I’m trying to print a tower. I have the 1 edge flat to the bed. But when I slice it I get a step-like top. Is there a setting I can adjust to get a smoother top?
Thanks.
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Can’t do it that way. It loses its shape near the top, so that’s why I rotated it to print.
What settings are there? Thanks.
You can use adaptive layer height to improve. But of course print time will increase.
If steps are still excessive, you can go even lower by adjusting Min layer height in the machine extruder settings. But note that there’s a technological lower limit. Below a flow of 0.02-0.03mm³/s, flow control becomes hit and miss.
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Adaptive quality/Speed and Radius should be lowered?
Not quite. You can use 'Adaptive Layer Height" (see screenshot above) to tailor the local height to the wall angle. In that way, you can get a finer structure on shallow angles.
Of course, thus leads to more (but finer) layers, meaning the print will take longer.
Once you select adaptive layer height, you’ll see a slider that lets you trade between quality (many layers, smoother surfaced) and speed (fewer thicker layers, more pronounced steps. Results will show after slicing.
You can also locally make corrections by left/right clicking the layer height bar that appears on the right when using this feature.
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The stair-stepping on a slope can be reduced, but will never be eliminated, and looking at the slanted layer lines would probably trigger my OCD.
Why not fix this problem, so the tower can be printed upright?
I don’t know how tall your tower is, but I’m guessing that the tall, thin “Antennas” tend to wobble during the print. They can be stabilized with manual tree supports painted on both sides. Paint just single dots with a small circle pen at a height before the trouble starts, using a support/object x-y distance of perhaps 0.10 mm. The supports will not actually attach to the model, just hold it in place if the moving nozzle tends to pull it around. Here, I put two “dots” on each side of each antenna, at about 1/3 and 2/3 of the total antenna height.
If your antenna are not round, paint the support dots at a corner so they can wrap around and provide support in multiple directions. Try slicing with different tree styles, organic or slim usually use the least filament.
Why it fails needs explaining as it isn’t obvious why the suggestion isn’t the perfect solution,
Is there more to the model you haven’t shared?
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I understand there may be restrictions or project requirements, but as others mentioned, sharing the details is better; otherwise, it’s a wild guess.
Many users have a lot of experience here and can help you find a tweak to maximise your print quality, but keep in mind that FDM printing has its limitations, and often the solution is a compromise.
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This is the Sears Tower from all angles. I can cut the bottom square so I can rotate the tower to have a flat edge as the bottom layer for printing. That resulted in the jagged edge that is the printed top. I would then glue together the base I cut off with the tower.
I also want to increase the size of the antennae. So I thought I could cut them from the tower, increase size, then rejoin them to the tower, then print
Thanks.
sears.3mf (4.2 MB)
Sorry, at that scale, your antennas are unprintable. I scaled your model up 400% and the flat planes of the antennas are still too thin to print with a 0.2 nozzle. I can’t even measure their thickness with the measure tool. Laid down, the mast bases might print, but I doubt you will be able to remove the supports without breaking off the mast, which is only a single line wide - and you will still have stairstepping on the tower sides.
Thanks for the effort.
Something I did in changing parameters has all my print tops not solid, as shown. I think all of my Global Settings are reset (no orange labels), but it’s still happening. What can I do?
That is kind of the nature of how it prints. One of thes more expert folks can weigh in but maybe decreasing the layer thickness?
Variable Layer Height
Will try, but this just happened yesterday, on prints of the same objects that used to give a solid top.
FYI, I have Adaptive Quality Speed set to 0.5, Radius 5. Not sure they are the original settings.
Layer height/ Print Quality = 0.16,