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.
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:
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.
Thanks Alan. You beat me to my next post re: Prusaslicer 2.2. This new version has a very neat feature: [LIST=1]
slice the model;
go to Layer View if not taken there automatically;
slide the vertical scroll bar up & down (many slicers seem to have this scroll bar to parse the layers);
to the right of the scroll bar will be a small orange circle with a white + sign in it;
right-click the + sign: the last entry in the popup will be an option to add custom gcode;
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.
[/LIST]
