Download the Snapmaker 2.0 PLA Cura profiles here - github.com/Kaouthia/Snapmaker-2/ Get 10% off Eryone filament with code "johnaldred" on checkout - eryone3d.com/
Just found your video after receiving my A350T, and I have to say, a big thank you and how well you have put this video together, no waffle, no BS just the information required and just the right amount of detail and beautifully voiced. Big well done from me.
Hello John, I'm currently learning 3D printing and came across this video for my 3D printer, just wanted to say thank you for all the hard work and hours spent on doing this for us the noobs! Keep it up and cheers!
.Hello John, ditto to that comment from John Marmolejos. I’ve been following your great videos lately and it has helped me significantly. With all our hardware stores closed in Barbados due to the Covid lockdown, I’ve had to resort to printing parts which I would normally run to the hardware to purchase. Two recent ones, which your videos greatly assisted in making, are star knobs and eye bolts for a flip top tool stand I’m building. Keep up the good work and I will surely use your links whenever possible to support you.
Very nice video! Luban was spitting out insane print times on small objects after modeling in Fusion 360, so I got Cura to see if a better slicing program would help, and I've managed to take a print from around 28 hours with Luban's fast print setting to just over 2 hours with your fast print Cura profile.
Just so everyone knows, Snapmaker 2 is now an option in machine drop down list in Cura when setting up. Also you can add the Snapmaker extension in cura to directly send G code files to your Snapmaker 2 machine via Wi-Fi. No more having to use the USB stick to transfer files. Cura did not correctly identify my Snapmaker's address so if your having trouble sending to your machine check the IP address that Cura is trying to connect to, if necessary, edit it to the correct address. if you open Luben software it will tell you your Snapmaker's IP address in the box just above the 'Connect' tab
Thank you for all of your work. I was working on learning Cura and struggling with getting it set up. This moved me many steps ahead! The g-code now works on My A350. And bonus is the normal print profile does a much nicer job in less time! Maybe if someone tweaked Luban enough you could get close, but I’m happy to have this along with some setting I had wanted to play with like combing and ironing!
Very clear and helpful! You can suggest Snapmaker to get in touch with Cura team to add Snapmaker models into the printer list. That should simply some pre-setup steps.
Thanks, Chris! As soon as I get working on the PETG profiles, I'll be posting in the group and will definitely let you know when I've got something available to test. :)
Good work, I might link people here if they've got trouble setting up their profile. One thing that you might want to add to your settings is "Combing mode: Not in Skin". This setting avoids travel lines in the first layer leading to a better finish. Not so important for parts that you never watch from below, but if you want a clean bottom, this is the setting you need.
Thank you! The profiles should have combing mode set to "Within Infill" (I'll double check and make sure that they are). This does everything "Not in Skin" does, but more. The problem with "Not in Skin" is that it will still travel through non-skin parts of walls (basically over walls that aren't the outermost wall). Meaning that it can still drag filament through walls and give some sideways squeeze-out where you don't want it, forcing your outer wall to have to squish around it, which doesn't always look pretty.
I researched the subject a little more and found this comparison of the various combing modes: www.lpomykal.cz/cura-combing-mode/ Looking at the pictures, I guess I'll stay with "Not in Skin".
I've never seen results with "Not in skin" anything like what's shown there. I'm guessing something else was going on. But you can always just make some test prints and see with your own eyes. :)
Thank you John! Regrettably as with Luban and S3D I simply am unable to print without a raft. I hope the glass build surface I ordered helps me with this issue.
That's a bummer. I'm actually planning out a bed levelling video for the SM2 at the moment, with some possible tricks for dealing with warped beds. Fortunately, mine's pretty flat, but I still think it could be improved, so I'll definitely be putting that to the test. :)
I would just like to throw in my 2c on this issue. When you install your bed, snug all the screws down first, then tighten in a second step from center - outwards. The reason I say this is because if there is anything preventing the screw head from centering completely it will offset the bed slightly and cause it to push up just a little. That's how I do mine, I've not had the slightest indication of bed leveling issues. Although, I smash my first layer down like a heathen, it looks ugly, until about layer 3, but it works great for me.
@@JohnAldred Thanks John. I'll keep you posted (and anyone else who is interested). I don't know about you but I am beginning to find that the line between artist and craftsman is getting thinner when it comes to 3D printing. There are so many [important] parameters to take into consideration, but this mustn't detract from the actual "abstract" pieces that can be achieved with a bit of basic knowhow.
Awesome! Luban can't handle Z seams on cylindrical objects and I was looking for an alternative. Still have to try your profiles, but the explanation is very clear!
@@JohnAldred Not to increase your workload bu is your Snapmaker 1Cura setup still relevant with the latest version and could you update if needed. Thank you. I have the A350 but the original is a crazy workhorse here.
