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Topic: Slic3r settings for XYZ jr

Does anyone have settings for the jr that work and are willing to share?  I've been messing with the settings for a few weeks now and still cant get a good print. TIA

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Re: Slic3r settings for XYZ jr

I am looking for the same, I tired following he method for the 1.0a I found online, but in the latest XYZWare even that doesn't work

3 (edited by Anthem 2016-05-22 19:53:30)

Re: Slic3r settings for XYZ jr

I just bought a DaVinci Jr myself and have been trying to work out just this sort of thing. It's my first 3D printer, and I'm no expert yet but I'll share what's working for me so far.

First off, I'm using slic3r 1.2.9 on Linux and printing via SDCard using stock DaVinci Jr Black PLA filament with firmware version 2.2.6.

I'm converting the exported gcode to .3w using my own command-line Python port of ThreeDubber (which I'm probably going to post the code for soon, but stock ThreeDubber should work fine too).

The biggest issues I've encountered with the Jr and XYZware have been:

  • I had lots of delamination issues with the stock XYZware (latest version, not sure of number exactly). Wider layers printed OK, but thinner tall pieces (about 4mm wide or less) would easily delaminate and fall apart.

  • A little bit of oozing during travel. Not enough that it was hard to clean up (as long as it's in an accessible place) but annoying.

  • Occasional extruder clunking (might have been my z-offset which was at 1.2 instead of 1.3mm)

  • Trouble removing generated support material. It either printed parallel to the model (and ruined it when removing) or just adhered too tightly to remove easily.

Luckily I've had no trouble with my prints adhering to the bed after doing an initial (and significant) Z-offset adjustment. The printer shipped with a Z-offset of 1.75mm, which was way too large. I stepped it down to 1.20mm, but just recently moved it back up to 1.3mm after having some extrusion clunking in the first layer. I'm still using the stock bed stickers that came with the printer, but will be switching to painter's tape when those wear out, otherwise I'm not applying anything to the bed.

On to the slic3r settings. I've attached my current configuration for reference, but I'll go over some of the more important ones I've changed.

First off, I'm using this Start gcode (which I copied out of a .3w file produced by XYZware). It performs the "up and back" initial extrusion at the right side of the bed like XYZware performs, which I find rather effective. Other sample startup gcode I've found on this forum and elsewhere was taking unnecessarily long, allowing for too much oozing before the first layer, and even bumping my hot end against the bed when moving into position for the first layer.

Update: I've added the "M109 S[first_layer_temperature]" to the start gcode, as I realized the stock gcode was causing the temperature to reset to the spool default.

G21 ; set units to millimeters                      
M107                                                
M109 S[first_layer_temperature] ;heat extruder             
; M104 S0 ; set temperature                         
; M109 S0 ; wait for temperature to be reached      
G90 ; use absolute coordinates                      
G92 E0                                              
M82 ; use absolute distances for extrusion          
G1 F900.000 E-4.00000                               
G92 E0                                              
G1 Z0.350 F6000.000                                 
G1 X3.000 Y31.000                                   
G1 F900.000 E4.00000                                
G1 X5.000 Y31.000 F300.000 E4.44396                 
G1 X5.000 Y131.000 E26.64178                        
G1 X3.000 Y131.000 E27.08574                        
G1 X3.000 Y32.250 E49.00491

And my end gcode is the slic3r default:

G28 X0 ; home X axis
M84     ; disable motors

Speed: I'm keeping my speed stable for now until I get my ooze worked out. Generally the speed hasn't been an issue though (though it would be nice to speed up my prints if I can).

First layer: currently I'm using a 0.2mm first layer with a 200% modifier (so this should be a 0.4mm first layer). This is probably overkill, as I've never had a lot of issues with prints adhering to the bed. However I started using these settings when I was trying to work out the start gcode and was getting a lot of oozing; I thought that increasing the material in the first layer would help purge that excess better. Now that I have the start gcode perfoming the "wipe", this probably isn't such an issue.

Filament Temperature: Switching to slic3r fixed a lot of my delamination problems I was having with XYZware, seemingly regardless of temperature (temp being too low can cause delamination, but apparently so can bad slicing). Currently I'm using 195*C on the first layer and 190*C after that. I'm keeping the temp low to try to minimize oozing at this point. The Da Vinci Jr is supposed to be fixed to either 191* or 210* depending on the filament color (191 for black PLA in my case). Using slic3r I've printed successfully all the way up to 220* with black, but that seems unnecessary and it was actually accidental when I did that.

Retraction Settings: This is currently where I'm still fussing with my own settings trying to dial them in. A 0.2mm retraction still leaves quite a bit of ooze in travels. I'm still using a Lift Z of 0 for now until I can determine how significantly the retraction distance affects things. I wouldn't say that the oozing is a lot worse than with XYZware, but it has been more noticeable since switching over, so I'm still working that out. I've attached the .stl file that I'm using to debug this.

