Cura to Orca transfer

[pliant crow]

Hey, so I have a ender 3 since they first made them and been using them sporadically, now many years later I’m studying engineering and is very useful for my deliverables so I bought some parts and upgraded it. One of the upgrades was changing from cura to orcaslicer as I haven’t changed the cura profile in like 6-7 years but I tryed configuring orca slicer in every way but I’m not able to fix a blob issue I have, see pictures. Everyone tells me it’s wet filament but I have dried it off and the issue persists. Also if I upload a cura g-code to mainsail the issue disappears. The last two pictures are with cura g-code. Please ignore the stringing/layer issues, I will fix them once I have solved the blob issue as I can’t do it correctly with the blobs.

Ask me any extra information that can help in solving the issue and also sorry if my English is not that good, is not my first language.

[fluid yarrow]

Can you share your project 3MF?

Then print the test Object found here following the provided guide, and share photos of the top, sides, and bottom.
https://discord.com/channels/1137181739773603922/1425322818748420208

[pliant crow]

I think this is the .3MF file that you asked with my printer config. I just sent the print and should be done in like 1h

[pliant crow]

This is the piece I just printed, I tried to take the best pics I could but I can’t show all the detail. If you need better pics tell me and I’ll try again

[fluid yarrow]

Did you follow all the settings listed in the guide?

[pliant crow]

The ones I could yes, for PA I tried different tests with each time bigger numbers but I see no difference, I think that due to the blobs. In the picture at least I can’t see any difference so I don’t know what to change it to or even if I should

Flow and first layer should be good at least the best I could. The printers bed pattern is transferred to the piece without being too thin, I measured with calipers and it was around 1.8-2.1mm depending on the part of the bed which I think is good enough you tell me and also for flow did the calibration test from orca and I think I chose the best

[fluid yarrow]

The ones I could yes

Were there some that you could not follow?
The effect you got on the test print we have seen caused by a bug when using Classic wall generator with Detect thin walls turned off. That's why the guide says to use Arachne.

[pliant crow]

Some like retraction I could do as even with exaggerated values i couldn’t fix it. I’ll try the Arachne method because I don’t recall using it, tomorrow I’ll do a test print with that setting and update you. Thanks!!

[fluid yarrow]

Not sure what you mean here, as retraction settings are not listed in the guide. The very first section of the guide lists the settings that you need to use for the Kitchen Sink test print; there should be no reason you can't set every one as required.

[eternal summit]

@pliant crow what Filament are you using and how long did you dehumidify it at what temperature?

for PLA I dont start a print if the humidity in the AMS indicates over 15% humidity, i dry longer in that case

[pliant crow]

Yes sorry I misreaded the section in with it mentions what you can learn from the model with what it is required to tune before printing.

Also I double checked the settings of my slicer as of what is said in the document and the print came out like this. Still with blobs

[pliant crow]

I use 3D fills pla and I used the heated bed with a box on top for 6 hours and right after that in a airtight plastic box with silica gel beads for like two months(while I was in summer break) and only take it out when I’m printing and then put it back. The box is always at <10% relative humidity at 21-25C. My sensor doesn’t go lower than 10 so idk exactly at what humidity it is in. The beads are also still good and are not close to their max humidity absorption

[fluid yarrow]

I would definitely start by drying the filament as others have mentioned. If that filament is full of moisture, no amount of tuning or setting changes will fix it, and you will be chasing your tail trying to figure out why.

[eternal summit]

it might be advantageous to get yourself a dryer box. the Creality pi dryers are pretty good, i have 2 space pi x4 dryers and they are really good with abs and nylon etc, because these things heat up to max 85 Celsius. the single and double spool versions go up to 70 Celsius. a box on the build plate works, but 6 hours seems hardly long enough for PLA.
You should measure the temp of the air under the box, not the build plate itself.

[pliant crow]

But then why with cura works fine? The filaments are dryer right after bought bc I know that after you bay them even if they are in vacuum they can have moisture but it can be that much. That why I doubt that is the polymer that has broken down and that there is no way back as the mix of the cardboard box and the silica gel for two months should have taken all the moisture. But if you truly think that has to be the only solution I might try it again with a more specified solution.

[pliant crow]

I ended up doing it for 6 hours bc that’s what is said in the r/3dprinting filement_drying at 55 air temp, not plate temp. Also I didn’t want to go higher to not melt the filament itself and deform it. That’s why I can’t wrap my mind around the filament being wet but printing well in cura and not orca

But if you both definitely think is a moisture problem I’ll try to save up and buy a filament dryer, or should I maybe buy a different brand of PLA? Maybe the one I bought is not good quality?

