Why don't you use Cura slicer?
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One point to add is that you can really improve the usability of cura with big/lots of models if you turn off the auto slicing of models. that way you can sort out the build plate move things, rotate etc and then slice the model.
Thanks for the info. I will have to revisit a newer version again and try this.
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Opinions only:
I use Cura. I did at one point license S3D and kept going back to Cura, so when C3 came out, I sold my S3D license
Cura V3.x has MUCH better defaults around supports. Still not enough manual control… but... so far, I've not needed manual control if I just take the defaults.
In fact, there is a theme here: I am a person who immediately puts software in "expert mode" and tweaks every setting. I've discovered that with Cura 3, I'm getting fantastic results just using the "recommended" mode of the GUI, which really only takes about four or five settings and leaving the rest of the hundreds of settings alone. This is hard for me… I want to be a control freak... but it seems to work very well. This is the main reason I've come to chose Cura: I want results, not eternal tweaking.
Yes, IMHO, the very first thing you do to Cura is turn off auto slicing.
Cura V2 and/or V3 GUI is VERY SLOW on my machine. The slice engine is fine. I have been working with Cura support on this issue and I believe they've found the root cause, literally in just the last few days. It seems that custom defined printers always have 8 extruders (and maybe 8 of other things) internally. The error checking around the fact that 7 of those 8 don't really exist is what is slowing down the GUI. I'm hoping for a patch soon, and/or I may manually edit the (somewhat byzantine) raw configuration files.
I really, really, really, like the Cura > Octopi plugin. So much that I'm attempting to code a Cura > Duet3D plugin.
So, why Cura? Despite the GUI slowness?
I like open source. I'm getting excellent print results. As a disclaimer, I do not typically print extremely high poly count STLs… and that may change, soon. So we'll see if I still like Cura when I start printing higher and higher count models.
Why NOT ideamaker? Doesn't support round beds, and I'm a delta/kossel fanatic. Otherwise, I'd be giving it a really solid try. Why not Slic3r? Harder to answer. There is something about it that just seems awkward. Personal taste. Also, I can't remember if it supports round beds or not. Why not S3D? While I like generally like OSS, I will happily pay for commercial software if it has value. To me, S3D is absolutely NOT $150 'better' than Ideamaker/Slic3r/Cura. Not even close. YMMV.
Anyway, that's it for now, from someone who's the opposite of the very original question... "Why don't"... well, I DO! For the above reasons.
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I really, really, really, like the Cura > Octopi plugin. So much that I'm attempting to code a Cura > Duet3D plugin.
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Have a look here:
https://github.com/Kriechi/Cura-DuetRRFPluginA Cura plugin for controlling a Duet with RepRapFirmware.
Thanks to resam for this, thread is here:
https://www.duet3d.com/forum/thread.php?pid=27676#p27676 -
I really, really, really, like the Cura > Octopi plugin. So much that I'm attempting to code a Cura > Duet3D plugin.
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Have a look here:
https://github.com/Kriechi/Cura-DuetRRFPluginA Cura plugin for controlling a Duet with RepRapFirmware.
Thanks to resam for this, thread is here:
https://www.duet3d.com/forum/thread.php?pid=27676#p27676FANTASTIC! I will take a look.
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Got that plugin, downloaded and installed, and played a bit.
That is EXACTLY what I wanted. Thanks, thanks, thanks. Saves me a ton of work.
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I seem to be in the minority - but I prefer Cura. It just seems to produce a nicer end product. It's not perfect, as sometimes it doesn't provide support where i'd expect it to, but generally it's my preferred slicer.
One of these days I'll go mad and pay for a slicer… but I haven't felt the need yet.
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A Cura plugin for controlling a Duet with RepRapFirmware.
Thanks to resam for this, thread is here:
https://www.duet3d.com/forum/thread.php?pid=27676#p27676I tried installing that, but I couldn't get it to appear in the plugins/extensions list. I recently updated Cura to 3.1.0, so maybe this hasn't caught up?
