When printed, the lines in this circled area are very apparent. All the other surfaces are smooth. Any way to reduce/eliminate those lines? I tried using the ironing option with default top surfaces settings and changing the top surface pattern but there was no difference.
Hi Dean,
Is the top angled on that piece, or horizontal (flat)? Looks angled but hard to tell for sure.
If it’s angled, you may need/want to reduce layer height for the top part (add a height modifier to the model via r-click on it in the object tree, adjust the starting height to just below the first line of the top angled part, then set line height as a property of the height modifier). Ironing and pattern choice may not make any difference for an angled top because there’s often not enough flat surface area for either of those options (line types) to take effect.
Cheers,
-Max
Hey Max,
It’s angled, but so are the other two top faces, which come out smooth. So that’s why I’m puzzled. And I already have it set to .08 layer height for the whole thing. Thoughts?
Reason the topmost surface has visible steps is the angle is much shallower. Best you can do is to lower your layer height like @MaxThreeD suggested. You can also make your width narrower to help as well.
My goto method is to use the Variable Layer Height tool. It’s the 5th icon from left to right as shown below:
Agree with Larry, it’s the angle of that top surface, most likely, and about using narrower lines if possible (maybe even a 0.2mm nozzle). You’re running into FDM/printer limits there. But, you could try going lower than .08mm layer height… check out Minimum Layer Height Limbo: How low can we go? I’ve gotten some really smooth results with a .04mm height (on H2C).
If you care more about the top being flat than the bottom being smooth, another option may be to tilt the whole model a bit so the top is horizontal and part of the bottom is on supports/raft. But that may/will affect the other surfaces as well, so maybe a deal-breaker.
There’s also a custom version of Studio out there somewhere with an experimental “Z-anti-aliasing” feature, which is supposed to help in such cases. I’ve never tried it myself. More infos here: Anti-Aliasing for FDM 3D Printing Is Finally Here
HTH,
-Max
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Thanks Max and @LarryCnAZ
Tilting the model is not an option. The part you see here is just a piece I cut off a larger model to test embossing on it (which works pretty well). The whole model is pretty complex with thin walls. If I have to, I may end up sacrificing the branding and printing it with that surface down, but then I run into other issues based on that angle.
I read the Bambu Wiki about variable layer height and it says this:
“The height range of variable layer height is in the height limits of the printer settings, for example, the height range of 0.4 nozzle is 0.08-0.28 mm, which is a height range of our laboratory test that the nozzle can print out better print quality, you had better not modify it.”
Note the “better not modify it” warning.
Should I just fight the power and ignore that? 
PS: I’m on a P1S
YOLO, I say! 
I don’t really see how it would hurt to try, besides some time and filament. And keeping an eye on it. I only have the H2C so I can’t really speak for any other machine. But 0.04 height was no fuss on that, besides slowing everything down (started with a .08 “precision” profile and lowered the speeds and accelerations some more… but the H2C defaults are probably faster than P1S anyway). Some tuning may be necessary of course.
I’m not sure variable layer height will have any benefit for this case… that’s typically useful for more organic curves. I think a height modifier would be more precise in this case. But I guess either way would accomplish the same.
-Max