Help a total noob. How to slice the Temperature Tower STL

[Ender5r]

Got my 1st 3D printer, an Ender 5 Pro, 2 days ago. Lots of interesting problems and issues, along with a ton of learning since then.

My current issue is how to print the SmartTemperatureTower_PLA_180-225. I loaded the STL into Creality Slicer 1.2.3, then saved the gcode. As a check, I opened the gcode file in Notepad++. I looked for M104 and M109 commands, looking to see that the file would cause the temp to change at each new object layer. It didn't.

I obviously don't want to try printing until I know the temperature is going the change as it supposed to.

Is this an issue that I should be using genuine Cura, or some other more advanced slicing software? Is it something else? I've been in high tech for many decades, but I'm a new born babe when it comes to hands-on 3D printing, so any help would be appreciated.

[Alan]

The M104 codes have to be added manually (at least with Cura-generated gcode). Cura has a nice plugin that allows you to post process the gcode and add a temperature change by layer number. Here is a snipped from a Temperature Tower I recently did:

...
G1 X114.907 Y100.872 E1696.15026
G0 F9000 X115.015 Y100.503
G0 X115.063 Y100.37
G1 F1500 E1689.65026
;MESH:NONMESH
G0 F300 X115.063 Y100.37 Z14.4
;ChangeAtZ V5.1.1: executed at Layer 62
M117 Printing... [email protected] 62
M104 S230.000000 T0
G0 F9000 X114.833 Y100.635
G0 X113.484 Y100.635
G0 X113.138 Y104.416
;TIME_ELAPSED:2454.950726
;LAYER:63
;TYPE:WALL-INNER
;MESH:SmartTemperatureTower_PLA_Plus_195-235.stl
G1 F1500 E1696.15026
G1 X85.916 Y104.416 E1697.10094
G1 X85.915 Y95.64 E1697.40743
...

I found the layers where I wanted the temperature changes at by looking at the sliced preview of the model (the layer number here is odd because I used a raft as I was worried about the print not sticking to the bed). You could use a plain text editor to insert the commands manually.

Hope this helps!

Cheers

[Ender5r]

Thanks Alan. You beat me to my next post re: Prusaslicer 2.2. This new version has a very neat feature:

1. slice the model;
2. go to Layer View if not taken there automatically;
3. slide the vertical scroll bar up & down (many slicers seem to have this scroll bar to parse the layers);
4. to the right of the scroll bar will be a small orange circle with a white + sign in it;
5. right-click the + sign: the last entry in the popup will be an option to add custom gcode;
6. left-click the custom gcode entry and another popup will appear where it's possible to add gcode: there is no need to do any back-and-forth or other stuff; you can easily see where the gcode will be placed.

[Alan]

Nice! Sounds easier to use than the Cura plugin. How did the print go?

Cheers

[Ender5r]

Well, interesting is the word I would use. It started out really great, but I had to abort the print because the printer suddenly started going back & forth on the X axis, putting more & more PLA along the same line, eventually leading to the nozzle burrowing its way through a channel of built up PLA. Here's some photos of it, minus the built up PLA because I broke it off.

Since my Creality sample spool of PLA is almost gone, I tried printing a 40% scale version:

[Ender5r]

Hah, I'm an idiot! 🙃 I started off asking about the Temperature Tower, then I post pics of an owl. Sheesh. OK, here is a shot of an actual Temp Tower:

Based on the small loop on the 185C level, I then tried printing both owls at 200C for the base, and 180C for the rest (see previous post).