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Posted · why does it almost double print time after i slice my part and then print it??

so, i used Cura 5.9 to slice a part. it said, 9h12m18s to print. however, i use pronterface to send my gcode to my rig, that same part in PF, took 15h8m45s to print. WHY???

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    Posted · why does it almost double print time after i slice my part and then print it??

    The printer has internal settings for "Maximum Speeds" for each axis, and "Maximum Acceleration" for each axis.  Cura has no idea what those might be.  You can enter a print speed of 200 into Cura, and the estimated time will be based on that.  But when the printer sees the G1 .... F12000 line it might go "Wait a minute, max speed is 50" and it will impose the limit.  Same with Accel values.

    You can send "M503" to the printer using Pronterface and it will respond with all it's settings.  Look at M203 (Max Accel) and M201 (Max Speed).

     

    But twice as long is a lot.  I print from the SD card and my actual print times are always (and I mean always) between 95% and 100% of the Cura estimate.  So from a little less than the estimate, to right on the money.

     

    You can post a gcode file that had the problem, but it won't really show anything unless the "F" parameters are all wonky.

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    Posted · why does it almost double print time after i slice my part and then print it??

    It depends on your printer settings: accel, jerk, max speed (this is least important as most people don't exceed it) for all 4 axes (yes, including Z and E axes)

     

    What model printer do you have?  As Greg says, you can get these values from M503 and feed this information into the printer settings on your machine settings in cura so that cura does a better job.  For Ultimaker printers Cura is usually spot on because Ultimaker entered all that information into Cura.  Cura is open source so the company that made your pritner *should* have done this for you.  So yell at your printer manufacturer and tell them to suck it up and create accurate "machine profiles" and "print profiles" and not rely on other people to do their work.

     

    The maintainers of Cura welcome printer profile information - especially if the information is from an official source at the manufacturer.

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    Posted · why does it almost double print time after i slice my part and then print it??

    I find that Cura and OctoPrint both underestimate by about 50% in my case. But I also made my printer definition with the printer's maximum speed/acceleration/jerk in it and then limited the maximum acceleration and jerk in the firmware without updating the definition. So that explains mine 🙂

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    Posted · why does it almost double print time after i slice my part and then print it??

    Odd… I find that cura gives a time of X, octo says X*0.95 and then the stopwatch (octo print time) is about X*0.8 (most of the time). 

     

    This is for an Ender 3 S1 Pro using stock cura definitions, octo standard setting and nothing “tuned” on the printer controls (speed, etc). I have added arc-welder on cura, octolapse on octoprint, moved octoprint off a pi and onto a full atom cpu. I do tend to “ignore” slashers excellent advice of “slow print > bad print” as I get into things allowing me to push the cura general speed up to 150mm/s (sometimes 200mm/s). It is at these fast fast speeds that I see the largest differences. At speeds under 40mm/s I don’t see much difference at all (a couple seconds). 
     

    Also of note I’m running prints that are 12-28hr at those fast fast speeds. These prints are largely ovals so it maybe arc-welder that makes my world “betterer”. 

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    Posted · why does it almost double print time after i slice my part and then print it??
    8 hours ago, jaysenodell said:

    Also of note I’m running prints that are 12-28hr at those fast fast speeds. These prints are largely ovals so it maybe arc-welder that makes my world “betterer”. 

    Depends if your printer has a motion planner and if so how good it is. Some printers won't really see an advantage from arc welder since they already read the gcode several moves ahead and smooth out the movement if it's a curve (without arc welder they're just a series of very short straight lines).

     

    8 hours ago, jaysenodell said:

    I do tend to “ignore” slashers excellent advice of “slow print > bad print” as I get into things allowing me to push the cura general speed up to 150mm/s (sometimes 200mm/s).

    For ovals, especially if you're using arc welder, higher speed isn't nearly as likely to cause a problem on the part of the printer, since you don't have rapid acceleration/deceleration or jerk at corners, but you still have to work within the limits of your material (and to a degree, your cooling system) to make sure the material sets quickly enough instead of being dragged behind the nozzle. I defy you to try and print TPU at 200mm/s, even if it's in an oval.

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    Posted · why does it almost double print time after i slice my part and then print it??
    2 hours ago, Slashee_the_Cow said:

    I defy you to try and print TPU at 200mm/s, even if it's in an oval.

    I’ll pass. It took me a long time to get PLA and PETg dialed in. I have no interest in driving myself to the brink of insanity. 
     

    2 hours ago, Slashee_the_Cow said:

    Depends if your printer has a motion planner and if so how good it is

    Stock Ender 3 S1 Pro (no klipper, just octo). Arc-welder reduced the Gcode about 30-60%. I did test the creality marlin implementation to validate it works with G2/G3 arcs. Its just the perfect alignment between intentional product design, the right slicing options, and firmware that, in-spite of creality’s reputation, actually does one advanced feature properly. 
     

    I figure I’m one of the few people thinking “a few more of these creality printers might be a good idea…”

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    Posted · why does it almost double print time after i slice my part and then print it??
    1 hour ago, jaysenodell said:

    I figure I’m one of the few people thinking “a few more of these creality printers might be a good idea…”

    Ask @GregValiant about that. He has a few Creality printers.

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    Posted · why does it almost double print time after i slice my part and then print it??

    I "hear from people" that Creality hardware quality has gotten incredibly bad.  That it was great a few years ago but no longer.  I have no personal experience.

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    Posted · why does it almost double print time after i slice my part and then print it??

