, you're definitely going to want a smaller nozzle. 0.2mm is pretty common and shouldn't be too hard to find (just look on Amazon). The general guidelines are that line width should be 60-150% of your nozzle diameter and layer height shouldn't exceed 80% of your nozzle diameter. There isn't technically a minimum layer height guideline, it depends on how accurately your printer can extrude and it is easier to do shorter layers with narrower nozzles. (If you want higher accuracy in your extruder... you're going to need to spend a lot more than Ender-3 money).

 

So, that being said: with some settings changes I can get yours a bit better (if you can't see the settings just search for them):

• Quality > Line Width to 0.24mm (60% of 0.4mm). That was one of the major stumbling blocks since there were so many places a 0.4mm line just couldn't fit, and one area you'll see a definite improvement in if you go down to a smaller nozzle.
• Walls > Minimum Wall Line Width to 0.24mm. This will make sure it actually tries to slice walls as thinly as possible where necessary.
• Mesh Fixes > Maximum Resolution to 0.1mm. Any feature smaller than the maximum resolution will be ignored so this makes it ignore a lot fewer things.
• Experimental > Slicing Tolerance to Inclusive. But we already covered that.

If you're willing to sacrifice a little bit of detail we can get things a little more filled in but I don't think it makes enough of a difference to be worth it:

For that you need to change:

• Walls > Horizontal Expansion to 0.1mm. Yes, it makes the whole thing a tiny bit fatter. It's also where there's the potential to lose detail since any tiny features can balloon out a bit and a merge (though if you keep it really low that's generally not too bad).
• Experimental > Minimum Polygon Circumference to 0.1mm. Pretty much what it says on the tin: if a polygon (any contiguous part of a layer, i.e. the sword or the arm, or the torso where the arm is separate) has a circumference lower than this, it gets ignored. By turning it down we make it ignore fewer polygons in the model, with the expense that it might try to print details too small for the printer to handle (although still kept in check by the minimum line width) resulting in overextrusion where it's trying to print smaller than it practically can.

And yes, I know the sword is missing one layer in the screenshot of that slice. It'd print fine.

[Vvix 0]

10 minutes ago, Slashee_the_Cow said:

If you're going to be printing at this scale, you're definitely going to want a smaller nozzle. 0.2mm is pretty common and shouldn't be too hard to find (just look on Amazon). The general guidelines are that line width should be 60-150% of your nozzle diameter and layer height shouldn't exceed 80% of your nozzle diameter. There isn't technically a minimum layer height guideline, it depends on how accurately your printer can extrude and it is easier to do shorter layers with narrower nozzles. (If you want higher accuracy in your extruder... you're going to need to spend a lot more than Ender-3 money).

 

So, that being said: with some settings changes I can get yours a bit better (if you can't see the settings just search for them):

• Quality > Line Width to 0.24mm (60% of 0.4mm). That was one of the major stumbling blocks since there were so many places a 0.4mm line just couldn't fit, and one area you'll see a definite improvement in if you go down to a smaller nozzle.
• Walls > Minimum Wall Line Width to 0.24mm. This will make sure it actually tries to slice walls as thinly as possible where necessary.
• Mesh Fixes > Maximum Resolution to 0.1mm. Any feature smaller than the maximum resolution will be ignored so this makes it ignore a lot fewer things.
• Experimental > Slicing Tolerance to Inclusive. But we already covered that.

If you're willing to sacrifice a little bit of detail we can get things a little more filled in but I don't think it makes enough of a difference to be worth it:

For that you need to change:

• Walls > Horizontal Expansion to 0.1mm. Yes, it makes the whole thing a tiny bit fatter. It's also where there's the potential to lose detail since any tiny features can balloon out a bit and a merge (though if you keep it really low that's generally not too bad).
• Experimental > Minimum Polygon Circumference to 0.1mm. Pretty much what it says on the tin: if a polygon (any contiguous part of a layer, i.e. the sword or the arm, or the torso where the arm is separate) has a circumference lower than this, it gets ignored. By turning it down we make it ignore fewer polygons in the model, with the expense that it might try to print details too small for the printer to handle (although still kept in check by the minimum line width) resulting in overextrusion where it's trying to print smaller than it practically can.

And yes, I know the sword is missing one layer in the screenshot of that slice. It'd print fine.

 

I do own a 0.3mm nozzle and could probably look for a smaller one, but I often print small figures along side bigger "practical" things and most of the time having to swap nozzles takes much more time than its worth. I know that other printers make the process easier than Ender 3, but the cost had to be cut somewhere.

The Minimum Wall Line Width helped a lot and personally I didn't saw much improvement of horizontal expansion on this mesh, but it proved helpful on few others I tried.

 

I'll try to print it out now and make sure everything works fine, but as far as I can look at the Cura preview, your suggestions seemed to solve the issues. Thank you!