They should work on the A250. You'd just have to adjust the build volume in the machine settings to match the A250, but the print profiles themselves should work fine. :)
@@JohnAldred I got my first successful test cube printed with a silk PLA using your settings. I couldn't get it to do anything before. Although, I also had a failure when I switched to a larger print. I don't know if I missed it in the video or the screen shots, but I had to set my bed temperature in the material profile. I had set the initial layer bed temp to 70 and normal bed temp to 55, but it kept dropping my bed to 50 right away. It took me a minute to figure that out, but once I did and set the temp in the material, it was fine. I'm a total noob at this, but I'm guessing that is due to one of the lines in your starting gcode? Don't get me wrong, it's a feature I like. I'm not complaining, honest. Just sharing incase anyone else has the issue. Thanks again for all the time you've put into sharing this. It is making being a Dnapmaket owner more enjoyable!
Hey Brandon. Yup there was a slight issue with the start gcode - I always use the same temperature throughout a print, so I didn't even think about the first layer temp being different, haha. I've updated the start and end gcodes to take this into account and optimise a couple of things if you want to check the GitHub repository. :)
Thanks for this great resource! Unfortunately for me I don't see the "Nozzle Size" setting in Cura? I was able to make the 'Line Width' setting visible, and it appears as .35mm in the Print Settings. Was this part of the imported profile? I am wondering if I should just set it to .4mm to match the nozzle width? Maybe this is just a quirk of running the Mac version?
The line width should match your nozzle normally. I will occasionally bump it up to 0.5 for fast draft quality prints just to speed them up for test fits and stuff.
thankyou, you are brilliant and a life saver. I'm new to 3d priniting and i had no idea how to use cura for my snapmaker but you provided us with detailed and straight forward tutorial that answered all my questions and I followed every step of it. I know i'm being a liitle pushy but can you do a video for the g-codes regarding the time-lapse for the snapmaker a350. thankyou and god bless you
Hey Marwan! You're very welcome, I'm glad it helped. I do want to do a few videos on shooting timelapse on the Snapmaker 2, but I've got a few others that I need to get done first. Don't worry, though, it is on the list! :)
Great video, Could you also perhaps get into the bed leveling a little bit? I and many other people are struggling with bigger prints but yours looks spot on.
hey man, appreciate the video but I do have a question. I'm getting the snapmaker 2.0 soon too an im excited! But Have you tried to make a 3D mold with different kinds of color and filament? An if you have, did you have to pause it and manually change them out?
I haven't on the Snapmaker, but I've done it with other printers. With those I just cut off the filament and fed the different colour in right behind it. I'm not sure how easy that would be on the Snapmaker with the design of the extruder, but I think you should be able to pause it. The only way to do it without having to pause I think would be to get something like the Mosaic Palette. I haven't had the chance to try one of those yet, but they look pretty awesome.
@@JohnAldred I've just sent mosaic a question in their forum suggesting that they send you a unit to try/test/keep, with a screengrab of the above. Been trying to send it to you via email but cannot find an address on your website for love nor money. #stealth
That would be awesome. I also own a Snapmaker 2 and I've been thinking about the Palette 2. Would love to see how well they work together before pulling the trigger on a purchase
Did you already set up a 1.0mm nozzle profile? If not, have you any tipps and tricks on how I can set up one? From what profile can I start working on?
If you could make a video of any fine turning you have done with your snapmaker that would be very helpful. I spent a lot of time a couple of years ago getting my ender 3 dialed. But I can't seem to get this snapmaker dialed in to print as well as my ender 3.
Hey John! So I am using your profiles to make a figurine and I seem to run into layer separation or curling. I'm using you normal profile and I feel it might be to fast for something like this. Do you have problems like this or should i have used the HQ profile?
I'm not printing too many small figures, or figures with fine detail, but it is possible that it was printing too quickly - or that you might want to enable z-hop. I'd probably give it a go with the HQ profile, but shoot me a message on Facebook if you're still having troubles with that one. :)
I would expect it to be similar to the Snapmaker 2, given that they're both essentially based on the same thing, but as I don't have one, I can't really test. All I can suggest is to start off at a low value, around 1mm, and then increase the retraction by 0.5mm increments until it gets better and then starts getting worse again. When you see it getting worse, dial it back to the best result you got and then switch to 0.1mm increments.
Thank you for your great work and easy to follow video John, I am now using cura and getting great prints from your profiles. I would like to know if you have a link or a video on how to add tree supports to the profiles as I would really like to try them out on some models. Thanks again for your work it has been very helpful to me as a beginner.
Hey Kristian, thank you and you're very welcome. Tree supports (and regular supports) is something I want to do a video about, because there are so many cool things you can do with them in Cura that a lot of people don't seem to know about. But the tree support settings I use are already set up in the profile, so all you need to do is turn on tree supports in the experimental settings and then check the box before you slice. For most models they should be fine as they are. Others might need some tweaking, but it'll give you a starting point for the settings. :)
@@JohnAldred thanks John, I did find the the box for tree supports and gave them a go they worked fantastic, so easy to remove and keep the print clean. Thanks again and I am looking forward to your video on supports.
Great video. Perfect for new users like me. I loaded you start and end codes from GitHub but I'm having an issue. When the printer begins the print it does not do the edge rub of the pre-print extruded filament. It goes straight from the home position to the prind bed to start printing. I have to watch it to grab that bit of filament before it starts. Do I need to add something or did I miss something.
