Cura Installation Tutorial for 3D Printer Creality CR-7 & CR-8 Lesson 2

Cura Installation Tutorial for 3D Printer Creality CR-7 & CR-8 

Lesson 2 Cura Settings

In lesson 2, you will learn how to fine-tune the Cura settings such as quality, material, speed, cooling, support and platform adhesion. While the basic print settings are fine to start with, the Advanced Cura settings give you more control over the output. In order to access the Advanced setting, go through the tabs in the Print Setup pane on the left-hand side of the Cura window.

Cura Tutorial - Settings - Step 1: Retraction and Quality Settings

1. In the Mode field, select Advanced instead of Basic. Below the print setup, a number of tabs for Retraction, Quality etc are displayed.
2. It is recommend that you leave Retraction turned on (located on Basic Mode). Retraction means that the filament will be retracted, i.e, pulled back, when the nozzles moves over an area that is not printed. In this way, no filament will flow out from the nozzle. There will be no "stringing" - no thin threads of plastic between the printed parts of your object.
3. The Quality is to define the surface quality of your 3D printed object.
4. The Bottom/Top Thickness is usually also set to 0.8mm. If you print an object with a large flat top, you may want to print more layers in order to close the top surface completely. This avoids the unwanted "pillowing" effect.  (Again, the value must be integer multiples of the nozzle diameter).

Cura Tutorial - Settings - Step 2: Speed and Infill Settings

1. The Travel Speed setting determines how fast head moves when it is not printing (e.g. when moving from one wall to the next). The defaults 150mm/s is fine for most cases.
2. There are other speed settings that let you control the speed for specific parts of the print. In case, you wish to change any of these speed settings, set them to integer multiples of Print Speed - this makes accelerating and decelerating smoother when changing e.g. from infill to shell printing.

Cura Tutorial - Settings - Step 3: Cooling

1. Turn off the Enable Cooling Fan setting is not recommend as it will result in warping and other ugly surface effects.
2. In order to control the cooling fan more precisely, open the expert configuration. E.g. the Fan Speed settings in order to increase Maximum Fan Speed when it is very hot in the office or to decrease it when the fan is too loud.
3. Make sure a layer has enough time to cool before the next layer is printed above it, set the Minimal Layer Time. Increasing this value also increases print time.
4. Through the Minimum Speed setting you can make sure the printer does not slow down too much. It prevents the nozzle stay on the same spot for a longer time - keeping the plastic at that spot hot. A Minimum Speed below 100mm/s will reduce print quality.
5. When you print an object with a small top, we recommend you use the Lift Head option. This removes the print head from your object so it can cool down (otherwise, you may end up with a blob at the top of the object).

Cura Tutorial - Settings - Step 4: Support and Platform Adhesion Settings

1. Do not turn off the Enable Support option on the Basic mode. Otherwise floating or overhanging parts cannot be printed.
2. The placement option determines where supports are attached: Touching Buildplate means the supports are based only on the build plate; Everywhere means the support structures can also be built on the model or inside the model.
3. The Overhang Angle value determines how much overhang a part has to be supported; the default is 60°. Note that setting the Overhang Angle to 90° will create no support structures at all.
4. In order to improve bed adhesion or in case your object does not have a flat bottom, you can add a Brim or Raft, If you don't, Cura automatically adds a skirt around the object. The skirt is a line arounf the print on the first layer that helps prime the extruder. A Brim is made of few lines attached directly to the object's bottom; this increases the bottom surface and minimizes warping issue. A Raft is a thick grid underneath the model and helps the object to stick on the build plate.

* If you simply want the skirt printed, set Type to None and select the number of skirt lines and the distance to the object.

* If you want a brim printed, select Type: Brim and set Brim Line Count, i.e. the number of lines to be printed.

*To have a raft printed, select Type: Raft and adjust the margin, the thickness and other settings.

(License: The text of "Cura Tutorial for 3D Printing Beginners" by All3DP.
Source: https://all3dp.com/cura-tutorial-3d-printing/)