Save print settings please

A .form file is material specific, so why does it not save the print settings? Saving the print settings with the .form file would be advantageous for a number of reasons -

  1. It takes the mystery out of what material/settings were used for a previous print. Especially helpful if pulling up an older print.
  2. It can be helpful in troubleshooting why a print is not successful. And to save the successful settings when you finally get it.
  3. It eliminates potentially printing using the wrong settings for a material. Example - open Preform and set to clear. Open an old file you printed in flexible. If you don’t know to rebuild the supports, you are now printing in clear material with supports for a flexible build.

Suggestions

  1. have a home screen where you can either open an existing file, or start a new file. If you start a new file, that is when the Print Setup dialog box appears (not right when you open PreForm).
  2. save all print settings with the .form file. If that file is opened, all print settings change to the saved settings (obviously).
  3. if you open an existing file and try to change the material, you are flagged to change the supports
1 Like

I don’t think there are any print settings, the program has settings for each material, and that’s all that matters. As far as I know, when you make a file and set it to a material and save the file it should always open with that material set as the print material, if you change it it might ask to update the supports depending on the material you change it to.
Though honestly, I don’t see a difference between supports between materials and find it kind of annoying that it can require you to redo the supports,I never use the automatic support generation since it doesn’t do that great of a job.

Supports vary greatly with some materials. Tough and flexible are much more likely to break on peel and require more points or larger points for the same prints I had success with using gray.

Zachary, you discounted my ideas but with erroneous data and conjecture!

There are print settings. Each time you open PreForm, the Print Setup opens. Options for the settings are Printer Model, Material and Material Version and Layer Thickness. What I am calling print settings. This should all be saved with the .FORM file. In addition, all the Supports information should be saved as well - Density, Point Size, Internal Supports, and any Advanced settings. That is not saved either.

When you save a file, it does not open with the material information. The material is set by the end user in the Print Setup dialog when PreForm opens or, if the end user cancels that dialog, PreForm uses the material settings from the last print.

You are correct, the program has default settings for each material. Well, default Support settings. However, these settings are only applied by the end user picking the material. Or by PreForm loading the last material used if the end user cancels the Print Setup dialog when starting PreForm.

If you open a .form file that was last printed with Flex, and PreForm is set for Clear, the model will have Flex supports (so point size, geometry, etc will be incorrect). PreForm does not warn you of this problem. The only time PreForm warns you that you changed the material is if you change the material after Supports have been generated. So here is an interesting scenario - I open a file that I printed in Tough, but with PreForm set to Clear. Realizing my mistake I then change the material to Tough, and I get a Confirm Material Switch warning! A bit confusing. But obviously there is no connection between the .form file and the material.

There are differences between supports for materials. One I know for for sure is point size - Flexible defaults to 1.60 mm, Castable to 0.67 mm and the rest to 0.60 mm.

This topic was automatically closed 14 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.