I’m using Cura 4.11.0 on a Macintosh to slice my designs for printing on a Snapmaker A250. I’ve turned on ironing on the top layer only, and where it works, it smooths perfectly. The problem is it doesn’t smooth the entire surface, but leaves portions of the surface actually rougher then if iron wasn’t on.
The filament is the PLA black that comes with the A250 purchase.
Here’s a couple of pictures, sorry for the brightness but I needed to be able to show the issue. You can see at the top and bottom of the print it’s really rough as well as having a head plow on the bottom iron spot. I’ve had this issue with a couple of different designs now.
@gwfami I think this is a question better to ask Ultimaker, Snapmaker doesn’t have anything to do with Cura, but who knows, maybe there’s someone on here that would know. Just think you may get a quicker response from Ultimaker than on here.
I’ve been able to trace the issue down to occurring only where the “iron” movement is not touching both the inside and outside of the surface. I have the “iron pattern” set to zig zag, but it’s not really zig zagging, but drawing parallel lines.
how large is this object?
if you move where it prints on the bed does that change where you see the issues?
have you tried make smaller ones to see if that changes the markings?
(i am asking because i wonder if you have mechanical issues like varying head/bed heights)
I’m attaching the stl, it was designed in freecad, but this site will not allow me to upload freecad files. The object is about 5 inches in diameter. The bed has been leveled using the 25 point autolevel and everything appears to print straight. Smaller prints do the same, if the object is circular.
You can try the Monotonic Ironing Order, which might make the surface slightly better (new feature in Cura), but it looks pretty good. It do see some surface gouging at the bottom of the print, which is usually fixed by setting your Z Hop. For my 80mm/s profile, I’ve been using:
which is pretty much all the defaults. Since you have Iron Only Highest Layer checked, it means that only the very top layer of the entire print will be ironed. If you have flat surfaces below the top layer, they will not be ironed, so you might want to remove that checkmark. Here is an example with that box unchecked:
I see at the rear and the front of the model have band like you have - i think this is the slicers choice in how to do the ironing - it uses different tool head directions (i used monotonic for this test).
and no i don’t like the quality i am getting on the edges, this is a filament i haven’t used much before so need to dial it in. but i would say the banding is normal on the front and back of model (have you tried rotating 45% to see if it moves?)
Thanks. Glad to see that someone could replicate the issue. It doesn’t seem to matter how it’s rotated, as it still seems that it occurs only where the “iron” movement is not touching both the inside and outside of the surface.
@gwfami i still don’t quite understand what you mean when you say “while not touching both the inside and outside of the surface”, that’s the part that has me scratching my head.
That being said, when it is rotated, does the problem follow the same spot on the part that it gets rotated to? Or is it at the same physical location in relation to the location on the bed?
Ok. Here’s a diagram showing what I’m talking about, red and yellow arrows show movement of print head.
As the head moves across the object, at certain points the head “touches” the “inner” and “outer” ring of the tube. Where it touches both, the ironing is nice and smooth (red arrows). When the movement of the head doesn’t “touch” the “inner” ring, but only the “outer” ring, the smoothing fails.
The problem occurs irregardless of the location or rotation of the object, it appears to be soley related to the movement of the head.
I’ve tried it with and without monotonic infill, This is not a direction change issue as the ironing is in the same direction good and bad. See the red and yellow lines in the pic.
