Chuck, mono tonic is mostly relevant for shiny filaments (like metallic/silk). The direction of print (left to right and right to left) effects how light shines back from the surface, so the the surface is shiny you can really tell the difference. Try it out.
I avoided watching this because I was working on a video on the monotonic settings and wanted to come to my own conclusion. Finished it a few days ago so finally got a chance to watch this. I had really good results with monotonic ironing and depending on the size of the part/geometry was able to see a difference with non ironing monotonic layers. That being said there is no denying the changes you made had a much higher impact on top surface smoothness without need to enable ironing. A few of these settings I have actually not played around with before. Thank you very much for the information and tips 😬👍 there is a never ending amount of things to know 😂
I look forward to seeing your results. It’s not about ironing, it’s how to get the best top surface and Monotonic alone has not done a lot in my experience and also looking at other channels results.
This tutorial helped me figure out a problem I've been trying to troubleshoot ever since I got my printer. My issue looked like either it was over extruding, or dragging the nozzle through the filament, leaving scars on my layers and jist overall tearing it up. This whole time it was that skin setting. Because it was overlapping filament it was adding more than was needed, dragged it all over the place, and then compounded with each layer. So all in all, thank you. This video completely saved the hobby for me
I've been following and subsribed to you for literally one week and greatly improved my prints, in which I was struggling a lot for a month. You share the best videos with the clearest explanations. I wouldn't have guessed I would learn this much in one week. And now you released your profiles?!?! Unbelievable! I wish I had an income to support your patreon, but I will some day :)
CHEP Profiles are by far the best you can find. They bring you to the next level of 3D Printing and having them explained is really useful. Really happy that you are still updating them Chep. Thanks a lot
The gap closing by setting the wall inset was a great tip Chuck!!! Tried it as soon as I saw the video. Makes PETG prints solid. Especially if there are any trough holes. Nice one!!!!
The monotonic printing appears to print in one direction. As there is difference in line geometry if it is laid down next to another line, the light will reflect differently depending. On the default print that difference will be visible where it changed directions, demonstrating the sheen differences highlighted in the documentation. Monotonic printing will address that. To relate it to something, it is similar to how you carpet looks different on a push vs. pull. The 3D print just happens to affect the sides of the line.
Great instructions how you create visual smooth prints. Nice tricks! But I think there is a misconception how monotonic infill works and what the effect is on a print. Monotonic basically assures that a skin area is always printed in the same direction. Since some of the material properties are depended on the printing direction. Polymer strains are orientated in relation to this direction, the profile of the deposited bead shows line related to the print direction as well and this surface corelate to the light reflection. I assume that is because the shear of the skin of the deposited polymer is different in the wake of moving nozzle flat area. Which creates a surface texture in the skin orientated based on the direction. Disregarding other material properties and just focusing on visual properties. What we basically do is devide the region of skin in cells or nodes, when these nodes in the graph split up we know we have a new unique region. This normally happens around holes or influx points along a curve. Normally we don't care in which direction the infill pattern of such a region is printed so we optimize these as your normal traveling salesman problem. But now we constrain it to print direction, perpendicular to the skin lines. Now this will add some extra travel and therefore time. But generally speaking travel time is a few percent over your complete print. So we're okay with that. A misconception is that the surface will be less rough. It only has an impact on the visual properties and appears smoother. Maybe we should have stated it a bit different in our change log and what's new pages. Btw I would still like to invite you to share your profiles by shipping them directly with Cura.
Stating it different in the change log would help as it states it makes top surfaces smoother. I prefer to keep my profiles separate so I can update them at any point. Thanks.
Hey chep, one of the cura developers here. I think you misunderstood the feature. It doesnt make it smoother, it changes the visual properties. With the material you used, it wont change much. The biggest difference is with glossy / shiny surfaces.
The why does Cura advertise it as making top surfaces smoother? Check the What’s New feature description. I briefly show it at 0:43. If your right, then it’s false advertising of the feature. So instead I showed some settings that actually give you a smooth top surface.
@@FilamentFriday Ah, I get the confusion now; It makes it look smoother. But it's only a visual change. If you were to measure the surface, it's not actually more smooth.
I really thought the developers had finally addressed Cura's annoying habit to jump around when printing an even surface, creating an unnecessary patchwork effect.
@@MetalheadAndNerd We did. That is what the monotonic is for. If you combine it with the combing strategy "not in skin" you get a really smooth looking result.
Some of those are not applicable to every situation, for example "outer wall inset" destroys small 3d text, but the suggestion to remove the skin-wall was great, that along with a small increase to "compensate inner wall overlap" finally fixed holes I had for years!