Overall I've been pretty happy with my results from the Da Vinci Jr and I'm excited to improve my settings even more. I've had luck in that I haven't had to level my bed or fuss with the extruder gantry (some people reportedly have had trouble with it being droopy). It also prints fairly square, so the dimensions seem fine (my test file above prints four 15mm cubes which turn out pretty well at ~15.15 +/- 0.05 except for the ooze).

Hope that helps. I'll try to post updates if I refine this config any more.

Post's attachments

ooze_and_block_test.stl 2.43 kb, 66 downloads since 2016-05-22 

Slic3r_config.ini 4 kb, 103 downloads since 2016-05-22 

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Re: Slic3r settings for XYZ jr

Quick update. I've since increased my z-offset to 1.4 and increased my retraction. I became aware of some clunking from the feeder, and figured there might be a build up of pressure that was contributing to the ooze as well. Increasing the Z did help a little but the ooze is still there.

I then ran out of my black filament so I've switched to clear green, which prints a lot hotter (210).

Running some tests with the green, I get less oozing by setting my retraction way high, up to 7 mm. I was worried the print quality would be affected (not enough material after traveling) but so far so good. I played with the retraction speed as well (40->60) but it didn't seem to affect anything as significantly as the length.

5 (edited by Anthem 2016-05-26 22:51:23)

Re: Slic3r settings for XYZ jr

Here's my latest config. After seeing another post on this forum about the DaVinci Jr's speed settings (can't remember where I saw it, and I can't link it yet anyway...) I reduced my speeds quite a bit.

I realized I was having a lot of problems with the first layer on a lot of prints. Watching the extruder, it would lower and then just "take off" really fast and spew plastic all over the place. Lowering speeds has helped with that tremendously.

The clunking I was getting from the feeder have also diminished since reducing my speed (almost non-existent now), so it must be that the Jr just can't extrude at decent enough speeds for slic3r's defaults.

I also started having problems printing long pieces and disks. While it was still infilling on the first layer, parts of it would start warping and splitting. I thought this was another Z-offset problem and my extruder was too far from the bed, but I've actually realized it's more to do with my top and bottom infill patterns.

Using an infill that changes direction more often seems to help with this. The worst infills for disks seem to be anything that makes long, broad strokes. Archimedean chords and rectilinear in particular are pretty poor choices (as would be concentric, though I haven't tried it). A good compromise of speed and stability seems to be Octogram Spiral. Hilbert Curve is probably very stable, but it seems like it would take a long, long time.

So what I'm saying is this: Don't forget to check your infills. Examine the patterns slic3r shows you in the preview and make sure it makes sense for the size, shape and orientation of your piece. You're probably better off making lots more short strokes than long ones.

This config also includes the 7mm retraction setting I determined reduced my ooze the most. It seems rather large, but I haven't had any trouble with getting enough material after the travel. It could slow down the print a little, but I'd rather have a slower high quality print than an ugly mess.

Post's attachments

Slic3r_config.ini 3.99 kb, 156 downloads since 2016-05-26 

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Re: Slic3r settings for XYZ jr

Anthem wrote:

I'm converting the exported gcode to .3w using my own command-line Python port of ThreeDubber (which I'm probably going to post the code for soon, but stock ThreeDubber should work fine too).
.

@Anthem, any chance you can post your python port of ThreeDubber as I am trying to do this in Linux as well. Thanks in advance.

7 (edited by Anthem 2016-06-15 07:04:43)

Re: Slic3r settings for XYZ jr

Here it is: https://gitlab.com/anthem/py-threedub.git

Hopefully you're familiar with Python. If not,  just run:

sudo python setup.py install

Edit: you will need to find and install py-crypto for your linux distribution.

Then you can run 'threedub model.gcode' to write the .3w file.

The one benefit of my version over ThreeDubber at the moment is my script writes the total_filament value, so your machine will give a semi-accurate ETA (it's not great. I think the layer count might factor into the ETA too).

I recently added support also for translating Cura headers and automatically post-processing Cura's G0 codes into G1s. This fixes the common problem of Cura "air-printing".

This same script could be used for probably any XYZ machine using this .3w format (recent firmware versions) just by modifying the machine identified in the headers, but I haven't bothered compiling all those values yet.

Hope you find it useful.

Do keep in mind that you still need to set up slic3r for the Jr, including using appropriate start gcodes. This tool doesn't do that for you.

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Re: Slic3r settings for XYZ jr

To Anthem:

Thank you very much, I had problems with my DaVinci jr. Installed Slic3r and your config file, plus ThreeDubber... "et voilà" !