No, that's right. It basically tells the nozzle to start heating up and then homes the printer waiting for it to get to temperature. Normally (at least, it has for me), as soon as it starts printing, if the bed's levelled properly, the filament will get cut off by the corner of the bed as it goes to print. If you want to change that so that it moves to home after it's at temperature, move lines 3-4 to go after the line containing the M190 command. :)
@@JohnAldred What I'm saying is the print head stays up top and never goes to the corner for the filament cut off. It moves from up top straight to printing.
Thank you, Andre! I'm still working on my PETG profiles for Cura. I haven't had the chance to sit down and tweak them lately but I'm hoping to get them released in the next couple of weeks. :)
Hey John, I'm about to print a decently big, but structural part (a 12 wire entry box for the roof of my RV). Now, this will be my first time using Cura with Sam (A350) as well as your profiles, I wanted to ask, I noticed you have gyroid infill on your normal profile care to comment on that? Also, I would be super curious of the differences on your fast, normal, and hq sets. I know, I know, I should really just start printing and getting more familiar with Sam, but I love picking the brain of people more knowledgeable than me. Ohh, and last, I have yet to calibrate Sam. It arrived and everything seemed to be dead on, but I still want to verify at least E-step and dimensional accuracy. Maybe you could chime in on calibrations that you think are important (I see horizonal expansion is here). Anyways, thank you again!
I tend to use Gyroid because it prints fairly quick and seems to give good overall strength in multiple directions. Most of the differences in the different profiles are layer height and print speed for different sections (top/bottom layers, inner/outer walls, etc). The main thing that I think should be calibrated (which will vary for different types of filament) is linear advance. That, for me, made the single biggest improvement in my prints across all my printers.
@@JohnAldred Wow, big thank you for this response. John, thank you for encouraging people to love this and being there to help along the path. I can honestly say that with every answer there is a spark that makes me want to know more. I'm going to dive into linear advance next. For me so far, Acceleration and Jerk is my biggest improvement. 700/7 respectively. It didn't necessarily make better prints (which it did) but it made the movements much more reliable, less random artifacts, and it made the other changes I was making feel more impactful.
It sounds like the filament might have absorbed moisture from the air. If you don't have a filament dryer, pop your build plate to 40 degrees, stick the filament roll on it with a cardboard box on to hold the heat in and just leave it overnight. Hopefully, that should sort it and then the stringing will go away. :)
This is awesome! Thank you for sharing. Is there a reason you chose Gyroid for the infill pattern? It seems like it's a lot more wear and tear on the linear modules as they end up oscillating back and forth a lot, as compared to a grid or tri-hex. Just curious if there was a reason for your choice there.
Mostly I use gyroid because it usually offers the most structural support in all axes for the least amount of filament. Also, because it covers so much space in all three axes, in small areas that only need a little bit of infill, it's pretty much guaranteed to get some (which doesn't always happen with a standard grid). I don't really think it's enough wear and tear to make any real world impact. I think if it's going to kill a printer, that printer was probably going to die early anyway. :)
Hey Louis, I'm not sure. I don't really use the material profiles. There never really seemed to be much point because when I switch between PLA, TPU and PETG, for example, there are way more settings to change than just those shown in the material settings. So, I always just found it easier to set up new print profiles for them instead. The only real advantage I can see to material profiles is the cost estimates.
Thanks John for this great tutorial. I have a newbie question.I removed the Snapmaker print bed and I am using a 4mm creality glass bed and is working great. Do I need to modify the settings in CURA for taking this in account? Thanks again
I haven't tried swapping out the build plate on mine, but as long as you've manually levelled it and got your z-offset right, they should work just fine. :)
The initial layer height is set to 0.3mm. I've found that this tends to give the best latitude for slight unevenness it the flatness of 3D printer build plates (not just the Snapmaker, but in general). It helps to create a more consistent first layer because some areas can squish a little more if needed without totally digging the nozzle into the bed.
Hey John, thanks a lot for this video. Was planning to switch to Cura for a while, and finally found some time. Next I'll be watching your Octoprint video, see if that's enough to get it working with SM 2.0 also... I have one question though, I didn't really understand the discussion you had in the comments below about the gantry height, should it be 330 or 30?
No problem, Paul. If you mouse over the "gantry height" box in Cura, a tooltip pops up which explains it. It's the distance between the bottom of the X axis gantry and the tip of the nozzle - which is about 30mm. :)
Wow, John, this is a great video. Thank you, very much. I'm now wondering if there's a way to send the Cura-generated gcode files to the Snapmaker through wifi, as Luban does? (Actually, I'm not sure it makes that much of a difference operationally because Luban requires that I walk over to the touchscreen, anyway, to press Start.)
