S3D to create a reduced-size first layer
Posted: Sat Apr 09, 2016 3:12 am
So, I have been printing fairly large box/prisms that curl a lot unless I use a really tight calibration (right now, PLA @ 215 C, bed @ 70 C, blue tape and glue). Of course the tight calibration means that there is more "squish" which spreads out the filament of the first layer more than the desired size. This effectively "dilates" the first print layer and makes a pretty sharp bottom edge. The rest of the box is perfect. What I want to do is "erode" the first layer by 0.5mm to offset the dilation, and it makes the most sense for the slicing engine to do it for me.
I use the terms "erosion" and "dilation" to mean what they do in image morphology: http://www.inf.u-szeged.hu/ssip/1996/mo ... ology.html
However, in Simplify3D, all I can find is "First Layer Width: 100%", which is scalar instead of constant, and I'm not even clear if it does both X/Y. Further, if I do multiple objects in one print, a global X/Y rescaling of the first layer as single object is going to be super wrong. An erosion of a constant value is exactly what is needed.
I have been hacking it with my SolidPython/OpenSCAD model, by chopping off the bottom 0.3mm of the box to be printed, and replacing it with a layer that is 0.5mm smaller on each side. It does do exactly what I want, but this is an ugly hack/workaround that won't work with more complex models. It really needs to be a feature of the slicing engine.
Anyone know a good way to achieve this? Or maybe I'm just missing an S3D setting?
I use the terms "erosion" and "dilation" to mean what they do in image morphology: http://www.inf.u-szeged.hu/ssip/1996/mo ... ology.html
However, in Simplify3D, all I can find is "First Layer Width: 100%", which is scalar instead of constant, and I'm not even clear if it does both X/Y. Further, if I do multiple objects in one print, a global X/Y rescaling of the first layer as single object is going to be super wrong. An erosion of a constant value is exactly what is needed.
I have been hacking it with my SolidPython/OpenSCAD model, by chopping off the bottom 0.3mm of the box to be printed, and replacing it with a layer that is 0.5mm smaller on each side. It does do exactly what I want, but this is an ugly hack/workaround that won't work with more complex models. It really needs to be a feature of the slicing engine.
Anyone know a good way to achieve this? Or maybe I'm just missing an S3D setting?