Slicer Tests on the Rostock MAX V3

[ido3dprintz]

Wowzers- It's amazing how the errors go away when you actually select the printer. It was on default like you said. Almost like you know what you are doing Thanks for the prompt reply. About to print.

The "Select new EXT and warm" and "Cool and retire" were the errors. I guess a temp is supposed to be in the <temp> location here?

Select new EXT and warm shows:
T<EXT+0>
M104 S<TEMP> is what I show

and

Cool and retire shows:
M104 S<TEMP>

[mhackney]

Great, glad that was it. Yes, values in "<>" are parameters that KISS substitutes into the gcode in these panels.

[ido3dprintz]

Decided to try Cura too. Your profile successfully imported into Cura, and its selectable from the "add machine" wizard but appears to be a stock reprap once loaded, square, 80x80. I don't think it was exported correct? I have imported other machines into cura before so while i'm not totally ruling out me usual errors, I'm wondering if anyone else got it to import correctly?

[mhackney]

That could be, I really do not know how to export printer profiles from Cura as I don't use it often enough.

[nohc]

Well, trying to get a different slicer going but having issues. I downloaded KISS and imported mhackney's profile. The printer moves way faster than first layer speed and does not extrude any material. I tried Cura as well and the object is outside the printable area. I may work on that one some but would really like figure out KISS. Here is my KISS gcode attached. I have a stock V3 and using Octoprint to load gcode.

[mhackney]

I'll try printing your gcode to verify but it looks fine to me. First layer is 20mm/s and there are certainly normal looking extruder moves.

Have you ever printed on this printer?

[nohc]

I have printed the model on the printer in question. I used Matter Control and MatterSlice.

[nohc]

Hmm... well, I changed the speed in KISS and now it seems just fine. Perhaps my perception of printer speed is just way off. I cut it all in half and it works fine. My bad and thanks for looking at it. Changing the overfill overlap has eliminated my perimeter/infill gaps too.

EDIT:

To the note below, it was a mechanical issue. The screws that attach the balljoints to the hotend were all lose. All works with no additional overlap now. Thanks

[mhackney]

Changing the overlap is an indication of a mechanical issue - probably tightness of the joints or looseness of the belts/pulleys/carraiges. You should not have to increase overlap with this profile on a well sorted machine.

[Jefrysuko]

I'm curious as to if you have tried MatterControl 1.6

I've been using it since I built my V2 last year as I just haven't had much of a reason to use something else. However since the upgrade I am getting some strange results which make it rather unusable. Just wondering if it is me or if others are noticing as well. The picture below shows a print which would normally slice as a single perimeter after layer 5 but with the 1.6 upgrade it is plastering the print with a bunch of seemingly random extrusion dots and they are not consistent with the layers even though the part is consistent.

Looks like maybe I should give Cura or KISSlicer a try!

[mhackney]

Yes I've tried it and frankly, it isn't up to my expectations.

Cura is fine for most uses. KISS still produces the best gcode currently available but it is not "flashy" nor does it have a printer control capability. It is pure slicer.

[mhackney]

I haven't posted this yet but Prusa has a branch of Slic3r - called the Prusa Edition - on their web site. It is remarkably better than stock Slic3r and has some really excellent new features AND Prusa's commitment to migrate the code over to C++ for performance and stability. I've used it quite a lot the last few weeks and continue to be impressed with how much better it is over the stock Slic3r.

[RichWP]

I haven't posted this yet but Prusa has a branch of Slic3r - called the Prusa Edition - on their web site. It is remarkably better than stock Slic3r and has some really excellent new features AND Prusa's commitment to migrate the code over to C++ for performance and stability. I've used it quite a lot the last few weeks and continue to be impressed with how much better it is over the stock Slic3r.

This is a great lead!

I've been playing around with the Prusa version of Slic3r for the last few days, and I have to say that I really, really like it. I'm still testing, but I find that I am getting really good results with everything I've thrown at it so far - as good or better than Cura and S3D in my experience.

The UI is better than any slicer that I've used; the breakdown of settings between Print/Printer/filament is really flexible, clean and intuitive. It also lends itself to experimentation (by easily maintaining multiple sets/versions of discrete settings and the ability to add notes along with them).

If your like me, and basically dismissed Slic3r in the past - you might want to take a look at this new version... It's pretty slick.

[Jefrysuko]

So I've been trying some of the recomended slicers and I'm really enjoying the cubic infil available with the Prusa Slic3r however I have an issue that makes it unusable. Whenever I try to load an STL of 1mb or larger it chokes and can't process the file. Some of these parts I am printing are admittedly large and complex but MatterControl, Cura and Kisslicer all handle them just fine.

Have you noticed any problems working with larger files?

[RichWP]

I haven't encountered a problem with large files in Prusa Slic3r... In fact, I recently loaded and sliced a 8.5 MB file that generated 250 MB of GCode.

I couldn't say if your problem is being caused by a system resource issue - but I have a pretty beastly PC with 32GB of RAM and a big disk drive.

[mhackney]

I also routinely do >10Mb files. Perhaps you have limited RAM? What version of Windows, etc? It most likely is an environmental issue along those lines.

[Jefrysuko]

Thanks guys, I don't think it's a resource issue. 12 Core 3.2 GHz Intel Xeon Processor, 24 GB Ram, 500 GB solid state hard drive, NVidia Quadro 5000, Win 7, Prusa Slic3r 1.31.2

I did find under Printer Settings > Advanced where you can set the number of threads and changing that helps load down the processor when generating G-code but it does not impact the initial loading of the file. The initial loading of the file is only registering about 8% CPU usage where as generating G-code I can get it up to 100% by changing the threads to > 12.

I did some more testing last night and I have found some files which are greater than 1mb and load quickly. The files still giving me trouble are ones which are larger than the build plate and would need to be scaled before being printed.

[Jefrysuko]

Ok, I was able to replicate the issue with something I could share.

The only difference with the two STL's is that the large one was scaled up 10x before creating the STL. The file size is the same, the amount of facets used to create the STL is the same. When I open the large one it is not able to process the file (error message shown in previous post). When I open the other one it loads in a few seconds.

If someone could confirm that they do or do not have the same problem I'd appreciate it.

[RichWP]

I just tried the 'large' model, and it loaded and sliced fine for me.

[Jefrysuko]

Well, I figured out the problem and feel stupid at the same time. I was not using the latest version of Prusa_Slic3r. I was using the initial release 1.31.2 for some reason. I found the latest release on their github page (https://github.com/prusa3d/Slic3r/releases) and am now using 1.31.6 which is able to load the larger files just fine.

I'm not sure why I grabbed an older version. I usually double check that kind of stuff.

[mhackney]

Good! You found the problem.

[djarmag]

I just loaded mhackney BandAid Model and Cura profile...I am not worthy............

[WZ9V]

Has anyone tried the Prusa 3D version of Slic3r on something like the 3DLabPrint thin wall models used for their planes?

They tell you not to use the original slic3r due to problems with the thin walls.