Thank you for all of the great information you provide. Have seen so many of your videos just by searching for topics and just started browsing all of your content to see what I missed. This has been a game changer. Many thanks.
My dear Chap, you did it ! This time you mixed a combination of inset(half of nozzle diam.) , extra skin (=0) and walls (-1) and your settings are really the best ! This is the result of R&D. Good ! But please note also other 2 secondary effects of your settings: 1. your settings have REDUCED DRASTICALLY BULGING of corners in the cube, and this is because bulging is the results (partially) of excessive materials deposited during walls printing. But because of ur removing the unnecessary walls, you also reduced the bulging as well. 2. FASTER PRINT: The printing time have reduced of about 10 % (I have reproduced your suggestuion on a 200% scaled cube and I the time went from 1h 16 min. to 1h 10 min. (about 8 percentage less) Nice job!
So useful! For some reason Cura wasn't updating in my system for months but today I discovered there are appimages on the site so I can have 4.11 too. And some plugins that never appeared in earlier versions for me suddenly appeared. Happy 3d printing day for me :)
Cura despartly needs a popup thumbnail to illustrate all these very fine grain settings. Thankfully we've at least got this awesome channel, thanks Chep!
With 4.11 a new plugin showed for me in the market that’s tries to do this. When you hover over a setting it has larger detail description and images. I’m on the road so can’t check for its name.
Thanks again for all your insight and posts, always grateful I joined the Club, when we got our 1st printer, so much valuable information and saved us from many mistakes and much frustration.
Hey Chuck, I think the monotonic option attempts to print in one direction only, in order to avoid having a slightly different finish on the surface. I think you should check on more complex (but still flat surface) and maybe try to focus on the reflection of the finish rather than tiny gaps, I think we should find greater difference there. I think the logic behind it is that if you print using the same direction, the part which is touching the line of plastic which just got printed, it will touch the same side of the tip, and the pattern should be same. If, on the other end, you print in both directions, the tip touches the part just printed on the other side of the tip also. If the sides of your tip are not perfectly symmetrical, (maybe not microscopically speaking but close that point where it might be weared-off differently or slightly dented on one side, not the other) I guess we could see the finish being different I remember the first time I used ironing, I had a lot of text on the top, and yes the surface was very smoothed, but because the printer had to stop resume the top in different zones to avoid the holes of the text, we could clearly see different reflections in the material, killing the evenness of the finish. Maybe there is also something involving a change in temperature, because when the printer comes back to a zone printed earlier, it might be cooler and affect the finish of the plastic being put juste aside of it. At that point, I imagined there could be an option in Cura where I would say "steady one shot top surface without any traveling", that would just print using a steady motion all over the print, in one shot, a big zigzag in a rectangle path over the last layer, not skipping and travelling fast over the holes but just keeping the same speed as when printing, but letting the extruder do its job and stop the flow, maybe even without any walls for this last layer...
@@pizzablender yes a big shout out to Prusa Slicer for coming up with that printing strategy. We have added the strategy to Cura due to frequent request from our community members.
Great info. I tried your 4.11 smooth surface profiles on a calibration "bucket", but one of your settings deformed the print. Outer Wall Inset value is set to 0.2 (default is 0). This removed the inner walls on my print making it unusable. Setting this back to 0 fixed the problem. Just wanted to let you know that it seems you have to be careful when using this setting. Let me know if you want to see the file for yourself.
It's crazy how much you have to change for every print. If I started 3d printing someone said me you only need to get one good profile and you just have to press print in future. But thats absolutely not true. Sometimes you need more Extra infill walls because you have a low density infill pattern, sometimes you need gradual infill steps, sometimes you need more walls to reduce small infill lines. Or you can print way faster if you're printing big parts, you can reduce retraction if you're always within your parts to safe time...... its so complicated, but its so fun :D
I like that I can get real clean top surfaces with this setting(s) *thank you* but what can be done with the vertical walls now suffering? Is there a happy medium? Seems like if there are tricks for the top surface, there must be for the sides too?
Thanx Chuck. I wish I knew this a few days earlier. Just finished a major order of many small flat pieces where the top and bottom surfaces gave me headaches for days. This would solve everything....
Thank you very much Chuck! You make everything so much easier for the community! Those settings are awesome, I'll be using them for sure. Another thing i wanted to say is that i think monotonic setting is for models that have a big surface and extrusions on top (or even holes), to make that surface smoother, because cura likes to leave the part where you have a hole or an extrusion for later, and that seems to make the surface finish incosistent. I think that couldn't be seen in a chep cube since the z on top is inside the model. Maybe I'll try to print some test prints and see if that is the case.