Thank you so much, Rex! I *think* (I haven't tested, so I can't be sure) that you might be able to load gcode files directly into Luban and then beam them over WiFi the way you normally would with a file sliced within Luban itself. No guarantees, though. As I said, I haven't tried it myself, haha. But another option would be to look into using Octoprint on a Raspberry Pi connected to the printer for remote control over WiFi. I covered that for the original Snapmaker a little while ago (th-cam.com/video/WU27qWiyNjg/w-d-xo.html) and I'm planning on doing an updated video for it with the Snapmaker 2.0 as soon as I get chance. :)
@@MrDwienie , thanks. I really don't have a complaint with Luban's print quality results (so far they've been superb, honestly) but the entire Luban interface turns me off. The process for creating new profiles for different filaments and print speeds and temperatures, etc., is a bit warped, in my view. So, I'm going to give Cura a try and see which I like better.
To confirm, yes, this is doable. After you slice in Cura: In Luban, click into the Workspace (upper left corner, button shows X-Y-Z axes). Then, in upper right, click the blue button to "Open G-code File" - that brings your Cura slice straight into Luban. From there, you can connect to your Snapmaker 2.0 via wifi and send the file over.
Hi John, I have had my A350 in boxes since August-ish last year but finally had time to put it together today, Iv'e updated the firmware for touch screen and controller and just in the process of setting up cura when I stumbled upon this, I've seen you alot on the Snapmaker forums and appreciate the detail you've gone into with this video. I have three questions - 1. Should I do anything else for now before I try printing anything. 2. this is for Cura 4.8 and ive just gotten to the part in your video which points me to your Github 4.8 profiles and Cura has just gone into 4.9 will these files still work or should I stick with 4.8? 3. What should I print first a XYZ cube thingy or a benchy (or is there a more fun but still easy first print to do asking this as my wife saw a simple polymer ring on thingyverse (she then saw they made a remake with a tpu insert to turn it into a fidget spinner ring (may hold off on tpu for now :) ))). - Regards, Jeremy
Hey Jeremy, grats on finally getting it together, haha! :) 1. You shouldn't really need to do anything unless you start seeing problems. You might need to calibrate your extruder, but I wouldn't worry about it unless issues pop up. 2. They *should* work just fine in Cura 4.9, although I haven't had chance to test them myself yet. I've heard reports that they do. 3. I'd go with the cube first, just to double check that your X, Y & Z axes are all plugged in the right holes and dimensions are accurate. Then give a benchy a go. They don't take too long to do and they're easy to find solutions for if problems pop up because so many people print them. Then you can jump onto the other stuff your wife wants. :)
Hey John, great work! Just installed Cura and will try it out. I am not so happy with Luban as I had even trouble already 2 times as the head went right at the start into the bed.... nasty bug. Probably G-code generation issue. After generating it again it worked... Do you plan to create also other profiles for materials? I did some research and the PRUSA filament seems to be very good for a fair price. I just ordered: Prusament PETG Ultramarine Blue for easy prints Prusament ASA Prusa for my caravan and outdoor tools Flexfil 98A for some slightly felxible housings. Br David
Hey David, thank you! Yes, I do plan to do profiles for PETG and other materials as I can get to them. I just have too much on my "to print" list right now, haha. But yes, I will most definitely be creating profiles for other filaments as the opportunity arises. :)
@@JohnAldred Just seen your PLA+ video... difficult to catch up with all new materials that are comming :) Looking forward to you PETG profiles :) My PETG is comming next week :) Wish you a nice week!
The main thing with smaller nozzles is that you typically have to slow them down quite a bit sometimes, because they're not able to push out filament at the same rate. You might need to tweak the retraction, but just try printing with it, see what happens, and then slow it down first if issues pop up and try printing again before checking other settings. :)
@@JohnAldred thanks. I’ve found that for very tiny objects I need to print at 5-7mm/s, and 110% flow. Also had to modify the model some, but got it to work for a 10mm German shepherd. Now to see if that’s going to work for others.
I have added my original Snapmaker to Cura. That's what I've been using with it since very early on (Snapmakerjs wasn't great for printing). I'll see if I can get a video together on that. :)
Has anyone had any issues with these profiles? I feel like I’m missing out by not using them, but I’ve done countless tests including all different qualities, support (tree and regular), and different models (all smaller He-Man sized action figure parts), the print falls apart after a few layers into a spaghetti like mess and it doesn’t stick to the build plate in areas (even with a clean plate and glue sticks). Is it too fast of a profile for a smaller models? I may dial that down next, however the super fast times was too tempting not to use compared to the other official Snapmaker 2 A350 profile for Cura.
So, I created them and even I still need to tweak them occasionally depending on the model. Some models just place demands that need a certain feature to be enabled or disabled in order for the best results. Or maybe adjusting the horizontal expansion or line width (which can be a little more or less than the nozzle diameter) will give a cleaner smoother result - or a quicker print. I don't know about the Luban profiles (I don't use them), but I've printed fairly small models with my profiles and they've done quite well overall. Some filaments (particularly silk ones) do sometimes string a bit with my fast profile, but that's easily taken care of with a heat gun if you're careful. :)
When I used this profile on cura to slice a file it estimated the time for my print at 89hours. The same file sliced on luban was estimated at 64hours. Is this the same sort of results that you are having or did I do something wrong?