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Danal:
Glad you liked it! Saves me a ton of time and clicks every day!DavidJ:
I haven't played with Cura 3.1 yet - because their issue tracker is just filled with bugs in the latest release cycle…
Maybe I find some time in the next days to test & maybe update it.
Feel free to open a bug report on the github repo page: https://github.com/Kriechi/Cura-DuetRRFPlugin -
I haven't played with Cura 3.1 yet - because their issue tracker is just filled with bugs in the latest release cycle…
And now 3.2beta is available so the issue tracker is going to get more work.
It's great to get new features but if it comes at the expense of stability and compatibility with older versions then something is wrong. I have had my little rant over on the Cura forum suggesting they use a different release strategy with support for long term releases but it made no difference.
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I've only used Cura 3.1, (appimage on Linux) and it's a relatively sane UI, for importing, scaling, positioning etc.
But the interlocking mess of Options, visible options, hidden options, Options that come and go according to other options (but only if you have also made them visible in a pop up modal dialog that hides the options list you are manipulating). There are options changed by changing printer, Options changed by filament settings, lists of proprietary filaments that I will never use but are forced into the UI. Then add in little icons to show which setting you have changed, which are shared. Throw in some help popups that dont always explain things well to a novice,and the somewhat confusing 'keep/drop' settings dialogs as you change profiles, and it's a a bit of a 'mare.
I live on tenderhooks when slicing in Cura and moving between printers and materials, I waste lots of time simply going through the slicing options making sure everything is what I expect it to be and nothing has accidentally changed. I have found myself making whole long lists of options visible just to check that Cura has made sane choices.
For my new printer I have started working by taking my standard calibration model and refining it in Cura till it printed perfectly in PLA+, then saving that as a .3mf, I then repeated for PLA, some high printing temp PLA and PETG.
- I load the CaliCat project for the material, clear the buildplate, import whatever I want to print, then maybe adjust layer height and speed. I find this much more predictable than hoping my profile selections will magically generate the right settings.
There are still some frustrations with my 4K'ish screen; scaling is good, but selection boxes on screen elements are tiny, it is particularly hard to select the layer view slider, for instance. The GUI also bogs down on the layer view for big models, further complicating navigation, but that's not too surprising given my gpu/screen combo, this is no gaming rig.
Finally; I was having wall holes appear in some 0% infill (low poly) models when sliced, clearly visible in the layer view. None of the mesh options, or any others would resolve it; and with my enthusiasm for mesh editing at an all-time low I simply resorted to Slic3r as a workaround. It sliced the same (mildly defective, I'm sure) STL's fine, and gave me the gcode I needed.
- Slic3r's options might be another dogs-dinner of tabs, dropdowns and scrollbars, but at least I can see them all at a glance.
- That was a couple of weeks ago, and since then I've found myself using slic3r more; the advantage Cura has over it for me seems to be 'undo', speed for some models, and the Vase mode (which Slic3r doesn't really understand how to do properly)
I seem to have rambled there.. sorry for that.
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… because my personal version of Cura has separate speeds for the first layer walls and everything else.
There is an option to slow down the whole first layer, I use it a lot, are you talking about just slowing down the first walls, but leaving the fill of the base printing fast?
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A Cura plugin for controlling a Duet with RepRapFirmware.
Thanks to resam for this, thread is here:
https://www.duet3d.com/forum/thread.php?pid=27676#p27676I tried installing that, but I couldn't get it to appear in the plugins/extensions list. I recently updated Cura to 3.1.0, so maybe this hasn't caught up?
I have noticed that slightly different versions of Cura seem to put the plugins in slightly different places. I don't have a good map. If you install any plugin and it does not appear, check if there are plugins in the "local" vs "roaming" user\appdata directories. Or vice versa.
Also look for 3.0, 3.1, etc. as directory names. You get the idea…
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Love to use Cura but there are too many settings or the useful ones are hidden away
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… because my personal version of Cura has separate speeds for the first layer walls and everything else.