Happy to see a TPU profile - I bought a KG spool of it recently and the standard profile hasn't been so great with it. And I appreciate the smooth top profiles as well, look forward to trying them where it matters.
hi Chuck, and thank you for the explanation! This new feature helps a lot especially when it used to come back after having done lots of different things and then fill out the remaining area. looked horrible! This is much better! 2 questions though: 1. why did you discard the setting top/bottom line directions 0,90 in favor of 90 only. All lines in the same direction . would that not give a less solid model in pla? i mean if there is some pressure on it wont it resist more if you have horizontal/vertical than horizontal/horizontal?? 2. i checked your new profiles and found you have set the retraction speed back up to 45 . I remember that, to avoid stringing, you had set the retraction speed to 25 and it worked very well... (or did things change in cura 4.11 and we should go back up over 40?) Anyway thanks for explaining the new features in cura 4.11--- it helps a lot.. Luc
Great tips for top finish Chuck. I've never tried playing with the top lines directions let alone the width. And that Outer wall inset, which I kinda knew existed but forgot about it, will help a lot on 2 wall prints when the slicer keeps leaving a gap between the walls. Thanks.
Great tips thanks Chuck, having great prints with your tips. I’ve completely eliminated my elephant foot but I’m still getting a slight squish on my top layer. Sort of looks like an upside down elephant’s foot. Are you familiar with this issue, any tips?
This gives me some great ideas. It looks like your initial print showed under extrusion on the top surface. When you moved to 0.28 this worked to fix the under extrusion.
Just found this page, really high quality content. Immediately subscribed and I will be checking out much more of your content soon. Might have some questions for you in the future :)
You have a great show.... been watching but first time commenting..... great info and I tell a lot of newbies to your channel..... best info for 3d printing as far as I'm concerned..., but that's just one man's opinion 😁
Just downloaded and using your latest profiles, and a BIG THANKS for them. Can I ask if there is a way to have the infill at a crap quality rather than it printing the same as the entire print. This would speed my print and not waste time Thanks
Thanks for this video. Do you know if the profiles you posted for this will work on an Anycubic Vyper? Also, it would be really helpful if you would include a list of the Cura parameters you suggest altering in your videos. Would save us the hassle of having to stop the video at each parameter you change in order to write them down. Just a thought...thanks for your series!
Monotonic is essentially like a perfectly striped lawn. It makes sure that the filament is laid down in a consistent back-forth-back-forth pattern. There are no adjacent strands of filament running in the same direction (which can otherwise happen on complex shapes). I don't think it actually makes the surface smoother. But it makes it look more consistent when it catches the light.
Thats right. The explanation that chep gave about monotonic ordering is not correct. The effect is mostly noticeable under extremer angles with glossy material
I've been looking for something like this. I started calibrating my flow and then I started having gaps between walls and infill. I also didn't even know about some of these settings. Thank you!
Chep, could that imperfection in ironing be the result of ironing speed? I'm thinking it may be too slow and you're getting a "burn" type event in the top.
Hi Chuck, any suggestions on how to get more accurate round parts? I find that when printing circular parts you'll notice the jagged edges that make up the circle.
Anyway you slice it Chuck, your diligence and savvy with Cura Configs is unparalleled. I don't think there is another comparable amongst the YT lot. I have no other option than to become a patron. I am trying to set up an IDEX machine beginning some time later today once it arrives. Prob have bitten off more than I can chew. But needs must. I have a technical part wanting ABS with GF15 and water soluble supports. Have you any experience.
CHEP, thank you for all the great profiles. I just tried them and there is some kind of issue wit the profiles. The first layer prints all distorted with multiple lines that are blobbed and lifting up. I tried the regular profile and the problem goes away. I'm using an Ender 3 with Marlin 2.091, cheetah board, TMC 2209s, and a metal extruder. Head is stock and I'm printing PLA onto a wham bam plate. Bed temp is 60 and print is 210, 205 to 230 is recommended by manufacturer. I sliced with Cura 4.11.
Another great video CHEP. I watched your video on PETG and I downloaded your latest profiles, but I do not see a PETG specific profile in there. Do you have one by any chance? Thank you!
Changing the top layer line width to 0.28 basically does the same thing as ironing, since the flat part of the nozzle is smoothing over the other lines in an overlapping pattern.
This is the best Cura tip I've seen in years! Thank you so much Chuck. What acceleration and jerk would you recommend for a direct drive cartesian with dual lead screws? It's a Mingda D2.