The estimate is going to be based entirely on the model. My profiles are set to print the first layer very slowly to ensure that it holds well to the build plate and then it speeds up. If the surface area of that first layer is large enough, it could potentially take longer than whatever setting is used in Snapmaker Luban. As to whether it normally produces longer or shorter estimates than Luban, I've no idea. I don't use Luban at all for printing. I don't even have it installed. :)
@@JohnAldred Ok that makes sense. It’s funny that you answered back right now since I’m currently watching another of your videos on updating my firmware. (I definitely haven’t done it at all since getting my Snapmaker last June)
I want to thank you for this video, the profiles and the continued education. I used Cura for the first time last night with your PLA profiles. Worked perfectly. Printed faster than the Luban slicer. Any experience with PETG and profiles for those yet ?
Download the Snapmaker 2.0 PLA Cura profiles here - github.com/Kaouthia/Snapmaker-2/
Get 10% off Eryone filament with code "johnaldred" on checkout - eryone3d.com/
PETG & ABS PROFILE? PLEASE
Just found your video after receiving my A350T, and I have to say, a big thank you and how well you have put this video together, no waffle, no BS just the information required and just the right amount of detail and beautifully voiced. Big well done from me.
Thanks, Mark! 😊
Thank you for your dedicated work in exploring options and refining results for the benefit of the community.
Hello John, I'm currently learning 3D printing and came across this video for my 3D printer, just wanted to say thank you for all the hard work and hours spent on doing this for us the noobs! Keep it up and cheers!
You're very welcome, John. I'm glad it's helping! And thank you :)
.Hello John, ditto to that comment from John Marmolejos. I’ve been following your great videos lately and it has helped me significantly. With all our hardware stores closed in Barbados due to the Covid lockdown, I’ve had to resort to printing parts which I would normally run to the hardware to purchase. Two recent ones, which your videos greatly assisted in making, are star knobs and eye bolts for a flip top tool stand I’m building. Keep up the good work and I will surely use your links whenever possible to support you.
Very nice video! Luban was spitting out insane print times on small objects after modeling in Fusion 360, so I got Cura to see if a better slicing program would help, and I've managed to take a print from around 28 hours with Luban's fast print setting to just over 2 hours with your fast print Cura profile.
Just so everyone knows, Snapmaker 2 is now an option in machine drop down list in Cura when setting up. Also you can add the Snapmaker extension in cura to directly send G code files to your Snapmaker 2 machine via Wi-Fi. No more having to use the USB stick to transfer files. Cura did not correctly identify my Snapmaker's address so if your having trouble sending to your machine check the IP address that Cura is trying to connect to, if necessary, edit it to the correct address. if you open Luben software it will tell you your Snapmaker's IP address in the box just above the 'Connect' tab
Thank you for all of your work. I was working on learning Cura and struggling with getting it set up. This moved me many steps ahead! The g-code now works on My A350. And bonus is the normal print profile does a much nicer job in less time! Maybe if someone tweaked Luban enough you could get close, but I’m happy to have this along with some setting I had wanted to play with like combing and ironing!
I'm glad it helped! I don't do much ironing with my prints (I'm too impatient, lol), but combing is a very handy feature. :)
Very clear and helpful! You can suggest Snapmaker to get in touch with Cura team to add Snapmaker models into the printer list. That should simply some pre-setup steps.
Hey Jade! Thanks for watching. Funnily enough, I did exactly what you suggest yesterday, haha. Hopefully, Cura will add it at some point. :)
Thank You!!! Very useful information for me upgrading from Anet A8 to Snapmaker.
You're very welcome, glad it helped! :)
Great work John. Very keen on your PETG settings and happy to do some parallel testing for you!
Thanks, Chris! As soon as I get working on the PETG profiles, I'll be posting in the group and will definitely let you know when I've got something available to test. :)
Awesome, clear and concise video John! Thanks for taking some of the guess work / hours of research out m, enabling us to enjoy our Snapmaker’s!
Thanks Paul! And no problem, I'm glad it helps :)
Good work, I might link people here if they've got trouble setting up their profile. One thing that you might want to add to your settings is "Combing mode: Not in Skin". This setting avoids travel lines in the first layer leading to a better finish. Not so important for parts that you never watch from below, but if you want a clean bottom, this is the setting you need.
Thank you! The profiles should have combing mode set to "Within Infill" (I'll double check and make sure that they are). This does everything "Not in Skin" does, but more. The problem with "Not in Skin" is that it will still travel through non-skin parts of walls (basically over walls that aren't the outermost wall). Meaning that it can still drag filament through walls and give some sideways squeeze-out where you don't want it, forcing your outer wall to have to squish around it, which doesn't always look pretty.
@@JohnAldred Good to know, thank you!
I researched the subject a little more and found this comparison of the various combing modes: www.lpomykal.cz/cura-combing-mode/ Looking at the pictures, I guess I'll stay with "Not in Skin".
I've never seen results with "Not in skin" anything like what's shown there. I'm guessing something else was going on. But you can always just make some test prints and see with your own eyes. :)
Thank you for this video. Its really helpful; if nothing else it has shown me that I have some learning to do to get my prints looking perfect.