There is an option to slow down the whole first layer, I use it a lot, are you talking about just slowing down the first walls, but leaving the fill of the base printing fast?
Yes, exactly that. For example, my standard PLA profile with hot bed and blue tape uses 20mm/S for walls and 40mm/S for the skin and I get perfect adhesion no matter how detailed the walls are.
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I would like to use Cura, but it crashes under linux. The python gui seems to have had this issue on early versions too.
I tried the latest last night. Tried to add my printer in the wizard (very pleased to see it listed!), and boom! Just core dumps on me. This is on the LTS 16.04 Ubuntu. But I had a lot of crashes on earlier versions to, eventually couldn't start it. Had to keep reinstalling it. It sometimes removed my profiles. There are a lot of issues with it in terms of usability.
That said, I stick with it when I can because the print quality is still better for me than Slic3r. Obviously I can't use the most recent versions, which is annoying, but that seems to be the way with cura. I just wish they had used something else for their gui to let it run ok on platforms such as linux.
But really, I'd like Ultimaker to offer cloud slicing. I'd probably pay a small monthly fee to have that via a really good web interface. You should take a look at OnShape to see how 3D modelling works great under html 5. Totally the way forward.
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I would like to use Cura, but it crashes under linux. The python gui seems to have had this issue on early versions too.
I tried the latest last night. Tried to add my printer in the wizard (very pleased to see it listed!), and boom! Just core dumps on me. This is on the LTS 16.04 Ubuntu. But I had a lot of crashes on earlier versions to, eventually couldn't start it. Had to keep reinstalling it. It sometimes removed my profiles. There are a lot of issues with it in terms of usability.
That said, I stick with it when I can because the print quality is still better for me than Slic3r. Obviously I can't use the most recent versions, which is annoying, but that seems to be the way with cura. I just wish they had used something else for their gui to let it run ok on platforms such as linux.
But really, I'd like Ultimaker to offer cloud slicing. I'd probably pay a small monthly fee to have that via a really good web interface. You should take a look at OnShape to see how 3D modelling works great under html 5. Totally the way forward.
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I build Cura on Linux and it runs just fine (except when new features break it but that's what you get when you live on the leading edge). Why don't you open an issue at https://github.com/Ultimaker/Cura/issues and provide useful info like cura.log and any console messages (if you run it from a terminal) so that there's a chance it can get fixed?
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Well I gave it a try on my coreXYUV machine using PETG filament.
It seems to pause at the end of every layer then retract and un-retract the filament before starting the next layer. This causes the nozzle to sit in one place and the filament to leak, causing blobs. I have tried to eliminate this behavior but have been unsuccessful. A second issue is that at the end of a print, the nozzle stays in contact with the printed part and unloads the filament. I can not find any setting that tells cura to unload the filament. It is ignoring my end gcode:-
M104 S0 ; turn off extruder
M140 S0 ; turn off bed
M106 S0 ; turn off part fan
G91
G1 Z5 E-1
G90
G1 X30 Y190 F3000Any suggestions before I go back to S3D?
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Well I gave it a try on my coreXYUV machine using PETG filament.
It seems to pause at the end of every layer then retract and un-retract the filament before starting the next layer. This causes the nozzle to sit in one place and the filament to leak, causing blobs. I have tried to eliminate this behavior but have been unsuccessful. A second issue is that at the end of a print, the nozzle stays in contact with the printed part and unloads the filament. I can not find any setting that tells cura to unload the filament. It is ignoring my end gcode:-
M104 S0 ; turn off extruder
M140 S0 ; turn off bed
M106 S0 ; turn off part fan
G91
G1 Z5 E-1
G90
G1 X30 Y190 F3000Any suggestions before I go back to S3D?
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I would like to use Cura, but it crashes under linux. The python gui seems to have had this issue on early versions too.
How up-to-date is your linux kernel? My installation of Cura used to crash regularly until a kernel update fixed a bug in Mono - which was something that the Cura author couldn't work around.
The Mono bug went away about a year ago, so if your kernel is older…