    All the problems I’ve had have been self inflicted. Stripped the heater block. Poked the PEI plate. Popped a LED fuse (soldered on board) by attempting to power “not the LED”. Can’t keep the aluminum plate flat (can’t believe I’m contemplating a glass plate). Stupid plate adjusters get hit when I’m reaching for things. 
     

    The few “complaints” that I have are about standard design of this class printer, not the quality of this build. If there is a legit concern it is with the amount of sheet metal vs extrusion used. I’ll likely buy another one or three to use as work horses for initial product run. 

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    Posted · why does it almost double print time after i slice my part and then print it??
    1 hour ago, gr5 said:

    I "hear from people" that Creality hardware quality has gotten incredibly bad.  That it was great a few years ago but no longer.  I have no personal experience.

    Well, I mean... it works, that's a start at least. Unfortunately I don't have another printer to test with side by side (the assistant mod position doesn't come with a free S5... I asked) to see if they can handle what my E3V3SE chokes (pretty much literally sometimes) on. It doesn't help that when I need to swap the nozzle, it uses a type of nozzle which is used on the E3V3SE aaaaaand... two other Creality printers - not even all the ones of a similar vintage. That's it. It's just an MK5 except that the screw thread is slightly longer (I've tried an MK5, the nozzle just pops out when you start printing). Fortunately thanks to the ubiquity of Creality printers I can find some replacement nozzles, but I've still never seen a 0.2mm for it (or a 1mm, and 0.8mm is rare).

     

     

    Most of the injuries on mine were, like @jaysenodell, user-inflicted, or at least not fully the printer's fault. Most.

    • Clogged a couple of nozzles due to crappy filament
    • Printer's fault: during the printer's filament loading program, it just kept spewing hot filament out right above its home position. Melted a hole in the PEI plate, down to the metal layer. Required a replacement plate - obviously homing the Z ain't gonna work any more.. Got a replacement plate under warranty*.
    • The same thing as above except it was near a corner of the plate so CBF doing anything about it.
    • Stripped screw thread in heat block trying to install a hardened steel nozzle. Had to buy a new hot end, couldn't find just the heat block as a replacement part.
    • Printer's fault: Fan attached to the heatsink above the hot end got really whiny at anything between 0 and max. Couldn't find a replacement fan available here. Bought one from Creality on AliExpress.
    • Design fault: The part cooling fan is attached to the shroud which covers the rest of the print head, so whenever you need to take that off for whatever reason you need to either unplug it (and it is literally the hardest part to plug back in on the print head's daughterboard) or find something to sit it on so it doesn't just flop around and break its cable... like mine did. Not helped by the fact that the cable for it isn't supposed to be routed any way in particular, and isn't exactly a generous length, so tends to hug sharp metal corners.
    • Poor materials: Snapped the pathetic plastic lever on the extruder while trying to hold it open to try and get some clogged filament out. Even if I had a working printer, can't print a new one since it also has one of the extruder gears on the same piece. Got a replacement extruder under warranty*.
    • World's worst designed filament spool (just a smooth plastic tube on the inside with absolutely no friction) came off the filament holder and crashed down on the bed (towards the front) pretty hard. There's no way to physically level the bed (no screws or anything), you're reliant on the ABL (designed to be "3D printer for cheap idiots") and it couldn't handle the height difference that had been created. Got the printer replaced under warranty* and told them to bill the filament manufacturer.

    Of course the problems aren't limited to injuries...

    • Creality screwing you over: The official print volume of the printer is 220x220x250. However the bed is a bit over 240x240. On previous Ender-3s you could buy yourself some extra space by moving the print head as far as it could go and tell it that was the origin over a USB connection. On the E3V3SE there are large, and I'm not sure if they can be removed, physical stoppers that prevent you from going more than a couple of millimetres outside the 220x220 area.
    • Incompatibility for screwing you's sake: Because of the large immovable hunk of metal on the end of the X axis gantry to keep you in bounds, the linear rail upgrade for previous Ender-3s is too long to fit. They had to release one specifically for the E3V3SE (probably the same part as the E3V3KE, but that has it preinstalled).
    • Making firmware less useful: Yes, it's based on Marlin. But Creality have shoved their own skin on top of it, so you get amazing new features like M117 messages not showing up, or if a print is running over USB and does an M0 pause, it doesn't show up on the screen. You can still navigate with the control wheel but as soon as you press the button, that unpauses it. If a print is running off the SD card and does an M0 pause... that doesn't show up on screen. There's still a "pause" icon for the manual pause function but like USB, it doesn't matter what have 

    Warranty* definition: No, I've never dealt with Creality customer "support". I have better ways to waste my time. However the law down under is that the onus is ultimately on the seller to fix any problems that occur (they can't force you to deal with the manufacturer). Fortunately Amazon customer service is great.

    (Also the law down here is than an express warranty is more of a guideline than a hard limit 😄)

     

    Ultimately I find Creality printers to be a necessary evil. There's printers from other Chinese manufacturers in the same price range, but I can't bring myself to trust a name as ridiculous as "Geeetech". I do also have a rating system where I go to the manufacturer's website and measure the level of Engrish and how hard they appear to by trying SEO without knowing how Google has changed its algorithms within at least ten years (higher scores are worse). Not that Creality comes out of that with a perfect score (from the product page for the E3V3KE):

    image.thumb.png.6562dea9c1037ef8c9c9f17462f7f546.png

    Anyway, the necessary evil part: Ubiquity. I can get replacement parts easily. No shortage of people to help me I can help when problems arise. Plus, I don't really know of anything better in the same price range that's readily available.

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