You're very welcome! And don't worry, you'll get 'em looking great :)
Thank you John! Regrettably as with Luban and S3D I simply am unable to print without a raft. I hope the glass build surface I ordered helps me with this issue.
That's a bummer. I'm actually planning out a bed levelling video for the SM2 at the moment, with some possible tricks for dealing with warped beds. Fortunately, mine's pretty flat, but I still think it could be improved, so I'll definitely be putting that to the test. :)
I would just like to throw in my 2c on this issue. When you install your bed, snug all the screws down first, then tighten in a second step from center - outwards. The reason I say this is because if there is anything preventing the screw head from centering completely it will offset the bed slightly and cause it to push up just a little. That's how I do mine, I've not had the slightest indication of bed leveling issues. Although, I smash my first layer down like a heathen, it looks ugly, until about layer 3, but it works great for me.
Thank you so much for this! Can't wait to try out Cura with my SM2
You're welcome, good luck! :)
snapmaker is now on there official list when setting up is there any point to useing your profiles over the ones on list?
Well explained.......now to put it into practice!!! Keep up the good work.
Thanks, Derek. Good luck! :)
@@JohnAldred Thanks John. I'll keep you posted (and anyone else who is interested). I don't know about you but I am beginning to find that the line between artist and craftsman is getting thinner when it comes to 3D printing. There are so many [important] parameters to take into consideration, but this mustn't detract from the actual "abstract" pieces that can be achieved with a bit of basic knowhow.
Hi John, It looks like CURA has woken up and smelt the coffee as they now have version 4.10 that includes all the Snapmaker models.
Epic work gonna check out your profiles. Thx
Thanks, Tahsin! :)
Awesome! Luban can't handle Z seams on cylindrical objects and I was looking for an alternative. Still have to try your profiles, but the explanation is very clear!
Thank you! Good luck when you get chance to try them. :)
Thank you John, I REALLY needed this. Very much appreciated.
No problem, JS, you're very welcome! :)
@@JohnAldred Not to increase your workload bu is your Snapmaker 1Cura setup still relevant with the latest version and could you update if needed. Thank you. I have the A350 but the original is a crazy workhorse here.
Hi, can I use those settings on A250 or those settings work only on A350?
They should work on the A250. You'd just have to adjust the build volume in the machine settings to match the A250, but the print profiles themselves should work fine. :)
Thank you for this John! I'll be sure to use your affiliate links when I need some more printer ink.
Hey, thanks GL! :)
Very appreciated information! Thank you John!
Not a problem, glad it helped! :)
@@JohnAldred I got my first successful test cube printed with a silk PLA using your settings. I couldn't get it to do anything before. Although, I also had a failure when I switched to a larger print. I don't know if I missed it in the video or the screen shots, but I had to set my bed temperature in the material profile. I had set the initial layer bed temp to 70 and normal bed temp to 55, but it kept dropping my bed to 50 right away. It took me a minute to figure that out, but once I did and set the temp in the material, it was fine. I'm a total noob at this, but I'm guessing that is due to one of the lines in your starting gcode? Don't get me wrong, it's a feature I like. I'm not complaining, honest. Just sharing incase anyone else has the issue. Thanks again for all the time you've put into sharing this. It is making being a Dnapmaket owner more enjoyable!
Hey Brandon. Yup there was a slight issue with the start gcode - I always use the same temperature throughout a print, so I didn't even think about the first layer temp being different, haha. I've updated the start and end gcodes to take this into account and optimise a couple of things if you want to check the GitHub repository. :)
Oh awesome! Thank you again for all your time and educating us noobs. 8)
Thanks for this great resource! Unfortunately for me I don't see the "Nozzle Size" setting in Cura? I was able to make the 'Line Width' setting visible, and it appears as .35mm in the Print Settings. Was this part of the imported profile? I am wondering if I should just set it to .4mm to match the nozzle width? Maybe this is just a quirk of running the Mac version?
Hmm... installed on a laptop and the setting was present, so perhaps just a quirk with my setup.
The line width should match your nozzle normally. I will occasionally bump it up to 0.5 for fast draft quality prints just to speed them up for test fits and stuff.
thankyou, you are brilliant and a life saver. I'm new to 3d priniting and i had no idea how to use cura for my snapmaker but you provided us with detailed and straight forward tutorial that answered all my questions and I followed every step of it.
I know i'm being a liitle pushy but can you do a video for the g-codes regarding the time-lapse for the snapmaker a350.
thankyou and god bless you
Hey Marwan! You're very welcome, I'm glad it helped. I do want to do a few videos on shooting timelapse on the Snapmaker 2, but I've got a few others that I need to get done first. Don't worry, though, it is on the list! :)
thank you and I appreciate all the content that you provide us.
can't wait to see more of projects and content
Great video,
Could you also perhaps get into the bed leveling a little bit?
I and many other people are struggling with bigger prints but yours looks spot on.
I will be doing something on the bed at some point, but I don't know how soon that may be. My list is getting big, haha.