[eternal summit]

@pliant crow did you try cura after the hardware upgrades? and did that work? since you are talking about mainsail, i must assume you are using a external controller board on which you run klipper, like a raspberry pi, since only the ender3 v3 KE comes with factory installed onboard klipper as far as i know. if so, the problem does not necessarily originate in ORCA.

[pliant crow]

No, the printer is the OG ender 3 with different board, a pi zero w, different hotend and a bltouch. Also I’m talking so much about cura vs orca because after all the upgrades, same filament, same setting on klipper, one print after the other without even the hotend cooling down if I print a gcode from cura there is no problem but if I print the same piece with a gcode from orca I makes all those “blobs”. That why I’m so confused with the filament being wet as it would make sense at least to me

Idk if I explain myself I’m not rlly good explaining in English

I even upload the cura gcodes from orca slicer via the printer tab so that’s why I was assuming there is a problem with the profile I have or something and I doubt that is wet filament, but maybe I’m wrong and if I’m wrong I would like to understand why

The last two pics form the original post are slices with the profile I have on cure from like 6 years ago and they were printed this last Saturday 18. The prints are not perfect, I know, but the blobs don’t appear anywhere on the pieces, just other problems that when I fix the blobs issue should be “easy” to fix

[cursive relic]

I assume by blobs you mean the nasty stringing. Looks like a retraction issue.

I recall there was a bug with wipe on retract where it wouldn't retract fully

[pliant crow]

Not only stringing but also literal blobs, in the first message can be seen more clearly in the black filament, red is hard to photograph

[pliant crow]

That could be it bc when I was observing the issue while printing is where a seam would happen, I don’t exactly recall if it’s on the start or the end of the retraction. Is it possible to fix that bug somehow? I tried with exaggerated retraction distances and speeds but the problem persists exactly the same

[iron copper]

Is your printer an old school ender 3? Stock hardware?

[cursive relic]

the printer is the OG ender 3 with different board, a pi zero w, different hotend and a bltouch.

no mention of direct drive so probably still bowden

[eternal summit]

@pliant crow may i ask what your native language is (German?).
ok, what i think you mean is not called blobs, its called beads, like pearls on a string, it usualy has to do with moisture, temperature , pressure advance amongst other things or a combination or so, did you set the PA the same as in Cura, same temp, are the machine settings the same in both, not the filament settings, the values for cooling fans, g-code flavor, (g-code from Cura might differ from orca).
klipper g-code differs from marlin.
are the start machinecodes the same? did you use the same type wall generator on both slicer files (normal or arachne ) etc. you cannot use a Cura generated g-code in orca and expect it to work.

[pliant crow]

Correct

[pliant crow]

First my native language is Spanish, then when I did the change all should be the exact same although I didn’t know there are gcode flavours, I have both set to klipper if that’s what you are taking about. Lastly, the start machine code is the same , I only call the printer levelling in a different moment, and about the wall generator, both cura and klipper was using normal but changed it to Arachne for the test MxBrnr told me to try

[iron copper]

Cura uses arachne natively and it can't be changed anyway. do you send prints via wifi?

[eternal summit]

I have a K1 Max and send prints from Orca directly to the printer upstairs from my laptop downstairs via WIFI. I also have a TRONXY and until last month a Neptune 3 max that were connected to Orange Pi's with octoprint on them, so i also send the files to those via WIFI. unfortunately, I cannot get access to my BambuLab H2D from any other slicer than BambuLab Studio, because BambuLab blocked that in the firmware. But BambuLab Studio and Orca are from the same branche of Slic3r, they look alike and use mostly the same settings. If i could connect to the H2D from Orca, i would switch in a heartbeat.

if i put the gcode from studio and orca next to eachother in a text editor , the start and end g-code sections are different, the sequence order of the vectors are also different, the g-code generators of Cura and Orca are different so they will produce different code. you cannot compare Cura and Orca, they are different concepts, it's like comparing apples and pears they both grow on trees and that's about it. or macintosh and Recoil 18" with windows 11, they both have desktops and are unix based, that's it.

[pliant crow]

I send both the gcode from cura and from orca via the printer tab in orca via WiFi

[proud shuttle]

can you share your printer.cfg and any macros used (PRINT_START, BED_MESH_CALIBRATE etc) ?