Cura - Now with improved quickprint profiles! (Up for testing)

[Daid 306]

Hi,

At my usual location, I've put up a new RC (15.01-RC6 at this time of speaking), which has a few changes. Next to a bunch of small fixes to bugs that people reported. I've also changed the default quickprint profiles.

Now. The quickprint profiles are accessible by going to "Expert -> Switch to quickprint mode".

The new profiles are:

"Fast print" - Prints fast, loses some quality, but still looks quite nice. (0.15mm layers)

"Normal print" - Prints a bit slower, and thinner layers (0.1mm layers). Looks great.

"High quality" - Prints on 0.06mm layers, gets awesome quality prints.

"Ulti quality" - Prints on 0.04mm layers, pretty much best quality you can get.

These new profiles have been made by Bluebot (Paul). Who has done some of the best quality prints ever seen:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/66753090@N08/6222622084/in/photostream/

For these new profiles, I added 1 new setting. For top/bottom skin speed. And changed the order in which some parts are printed it a bit. This gets the best possible print quality.

Get it at:

http://software.ultimaker.com/Cura_closed_beta/

I would love to know if these profiles are giving anyone any troubles. And I think they will improve print speed AND quality for most if not all basic prints.

Now. As for added bonuses.

BONUS A: If you switch back from quickprint to normal print, you get asked if you want to copy the selected quickprint profile to your normal settings. So finally, you no longer have to use the "load profile from gcode trick".

BONUS B: If you're not happy with the default quickprint profiles. (And face it, some of you guys are not going to be happy, as always) you can finally customize them!

The profiles are stored at:

C:\Program Files (x86)\Cura_15.01-RC6\resources\quickprint\

But, as you normally are not allowed to write at that location, you can also copy the "quickprint" folder to:

C:\Users\[username]\.cura\quickprint\

And then the files are read from that location instead of the normal resource location.

Note that there are 2 sets of profiles, first the normal "quality" profiles, and then the material profiles. ALL the settings that are found in the material profiles OVERRULE the quality profiles. So if you save a full profile over the PLA profile, and use that, it will overrule all other settings.

The files are simple ini files, can be edited by hand, and follow the same name=value settings as when you do a "file -> save profile".

 

[Nicolinux 288]

Hi,

Thanks for the new release. I have tested the HQ profile, but I think it doesn't work as intended...

I have flashed the firmware that comes with this release and used the default PLA preset. The temperature is set to 210° which is fine for slower speeds, but the HQ profile uses quite insane speeds for infill and the inner shell so there is underextrusion everywhere.

Other than that the print stopped after two layers with "TEMP ERROR"... Might be just a coincidence - I'll try again soon.

 

[Daid 306]

but the HQ profile uses quite insane speeds for infill and the inner shell so there is underextrusion everywhere.

 

2.4mm^3/s for the infill. 1.92mm^3/s for the inner shell. (For the HQ profile) Should be easy to achieve that on 210C.

Did you get a temperature sensor error, or an heater error? Very important difference. As an heater error indicates that you have a problem with the hotend, which could also explain the underextrusion you where seeing.

 

[Nicolinux 288]

I think it was a heater error. Didn't have that before. A few months ago I had a temp sensor error but it went away after a restart. Now with the new firmware I had the error twice in a row.

I will try it once more and then revert back to 14.x to see if it is hardware related.

 

[Nicolinux 288]

Alright it has nothing to do with this firmware in particular. I have moved the posts to a new thread:

 

• http://umforum.ultimaker.com/index.php?/topic/8937-um2-heater-error/
  

 

[rigs 735]

For the futur....

 

what do you think daid ?

 

[tinkergnome 927]

I would love to know if these profiles are giving anyone any troubles. And I think they will improve print speed AND quality for most if not all basic prints.

 

No trouble but kudos to the authors of profiles and bonus.

Though i still see this problem if i use any plugin - do i something wrong?

 

;FLAVOR:UltiGCode

;TIME:<__TIME__>

;MATERIAL:<FILAMENT>

;MATERIAL2:<FILAMEN2>

...

[drayson 75]

Are those profiles also working for UMO???

[foehnsturm 970]

I tried the normal print profile the last two days and I would say yes. However I made the inner shell speed a little slower and the outer shell speed a little faster because I think the extruder lag might produce some uneven extrusion with that abrupt speed changes. BTW: the new top/bottom surface speed worked well for the bridging test I did today.

[Daid 306]

Are those profiles also working for UMO???

 

Yes. Been using them on my home machine (UMO) during the holidays. Produced awesome prints.

 

I tried the normal print profile the last two days and I would say yes. However I made the inner shell speed a little slower and the outer shell speed a little faster because I think the extruder lag might produce some uneven extrusion with that abrupt speed changes. BTW: the new top/bottom surface speed worked well for the bridging test I did today.

 

Yes, you do get some extruder lag, so the speeds might not be 100% optimal yet. Which is also why the order of things was quite important. (So the printing goes from fast to slower in a layer. And starts with infill, as infill can miss a bit of plastic)

 

Alright it has nothing to do with this firmware in particular. I have moved the posts to a new thread:

 

Thanks.

 

Though i still see this problem if i use any plugin - do i something wrong?