Printed my first object ! perfect !

9 (edited by timsenecal 2016-09-25 16:26:02)

Re: Slic3r settings for XYZ jr

Anthem's threedub script works great, but requires that i run it from a terminal window, and it also seems to need to be set to the "working directory" of whatever file you are converting, if you want the .3w file to end up in the same location.

I could never get a gui version of it to work correctly.

I then discovered that Slic3r has an option to run post-processing scripts, but still, threedub seemed not to work correctly as a post-processing  script directly.

So, i wrote a helper script that allows Anthem's threedub python script to be called from Slic3r directly as a post-processing script.

The script itself is brain-dead simple, simply calling threedub with the optional .3w filename as well as the required gcode file.

the attached script needs to be saved in /usr/local/bin as "threedub_helper.py", and then added to the following screen in Slic3r.

doing this allows Slic3r to create the .3w file directly when clicking on the "Export G-code..." button in Slic3r's Plater panel, without having to run threedub from a terminal window.

http://soliforum.com/i/?ZyHaM6a.jpg

I have only tested this on my Mac, running 10.9.5, so, your mileage may vary, i also have set the script's "execute" bit, i don't know if that is mandatory or not.

Post's attachments

threedub_helper.py 316 b, 67 downloads since 2016-09-25 

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Re: Slic3r settings for XYZ jr

Thanks timsenecal.

Fyi, I'm no longer maintaining threedub as I no longer have a stock Da Vinci Jr that requires it. If anyone wants to take over development and maintenance of it, they are more than welcome to.

11 (edited by Darkfyre 2017-07-16 15:03:28)

Re: Slic3r settings for XYZ jr

Thank you so much for the Threedub python.  It took a bit of work to get Winblows 10 to work with it.

I am currently using threedub, so far to decent completion.
However I started with Cura, which works especially well for floor to print supports, and no supports.
But I have been finding anything with Support Everywhere is weaker than usual and support can have issues of fusing to print even with x/y settings up high...

Going to Slic3r for my next print, if it ever finishes generating support....

If anyone has more info/settings data they would like to share, I'd love to nibble at it.

Also I notice bed temp = 90 in the config files above, the Jr has no heated bed, should this not be 0???

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Re: Slic3r settings for XYZ jr

Darkfyre wrote:

Thank you so much for the Threedub python.  It took a bit of work to get Winblows 10 to work with it.

I am currently using threedub, so far to decent completion.
However I started with Cura, which works especially well for floor to print supports, and no supports.
But I have been finding anything with Support Everywhere is weaker than usual and support can have issues of fusing to print even with x/y settings up high...

Going to Slic3r for my next print, if it ever finishes generating support....

If anyone has more info/settings data they would like to share, I'd love to nibble at it.

Also I notice bed temp = 90 in the config files above, the Jr has no heated bed, should this not be 0???

I think Anthem put a heat bed on his.  One of the settings is a checkbox for heatbed.  Perhaps uncheck it.

How are you progressing with Slic3r?  Do you have a working config.ini you can share.  I am trying Slic3r because I am unable to get Cura working.

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Re: Slic3r settings for XYZ jr

mjf55 wrote:

I am trying Slic3r because I am unable to get Cura working.

Happened to notice your post while I was browsing, I don't know if this post I just made will help, but maybe have a look. It goes through some of my process for installing the python version of threedub for use with cura.

http://www.soliforum.com/post/136978/#p136978

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Re: Slic3r settings for XYZ jr

MTWallet wrote:
mjf55 wrote:

I am trying Slic3r because I am unable to get Cura working.

Happened to notice your post while I was browsing, I don't know if this post I just made will help, but maybe have a look. It goes through some of my process for installing the python version of threedub for use with cura.

http://www.soliforum.com/post/136978/#p136978

Thanks MT for the response. What I am looking for are some settings for Slic3r to use with the Jr.  I am getting there, but need some more fine tuning.

Good post on the other thread.  My environment is that I have a Raspberry Pi 2 dedicated to the printer.  The RPi is connected to the printer, but I do not allow my RPi access to the xyz sites.  On it I have threedub and my tag management system that I wrote.  What I do is slice on my windoze machine, winscp copy the file to the RPi.  I then open an ssh window ( Putty ) and run threedub to print the file.  No need to copy to the sdcard.  I can even query the printer status as it is running with threedub. 

On a side note, I dont know if you are old enough to remember the CB radio craze days back in the early 70's but my handle was 'Empty Wallet' which denoted the status of my cash flow. ;-)

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Re: Slic3r settings for XYZ jr

Would these settings work for the Jr Pro 1.0?

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Re: Slic3r settings for XYZ jr

Does anyone have a copy of the config file?
Also looking for a working copy of theedub for moden python2/3?
Thank you
MG