@@JohnAldred As long as it is on the list that's good enough for me :D
hey man, appreciate the video but I do have a question. I'm getting the snapmaker 2.0 soon too an im excited! But Have you tried to make a 3D mold with different kinds of color and filament? An if you have, did you have to pause it and manually change them out?
I haven't on the Snapmaker, but I've done it with other printers. With those I just cut off the filament and fed the different colour in right behind it. I'm not sure how easy that would be on the Snapmaker with the design of the extruder, but I think you should be able to pause it. The only way to do it without having to pause I think would be to get something like the Mosaic Palette. I haven't had the chance to try one of those yet, but they look pretty awesome.
@@JohnAldred I've just sent mosaic a question in their forum suggesting that they send you a unit to try/test/keep, with a screengrab of the above. Been trying to send it to you via email but cannot find an address on your website for love nor money. #stealth
Hey, thanks, JS! If you look at the about page here on the TH-cam channel, there's an email contact :)
That would be awesome. I also own a Snapmaker 2 and I've been thinking about the Palette 2. Would love to see how well they work together before pulling the trigger on a purchase
Did you already set up a 1.0mm nozzle profile? If not, have you any tipps and tricks on how I can set up one? From what profile can I start working on?
This is an epic video! And lots of prints
Thanks, Udi! :)
If you could make a video of any fine turning you have done with your snapmaker that would be very helpful. I spent a lot of time a couple of years ago getting my ender 3 dialed. But I can't seem to get this snapmaker dialed in to print as well as my ender 3.
I haven't really done much to it at all except levelling it and tweaking linear advance, but that video is on my to-do list! :)
Thank you so much! Very helpful.
You're very welcome, glad it helped!
Hey John! So I am using your profiles to make a figurine and I seem to run into layer separation or curling. I'm using you normal profile and I feel it might be to fast for something like this. Do you have problems like this or should i have used the HQ profile?
I'm not printing too many small figures, or figures with fine detail, but it is possible that it was printing too quickly - or that you might want to enable z-hop. I'd probably give it a go with the HQ profile, but shoot me a message on Facebook if you're still having troubles with that one. :)
good work fellow left hander!
Can you give me some advice on how to set up the retraction distance on a snapmaker artisan?
I would expect it to be similar to the Snapmaker 2, given that they're both essentially based on the same thing, but as I don't have one, I can't really test. All I can suggest is to start off at a low value, around 1mm, and then increase the retraction by 0.5mm increments until it gets better and then starts getting worse again. When you see it getting worse, dial it back to the best result you got and then switch to 0.1mm increments.
Thank you for your great work and easy to follow video John, I am now using cura and getting great prints from your profiles. I would like to know if you have a link or a video on how to add tree supports to the profiles as I would really like to try them out on some models. Thanks again for your work it has been very helpful to me as a beginner.
Hey Kristian, thank you and you're very welcome. Tree supports (and regular supports) is something I want to do a video about, because there are so many cool things you can do with them in Cura that a lot of people don't seem to know about. But the tree support settings I use are already set up in the profile, so all you need to do is turn on tree supports in the experimental settings and then check the box before you slice. For most models they should be fine as they are. Others might need some tweaking, but it'll give you a starting point for the settings. :)
@@JohnAldred thanks John, I did find the the box for tree supports and gave them a go they worked fantastic, so easy to remove and keep the print clean. Thanks again and I am looking forward to your video on supports.
Great video. Perfect for new users like me. I loaded you start and end codes from GitHub but I'm having an issue. When the printer begins the print it does not do the edge rub of the pre-print extruded filament. It goes straight from the home position to the prind bed to start printing. I have to watch it to grab that bit of filament before it starts. Do I need to add something or did I miss something.
No, that's right. It basically tells the nozzle to start heating up and then homes the printer waiting for it to get to temperature. Normally (at least, it has for me), as soon as it starts printing, if the bed's levelled properly, the filament will get cut off by the corner of the bed as it goes to print. If you want to change that so that it moves to home after it's at temperature, move lines 3-4 to go after the line containing the M190 command. :)
@@JohnAldred What I'm saying is the print head stays up top and never goes to the corner for the filament cut off. It moves from up top straight to printing.
That's very strange. Did you copy+paste the start gcode from the text file? Or did you type it in manually? Are you on the most recent firmware?
This is one if the best video I found. explains all clear. thanks
Where can I find PETG profile for cura ? any idea?
Thank you, Andre! I'm still working on my PETG profiles for Cura. I haven't had the chance to sit down and tweak them lately but I'm hoping to get them released in the next couple of weeks. :)
Hey John, I'm about to print a decently big, but structural part (a 12 wire entry box for the roof of my RV). Now, this will be my first time using Cura with Sam (A350) as well as your profiles, I wanted to ask, I noticed you have gyroid infill on your normal profile care to comment on that? Also, I would be super curious of the differences on your fast, normal, and hq sets. I know, I know, I should really just start printing and getting more familiar with Sam, but I love picking the brain of people more knowledgeable than me.
Ohh, and last, I have yet to calibrate Sam. It arrived and everything seemed to be dead on, but I still want to verify at least E-step and dimensional accuracy. Maybe you could chime in on calibrations that you think are important (I see horizonal expansion is here). Anyways, thank you again!
