Can anyone tell me why the top of this print is not coming out as smooth as the sides? It started doing this all of a sudden. Did I inadvertently change a setting? None of my other prints in the last 24 hours have a top surface that looks like this, they are much smoother.
Thanks!
This is the top…
This is the side…
Even the second piece had issues, the top is horribly staggered, like window blinds But the canted slope right below it is smooth?
I don’t get it.
When I slice it, it shows the texture, so this is a setting causing this, right?
Low angle surfaces are hard to print as they have to step with the layer height. The wiki has a good example of using the variable layer height feature to try to mitigate the stage of steps.
That’s unfortunately normal for top surfaces, especially on gradual slopes like in your models. Sides aren’t as noticeable since they are mostly vertical and don’t stair step. You are going in the right direction and adjusting layer height, which is one of the methods for reducing the amount of stair stepping that you are seeing.
Here’s a picture that kind of shows how layer height effects print quality:
And a sliced model of a sphere that you can see that as the surface becomes more horizontal, you see the detail suffer.
There are a couple of methods you can try to help. You can try using adaptive layer height, which will adjust the layer height based upon how steep the slope is.
As you can see, it adjusts the layer height smaller and smaller as it gets higher on the sphere. This will increase quality, but will slow down the print time.
You can also play around with the positioning of the model by adjusting angles or moving objects on to their side if necessary. Try different positions, slice it, and see if the results are the quality you are looking for. Just remember that orientation matters for strength and overhangs.
Thanks to both of you. I’ll try and play around with the settings and see what I can do.
