Garden Railway Forum

I've been paying about with the ironing settings in Cura and I'm starting to see some improvements. This is a pair of open wagon sides straight off the printer. .
I think I'll need to increase the top layer by maybe 0.2mm and, despite using Z-hop I'm still getting some stringing when the head travels. But overall, I'm quite pleased with the outcome.

Rik

That is looking very good Rik.
When I had problems with pillowing, and you seems to have a hint of it, I was advised to increase the top layer count up to as much as 10 layers and it certainly helped, - that also depends on the % infill, the lower the % the more top layers it needs.

philipy wrote: Thu Dec 10, 2020 9:50 am That is looking very good Rik.
When I had problems with pillowing, and you seems to have a hint of it, I was advised to increase the top layer count up to as much as 10 layers and it certainly helped, - that also depends on the % infill, the lower the % the more top layers it needs.

Does the bottom layer also need to be increased in line with the top? In Cura it seems to recommend keeping them the same.

Rik

ge_rik wrote: Thu Dec 10, 2020 10:32 am
Does the bottom layer also need to be increased in line with the top? In Cura it seems to recommend keeping them the same.

Not sure to be honest. In my early printing days I was using the default settings which I think was 3 top and bottom with 15% infill. When I did an underframe with buffer beams it had massive pillowing on the top of the bufferbeams. I was using Rigidink filament at the time and their tech support was pretty good, so I asked what to do about it and that was their response, increase the top layers to as much as 10 depending on infill %. The reason for the pillowing is that the sidewalls/infill trap air and if the spaces are too large to adequately support the first top layers they try to sag, but if the heat of that layer actually warms the air underneath it creates pressure which forces the layer up in the centre of the space instead. The few subsequent layers just reinforce it to a point where it can no longer flex and then subsequent to that it all sags back because the air cools down. I hope that makes sense, it's difficult to explain, but the point is that at the bottom nothing can move as part of this process because it's all constrained anyway, so I don't think there is any need to play with the bottom. I guess that if the vertical height is fairly small and there are any steps near the bottom it might be an issue, in theory at least

Hi Rik, is this the side for your wagon in the 3d print files.

FWLR wrote: Thu Jan 07, 2021 8:52 am Hi Rik, is this the side for your wagon in the 3d print files.

Yes. The four-plank open
Rik

Thanks Rik.

I will have a go at printing them later...