CURA Slicer Guide for all the Newbies

[dreinecke]

[PetesLightKits]

Thanks for the link Dave. I think I have read some of this but certainly not the whole thing.

And an FYI for 3D makers wondering about CURA... I was having some printing issues with a very small item I wanted to print. I thought it was CURA so I tried Slic3r... big mistake compared to CURA. The learning curve for CURA is much nicer. You get good prints right out of the gate, so to speak.

Peter

[dreinecke]

Peter - I agree. I too tried Slic3r and the learning curve, ease of use, and simplicity was much less than CURA.

[chappyman66]

It's very seldom the software itself..... it's most often settings.
Speed, temperature, layer height all make a huge difference for small items with high detail.

[MrFlippant]

Yeah, I use Slic3r PE, which is a version by Prusa, for Prusa printers, but profiles for other printers can be used. If the slicer, whichver it is, isn't properly configured for your printer, the prints will not be the best they can be.

[ccobra]

I started off with the other printing programs Slic3R and Pointerface with the Solidoodle printer. I had less than one year of experience with these and wondered if I would ever be able to print out anything. I am not saying anything bad about these other programs except that I didn't have the patience to learn another program, I just wanted to print. Then I ordered a Mini off of Amazon which had the lulzbot specific CURA program with it. Wow, I got confidence back in printing mostly due to the ease of the CURA program. With my printer in CURA you select the experience level and then select the material with the material manufacturer, then select the quality or speed of the print, select the brim and support, and then wham, sit back and watch the printer do its magic.

And if you don't trust a file, you can select the view mode icon, right top corner in my version of CURA, and select the
Layers icon at the bottom. This will reveal how the print will look, layer by layer. As you can see, this screen shot has many gaps which results in a pile of string. The initial view of the model on the platform looked good but wouldn't print and I ended up with a ball of string on the printer platform, that's when I found this layer control. When I contacted CGTrader about this model I bought, they told me that particular model wasn't made to be printed so I got a refund. What a bummer for I was really looking forward to that print.
I guess I got a little off track here but I too like the CURA program for it does make the printing experience more enjoyable for me.

[PetesLightKits]

Has anyone tried CURA version 4 beta on Windows?

Peter

[4424ever]

No I’m using Cura 3.6.0 on a Wanhao printer. Still getting used to all of the features and settings but I find it works very well for my experience level. The printer I got was used so I’ve also delt with cleaning and maintenance at the same time ( perfect time for upgrading along the way) :D
Things are progressing nicely but I have had subpar prints not unusable but I know they could be better :lol:

[PetesLightKits]

I too am currently using version 3.6.0 and getting very good prints on a new (1 1/2 months old) Creality Ender3. So I was just wondering if anyone had checked out v4 yet. I'll poke around the website to see what the changelog says.

Peter

[-Nimrod-]

Hi All,

When I got my Wombot it came with a Ultimaker version of Cura version 15.04

in many cases I'd clean up a model and see very similar as ccobra

Not understanding why, but someone on another forum (Can't remember who, sorry) suggested I look into the EXPERT area

specifically this BLACK MAGIC setting

With this setting, I can say 90% of all my prints work, sometimes with support and sometimes without.

This helps me get very thin walls of 0.2 to 0.8 shell thickness

Cheers
NimROD