 

;FLAVOR:UltiGCode

;TIME:<__TIME__>

;MATERIAL:<FILAMENT>

;MATERIAL2:<FILAMEN2>

...

 

I'll have to check that (filling of those tags and plugins are both modifing the gcode after slicing, so there could be a small conflict there)

 

[Daid 306]

For the futur....

 

what do you think daid ?

 

Nope.

Main simple reason is that the quickprint mode is designed for easy of use, especially for new users. And a GUI like that is quite daunting to use. What happens if I change a setting, does the profile change as well? And what if I mess up a profile, how do I reset it?

 

[rigs 735]

Nope.

Main simple reason is that the quickprint mode is designed for easy of use, especially for new users. And a GUI like that is quite daunting to use. What happens if I change a setting, does the profile change as well? And what if I mess up a profile, how do I reset it?

 

Ok Daid, I understand , the vision of CURA and Ultimaker is the "click to print" as a Nespresso .

Thank you for the answer and the quality of your work.

 

[Daid 306]

Ok Daid, I understand , the vision of CURA and Ultimaker is the "click to print" as a Nespresso .

Thank you for the answer and the quality of your work.

 

Yes and no. For some people, we need click to print. For other people, we need the other options that Cura offer.

I want printing to become easier for the simple users, while also giving the advanced users more control that they are wishing for. But at the same time I want to be careful that I don't create an unwieldable beast.

 

[aviphysics 9]

I know you want to keep things simple, but I think that quick print would really benefit from a fill percentage option.

On the other side, I think the advanced print options could benefit from a flow rate read out, so you don't have to jump out of Cura to calculate it.

Edit: for quick print, more important than fill percentage is a filament diameter option, or at least some dialog to enter material parameters.

 

[Daid 306]

Edit: for quick print, more important than fill percentage is a filament diameter option, or at least some dialog to enter material parameters.

 

90% of the people never change the filament diameter from the default. And for good reasons. It does not help as much as you think.

In the most extreme case, 3.0mm instead of 2.85 filament. You get 10% more flow. However, if you measure the actual flow compared to the requested flow, there is a 10-20% difference depending on the speed already.

And most filaments are never more then 0.1mm out of spec. So the added value there is low compared to the gain. It's the last few percentage tweaks. Not something that belongs in the "easy access" mode.

 

[jweaver 2]

90% of the people never change the filament diameter from the default. And for good reasons. It does not help as much as you think.

In the most extreme case, 3.0mm instead of 2.85 filament. You get 10% more flow. However, if you measure the actual flow compared to the requested flow, there is a 10-20% difference depending on the speed already.

And most filaments are never more then 0.1mm out of spec. So the added value there is low compared to the gain. It's the last few percentage tweaks. Not something that belongs in the "easy access" mode.

 

Most of my filament is 1.69mm.. But some is 1.8mm.

I used to obsessively set my filament diameter depending on which colour I am printing.. But I soon forgot and have not experienced any ill-effects.

So I now have it set at 1.7 and its been fine... So it looks like I am one of the 10% who don't

 

[anon4321 16]

Is anyone seeing underextrusion with the new settings when three is moderate retraction?

For some reason the new speeds are too aggressive for my UMO and I get brief underextrusion after a retract and long move.

I had to dial the speed way down.

 

[aviphysics 9]

Most of my filament is 1.69mm.. But some is 1.8mm.

I used to obsessively set my filament diameter depending on which colour I am printing.. But I soon forgot and have not experienced any ill-effects.

So I now have it set at 1.7 and its been fine... So it looks like I am one of the 10% who don't

 

You also can't directly use the quick print menu.

 

[aviphysics 9]

Is anyone seeing underextrusion with the new settings when three is moderate retraction?

For some reason the new speeds are too aggressive for my UMO and I get brief underextrusion after a retract and long move.

I had to dial the speed way down.

 

In your Ultimaker controller, you should adjust Vmax-e and A-retract. I found a good safe first step was to reduce Vmax-e to 30, but I got slightly better results by turning Vmax-e up to 60 and turning A-retract down.

On my UMO, the default setting were too aggressive. Especially when the print has lots of retracts.

Oddly, for some reason reducing Ve-jerk seemed to result in slipping at lower acceleration and velocity settings than leaving it at the default.

 

[aviphysics 9]

Currently trying out "Fast print" and thinking there ought to be a quick and dirty print option. Sometimes I just need to spit something out quick and it is ok if it doesn't look great. Maybe something with 0.3 mm layers.

 

[Daid 306]

Currently trying out "Fast print" and thinking there ought to be a quick and dirty print option. Sometimes I just need to spit something out quick and it is ok if it doesn't look great. Maybe something with 0.3 mm layers.

 

Problem with a quick and dirty profile is that it does not really work on the UM2.

 

[aviphysics 9]

Problem with a quick and dirty profile is that it does not really work on the UM2.

 

Why is that?

[nallath 1,124]

Limitiations to the feed rate. You can make the umo go waaaay faster. The um2 wil start to underextrude much much faster.

 

[tsagos 8]

I dont know if this the right place to put this, but I'm having this issue with the support. They are starting mid air and not going all the way up to the point that needs support!

 

[Labern 775]

That model doesn't need support.