CuraEngine Slicer fault? Slic3r settings?

Vertex 3D Printer
1

Hello people,

i’ve been having some issues lately and every solution i come up with seems to dead-end. hence my message here.

I am printing some machinery parts for a client of mine (Ok, it’s my brother in law and i get paid with bottles of whiskey which we both love, but saying “client” sounds better) which are guiding packaging material. The first set i printed is mounted on a machine which finished 2 million products with it and still runs good so we’re contend mostly. (reason for more whiskey i’d say)

printing

One issue that we’ve had since the start (over 2 years and many whiskey bottles ago) is that the outer skin of one of the parts (7h print) does not connect with the infill. Redesigning it (removing chamfers / fillets insofar possible due to functionality) had no effect at all.

Picture of the actual part

As you can see, the problem lies probably in the curve, which is exactly the one geometric property that makes the part work so well.

Now before you all start saying it is a calibration issue, please take a look at the next picture, showing how CuraEngine actually slices it:

CuraEngine print preview screenshot

CuraEngine already slices it so that the gap is programmed. I’ve tried to change settings but couldn’t get it to slice it without creating the gap.

What i tried is the following:

-alter the design: to no effect
-change CuraEngine Settings and printer configuration settings: to no effect
-tried Slic3r: slicing goes fine. the gap does not appear in the preview, which caused whiskey to flow. when sobered up i started the print and the printer did absolutly nothing. it says “heating extruder” but doesn’t do it. The printer stays idle.

The main question i have is, how do i set slic3r correctly? did anyone do this and maybe used a file or a manual to do it right?
Secondary questions: has anyone seen anything like this before and does anyone maybe have an idea how to prevent this fault in CuraEngine

Kind Regards,

ivor

2

I don’t have any specific Cura advice, but have you tried changing your infill settings? What happens if you use 100% fill, creating a solid piece? Or if you increase the number of shells used in printing the walls?

The problem with the slic3r output not starting to print sounds like you may have a problem with your startup gcode. Compare the commands at the top of the two .gcode files to see if the Heat Extruder commands are the same. You can view/edit the .gcode files with a text editor.

3

Hello Dr Vegetable,

Thanks for the reply.

Trial and error showed that about 80% infill gives the best result. The part is durable and doesn’t have the smearing effect that 100% can give on a bad day. However, changing the infill settings has had no effect at all on this particular problem. To me it seems as though CuraEngine sees the slight curve as a straight line (or simplifies it to it) when it’s infill concerned. For the edges it follows the lines of the model perfectly. Also i tried saving the 3D model to a finer meshed STL file, with the exact same outcome.

Comparing the G-codes is the first thing i’ll do when i get home. Thanks for the tip there :slight_smile:

Regards, ivor