After some serious touch time your LulzBot 3D Printer and the quick print options in Cura 2, it's more than likely that you want to make more specific changes to the way 3D Models are printed. Whether it be, changing the support type and style to make it easier to remove or simply tweaking the printing temperature of your print, you need to access the full suite of settings in Cura 2 to be able to do this.
We've walked through installing Cura 2 LulzBot Edition, Upgrading your printer firmware & the Basics of Cura 2 in other tutorials; this tutorial is going to dive a bit deeper into the wider range of uses of Cura 2. We'll look at configuring the visibility of all of the different slicer settings, how we can tune an existing quick print profile for our specific printer and model, and finally go through the process of adding a new filament to our filament library.
Finding the 'Expert' Settings in Cura 2
Let's start off with opening the custom options in Cura 2. In Legacy Cura, we used the Toolbar at the top of the screen to switch to Advanced options. In Cura 2, the process is a little easier. With your material & appropriate profile selected (we'll be copying all of the pre-defined settings from the selected profile into the custom settings view), click on to the sliding radio button in the Print Setup window in Cura 2 (see below)
You should now see a whole bunch of menus appear instead of the Quick Print Setup options. Each one of these menus is collapsible and contains similar groupings of settings.
To view one (or all) of these menus, simply click on the heading you want to view. The arrow button will reflect what the menu is doing.
For example, if I click on the Quality Menu (below) I can see the various quality settings, associated with Layer Height and Line Width. The Line Width's for a myriad of Line Types are visible as indented options underneath it, however, they are all worked out from the parent setting, Line Width.
It's possible to enable every single option (that's right, some are still hidden from view!). Simply click on the Gear icon beside any of the Menus in the Custom Menu window (You'll need to hover your mouse over the menu to see it). Alternatively, you can use the toolbar to get there by 'Preferences' > 'Configure Cura' > 'Settings'. Either way, you will arrive at this screen.
Depending on the kind of user you are, you will want to configure these Settings to suit your needs. I'm the kind of person that doesn't need to be confused, so I worked through and tried to disable all of the 'Child' settings for my Custom view. Essentially, I'm trusting the automatic scaling of the different 'child' settings that Cura 2 computes. You might go full disco and enable all (see the 'Check All' box in this window).
Saving changes to existing filament profiles in Cura 2: LulzBot Edition
Printing with LulzBot supported filaments is the most hassle-free way of 3D Printing with LulzBot 3D Printers. But even with all of the Profile wizardry that happens behind the scenes, sometimes the profiles just don't behave quite like we need them to for our specific model file. So we can tune our Advanced Print settings (see above section) to really hone in on how our filaments behave. This can take a few additional prints but is completely worth it in the long run.
A new feature in Cura 2 LulzBot Edition is the ability to be able to make changes to existing Filament Profiles and save them for use later on. Well, it's not completely new, but it's a whole lot easier. Let's make a profile right now.
Select your template material/profile in the usual place.
Now, go ahead and enable the 'Custom' options for your print. I'm using Standard IC3D ABS as my template.
Change whatever options you're tuning, supports are always one that I like to get as good as can be.
Now select the profile drop-down menu and click on the Create Profile from Current Settings/Overrides.
Name the profile as you need to and click 'Ok'
Now you have that profile available for selection in the IC3D ABS Profile Selection drop down box!
Creating a new filament type in Cura 2: LulzBot Edition
Printing with supported filaments is easy, but you might've picked up a roll of a filament and you aren't sure which pre-existing profile you should use it with. In that case, you can actually add additional materials and profiles to the existing Cura 2 list of Filaments. I'll show you how.
Navigate to the manage materials settings window. You can do this via the Material selection drop-down menu in the right of the workspace, or alternatively by the same menu in the menu bar at the top of the screen.
Once you're in the Manage Materials window, you can add a new filament type by selecting 'Create'.
However, it mightn't be the best way to do so. I'd recommend cloning an existing Material and changing the key details. For example, all PLA filament will print in the same temperature range, so if I had an unsupported PLA I'd clone it and tweak the settings. To clone a Material, simply Select it in this window and then select the Duplicate option.
Now you can go and change the name, print settings, and all of the other options that relate specifically to the material type. Closing this window will save your settings, and now your Custom Filament will appear in the Custom menu in the Material Selection drop down.
There is an absolute tonne of the new slicing option's that we seem to have skipped over in this tutorial, however, using the Slicer at an advanced level required these skills! Now, all of our customization of the different options won't go to waste, we can save them and keep track of them! If you've got any questions on any of the things shown in this tutorial (software updates sometimes mean the options will move around), please leave a comment and ask us how to proceed! We're full-time Makers, online every day and here to help.
