I have been enjoying cura, there are so many variables to play with.
The start and end g-code availability is a bit hit or miss, I recently fine tuned mine to obey the initial layer temp and initial bed temps after doing some research.
I am also not entirely sure I am using the correct machine configuration settings, but it seems to work pretty well.
I use start G-code:
;M104=print temp, M140 = bed temp, 109 = print temp wait, 190 = bed temp wait
M104 S{material_print_temperature_layer_0} ;Start heating extruder
M140 S{material_bed_temperature_layer_0} ;Start heating bed
G28 ;home
G90 ;absolute positioning
G1 X-10 Y-10 F3000
G1 Z0 F1800
M190 S{material_bed_temperature_layer_0} ;Wait for bed to reach temp before proceeding
M109 S{material_print_temperature_layer_0} ;Wait for extruder to reach temp before proceeding
G92 E0
G1 E1 F200 ;extrude 1mm @ 200mm/s feedrate (prime)
G92 E0
End G-Code:
M104 S0 ;extruder heater off
M140 S0 ;heated bed heater off (if you have it)
G90 ;absolute positioning
G92 E0
G1 E-1 F300 ;retract the filament a bit before lifting the nozzle, to release some of the pressure
G28 X0 Y0
M84 ;steppers off
and the following parameters:
I really recommend at least trying Cura for generating the G-code then opening it in luban to export to the machine. Luban does OK, but I am able to do so much more fine tuning.
I’m not really willing to drop $150 on the better software (which evidently is slow to update and is starting to lag behind Cura in features a little bit) until I am more fluent in the settings. The good software I think negates the need to understand the settings, which for me is just counter productive.