Whether you prime the 0.28 layer height, a 0.2, or a 0.12 the top of your print is going
to look about the same. And the bottom of your print? Well if you get that bed setting so it's
sticking you may get elephants foot meaning it flares out. I'll show you how to make the
top smoother and get rid of that elephant's foot with settings in cura on today's Filament Friday
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As a baseline I'm going to use a CHEP cube only up size 200
and push down on the bed so I only print the top of it. It goes a little quicker that way. And I'm
going to use my 0.28 profile so it's not going to print real smooth, it's going to be rough.
So after I sliced it, this is what it looks like. Not a bad print but kind of rough. That's
a typical top surface in most 3D prints that I do. It's not bad, but you can do a lot better if you
iron it and that's a feature I've talked about in previous videos. In fact I'll put a link to
the video I talked about in depth. But let me show you how I would use it on the top of a CHEP cube.
I'm going to take the same model the same profile but I'll search for iron and enable ironing comes
up I'll check that box and now there's a whole set of settings like ironing pattern, the flow,
the speed, you can change all those and get different results. I'm just going to go with the
stock. I'll slice it. It takes a little bit longer on this small print but here's the difference. The
one on the left is the standard we just printed and here's the ironed one. Much much smoother.
Another option you have with ironing is to only do the highest layer. If you check this box then only
the very top layer will get ironed. That means the rest of the print will be normal. So here's the
difference. The one on the left is fully ironed the one on the right the z ends up looking like
a weave pattern. Which is kind of cool for making signs with letters or numbers. It can be a really
interesting effect. Using ironing is something I think only cura offers. I could be wrong on that
but I think that's the only slicer that offers it. And I really like it now. Some versions of
cura had problems with it. There was some bugs but they've worked all that out in version 4.7.
It seems to work really well for me but cura also offers the ability to change the line width
on certain features. And that can actually give you a smoother top without ironing. So it's a
kind of an in-between. But I like the way it turns out. In fact when you use this technique
you can actually get a little better surface on the outside of some prints. So let me show you
how to adjust the individual line widths and give you a little better top on your 3D print. With a
0.4 nozzle cura defaults to a 0.4 line width but even in their explanation they say you can get
slightly better prints with a little bit smaller line width. I went to the minimum 0.26 which was
the minimum it would let me adjust it to. And I only did it for the walls and the top and bottom.
Everything else I left alone. And here's the results. You can see the one on the right
definitely looks smoother. It's not as rough on the edges and even the z looks smoother. An
actual size CHEP cube looks a lot better so it actually shows up better on a smaller print than
it does on a bigger print. And even the sides of the CHEP cube were just slightly smoother.
So there you have three different top surfaces you can choose from; standard like you're used to,
ironed on the left which you can do the two tone like I showed, and then the reduced line width.
And I really like this reduced line width. To me, it comes out just a little bit smoother and
the whole print, even the sides, look a little bit better. I really like this option. Now what about
elephant's foot? That's where the bottom of your print flares out and you may have your bed leveled
and it's printing really good but certain prints just the way they print they want to flare out and
it's frustrating. So you can print with a raft and then peel the raft off but then the bottom
of your print isn't quite as smooth, especially like you're printing on glass because you want
it smooth. And then you still get that elephant's foot. Well there's a way to get rid of it in cura.
Here's an example of what I'm talking about. This is a CHEP cube printed at a 0.28
layer height so pretty rough but the bottom of it curls out. It flares out. That's elephant's
foot. If I measure the top of this thing it's 20 millimeters but if I measure the bottom it's 20.3
millimeters. So we can fix this in cura. Here it is inside of cura. I'm going to line it up so it's
right on these lines so i can see exactly where the edge of the CHEP cube is. In cura 4.7 the
search got a lot smarter. I can start to type elephant and it knows what I'm talking about
and it goes to the initial layer horizontal expansion. That's what we want to adjust.
Since I'm 0.30mm over, I'm gonna do a negative number and cut that in half so 0.15. But negative.
And then slice it. And this should bring that first layer in. So let's look at the preview.
Now if I zoom in, you can see there's a gap here. We're away from the line where the cube is lined
up. This is the first layer. If i go to the next layer you can see it jumped out and then if I keep
going up with this it stays at that point which is where it should be. But that first layer is
clearly in. Let me show you here. It's in, then the next layer its out. In, next layers out. So
that's what it's compensating for. It's getting rid of that squish. And so when I actually print
this I measure the top of it 20 millimeters again. But when I measure the bottom of it
you can see I got rid of the elephant's foot. It's now only just slightly bigger and that could be,
you know, how I'm holding it. So elephant's foot and no elephant's foot. That's what horizontal
expansion will get you when you set that in cura. These are the settings that you look for when
you're trying to get your prints just a little bit better. And you can find this in other slicers. I
know prusa has the horizontal expansion. I think a few others do. But as far as the ironing,
cura is the only one I know that has it. If I'm wrong let me know in the comments below. If you
like what I'm doing here, maybe check out some of the videos that are popping up. And if nothing
else click on that CHEP logo and subscribe. I'll see you next time right here at Filament Friday.