Purposely not print tops / bottoms

Filament 3D Printer Technical Help
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Is it possible have the bottom not print for situations where you want it to look like? It did print the bottom but you peeled off those layers so it looks like an open open volume with all of the infill pattern exposed?

For situations where you are printing on top of something that you will either trim from around the wall. If the adhesion was strong enough during the first layer, that will actually be your base or if you plan to glue it to something else that is going to be a base.

Just so that you save time and filament on those initial layers, that will be hidden anyway.

And for the case where you don’t want to do the top, the concept would be letting the model in half so that the top and bottom would be printed as normal. So you have a nice, smooth, strong surface that you peel off the bed that was not created via bridging, so the tops where you made the slice in the middle? You don’t need to have an enclosed seal because you’re going to glue together the two halves along that seam.

So imagine you printed the model properly without cutting it in half and literally canceled the print exactly after the layer exactly halfway and then reprinted it upside down and once again canceled it exactly at the proper layer. How those two halves would look in that case.

This is something I’m not sure if it’s possible to do in in a slicer as trying to tell the slicer I have a post process to take care of what it would normally be printing.

Thanks!.

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I have done it. Just set the bottom or top thickness, whichever you don’t want, to 0. I was using Cura. It worked just fine.

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you can do the same thing for walls

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Can I ask for a situation where you wouldn’t want to print walls?

Without walls, you loose the “3” in 3D printing.

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If you want a print (thinner then it is in the other dimensions) that you would normally design with a perimeter and a support structure inside, you can print without walls and a low infill percentage (honeycomb would be good for that) and it will create an end result that is like that but without having to design it completely from scratch. If it could be printer horizontally then you would print without the top and bottom. but if you have to print it vertically then you print without sides. Same effect.

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Is each slicer different or are they all the same in terms of the difference between a top layer and bottom layer in terms of the highest and lowest layer in the model versus any layers in between that technically have a top and bottom but are not hidden by walls.

Take a set of stairs or a ladder type of concept where if I only wanted have the bottommost layer not printed that will actually be fixed to the floor, but I still required the bottoms of each step. Type of difference.

This is actually a good time to ask as well. In the slicer software for ironing there was the only top layer option and I wasn’t sure if that meant the literal last layer or if it meant any layer that technically had a top that you could put things on. For example, a shelf inside of a cabinet would technically be a top

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It means every top layer and on any print there could be many top layers.

Slicers generally are basically the same BUT they are always playing leap frog with each other. As one gets a new feature or an improvement to something the rest will try and catch up and jump ahead to stay “the best”.

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A lot of slicer differences are more to do with the U.I rather than the actual feature set of the slicer. A couple of years ago there would have been a bigger difference but now the differences are generally pretty small if any at all.

Where it really makes a difference is in the U.I, I have never personally liked how cura lays out all of their options, it has always felt cluttered and confusing to me. Personally I prefer the U.I of PrusaSlicer (or really and slic3r based slicer for that matter) the way they have things layed out has always just been more comfortable to use for me!

I think it is always worth spending at least a couple of weeks using all of the big slicers, in that time you will find out what you really like and dislike about a certain slicer. Then you can make a decision regarding which one you would like to use after that!

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I agree that it’s a good idea to try a few slicers out. I’m a little different than you though, in that I tried Prusaslicer, and really couldn’t make heads or tails of their UI. Cura has always felt very simple and intuitive to me.

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For me it is the exact opposite, I like Cura because of the layout. Everything is right there, no jumping around in different pull down windows etc. To each his own.

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Haha, here is a great proof of my point, a lot of slicer choice currently is just which one is more comfortable to use.

So I think I would definitely recommend just messing around with all of the popular ones and see which one you like the best! There really isn’t a wrong answer when it comes to most modern slicers, just preference!

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Yeah, the reason that I said Cura vs prusa It’s because they’re both the two that I personally see the most name dropped in forms and videos, it comes down to using the creality.

I had planned on using cura since it’s very similar to reality slicer that I’m somewhat used to.

But because of the version on the pie that’s not in sync with the desktop version, at least in terms of what’s on the surface, it may be the same output, but I’m not sure.

And not being able to run that That version on any other device other than pi I kind of I’m ruling it out.

And because of the failing to probe open GL on my laptop. That’s quite old but hardware wise almost brand new level of use.

That kind of rules out the Cura again, and I installed the prusa slicer on the laptop and it works.

So in the reasoning and logic of all of my available portable devices, I can keep with the printer that are capable of slicing prusa slicer. At least is the one that is also capable of staying in sync with my desktop computer.

Meaning that I can achieve my goal of a singular slicer for both my desktop and the device. I’m wanting to keep portable with the printer.

If that makes sense?

I still haven’t powered up the printer since that hotend issue in terms of running a file.

I did however get that piece out just by yanking. Really freaking hard with pliers and it did look like there was what would be the equivalent of unintended spot like it was stepped on making. Let’s call the top and bottom parallel. Flat-ish causing the front and back. I guess to bulge out without having any other axes to easily give way.

Or maybe it’s easier to use the analogy of a car tire. Very low on air the way that it wouldn’t be round but bulgey on one side.

I did however took the opportunity while that was a part to put the 0.4 nozzle back on and then run some pla through it. Doing a more accurate extruder test where I put a marker line on the filament right where it was entering the hot end that the tube goes in and then using a ruler. I marked exactly 100 mm down the filament and after telling it pump out 100 mm in the air. The marker line on the filament was in the exact spot give or take somewhere between 0.0 and 0.7 ish tolerance, so I’m certain that if it wasn’t exact I would actually need to find some kind of a precision measuring device to see where it was out. So if a naked eye can’t tell that it’s out of calibration, I’m going to call that good enough until every possible test is done as such

How have you been anyway?
We haven’t really talked much like we used to where it was more. Just half shop talk half being mentored.

P.s.
Anybody other than Matthew might be confused on some of my things in this post. I hit reply from the email so I didn’t realize which forum block this was from and me and him were talking via private message on the matter initially. And also how when he came in he seemingly randomly said to try out all of them.

Lol just to give some context too. I guess what you might call “inside joke” but it’s not really a joke. Just a different discussion.