I tend to use Gyroid because it prints fairly quick and seems to give good overall strength in multiple directions. Most of the differences in the different profiles are layer height and print speed for different sections (top/bottom layers, inner/outer walls, etc). The main thing that I think should be calibrated (which will vary for different types of filament) is linear advance. That, for me, made the single biggest improvement in my prints across all my printers.
@@JohnAldred Wow, big thank you for this response. John, thank you for encouraging people to love this and being there to help along the path. I can honestly say that with every answer there is a spark that makes me want to know more. I'm going to dive into linear advance next. For me so far, Acceleration and Jerk is my biggest improvement. 700/7 respectively. It didn't necessarily make better prints (which it did) but it made the movements much more reliable, less random artifacts, and it made the other changes I was making feel more impactful.
Thank you, that video is excellent for a newbie like me
No problem, Rúnar! I'm glad it was helpful. :)
i'm getting stringing with your porfiles and the ones from cura ive changed reT settings and temp but it don't get better?
It sounds like the filament might have absorbed moisture from the air. If you don't have a filament dryer, pop your build plate to 40 degrees, stick the filament roll on it with a cardboard box on to hold the heat in and just leave it overnight. Hopefully, that should sort it and then the stringing will go away. :)
Thank you man !
nice explanations !
You're very welcome, and thank you! :)
This is awesome! Thank you for sharing. Is there a reason you chose Gyroid for the infill pattern? It seems like it's a lot more wear and tear on the linear modules as they end up oscillating back and forth a lot, as compared to a grid or tri-hex. Just curious if there was a reason for your choice there.
Mostly I use gyroid because it usually offers the most structural support in all axes for the least amount of filament. Also, because it covers so much space in all three axes, in small areas that only need a little bit of infill, it's pretty much guaranteed to get some (which doesn't always happen with a standard grid). I don't really think it's enough wear and tear to make any real world impact. I think if it's going to kill a printer, that printer was probably going to die early anyway. :)
Thanks a bundle, grateful rookie right here!! :-)
You're welcome! :)
Hi John..How do I set it up to pull my materials profile instead?
Hey Louis, I'm not sure. I don't really use the material profiles. There never really seemed to be much point because when I switch between PLA, TPU and PETG, for example, there are way more settings to change than just those shown in the material settings. So, I always just found it easier to set up new print profiles for them instead. The only real advantage I can see to material profiles is the cost estimates.
Thanks John for this great tutorial. I have a newbie question.I removed the Snapmaker print bed and I am using a 4mm creality glass bed and is working great. Do I need to modify the settings in CURA for taking this in account? Thanks again
I haven't tried swapping out the build plate on mine, but as long as you've manually levelled it and got your z-offset right, they should work just fine. :)
Nicely done, what are your initial later height and width set up to. I had to turn my initial later height down to 88 %
The initial layer height is set to 0.3mm. I've found that this tends to give the best latitude for slight unevenness it the flatness of 3D printer build plates (not just the Snapmaker, but in general). It helps to create a more consistent first layer because some areas can squish a little more if needed without totally digging the nozzle into the bed.
Do you have any tips on adjusting the support density??
Hey John, thanks a lot for this video. Was planning to switch to Cura for a while, and finally found some time. Next I'll be watching your Octoprint video, see if that's enough to get it working with SM 2.0 also...
I have one question though, I didn't really understand the discussion you had in the comments below about the gantry height, should it be 330 or 30?
No problem, Paul. If you mouse over the "gantry height" box in Cura, a tooltip pops up which explains it. It's the distance between the bottom of the X axis gantry and the tip of the nozzle - which is about 30mm. :)
Are you going do profile for abs?
Wow, John, this is a great video. Thank you, very much. I'm now wondering if there's a way to send the Cura-generated gcode files to the Snapmaker through wifi, as Luban does? (Actually, I'm not sure it makes that much of a difference operationally because Luban requires that I walk over to the touchscreen, anyway, to press Start.)
Thank you so much, Rex! I *think* (I haven't tested, so I can't be sure) that you might be able to load gcode files directly into Luban and then beam them over WiFi the way you normally would with a file sliced within Luban itself. No guarantees, though. As I said, I haven't tried it myself, haha. But another option would be to look into using Octoprint on a Raspberry Pi connected to the printer for remote control over WiFi. I covered that for the original Snapmaker a little while ago (th-cam.com/video/WU27qWiyNjg/w-d-xo.html) and I'm planning on doing an updated video for it with the Snapmaker 2.0 as soon as I get chance. :)
Yes I do what John suggest, just import the Gcode in Luban and send it by Wifi to your snapmaker.
@@MrDwienie , thanks. I really don't have a complaint with Luban's print quality results (so far they've been superb, honestly) but the entire Luban interface turns me off. The process for creating new profiles for different filaments and print speeds and temperatures, etc., is a bit warped, in my view. So, I'm going to give Cura a try and see which I like better.
To confirm, yes, this is doable. After you slice in Cura: In Luban, click into the Workspace (upper left corner, button shows X-Y-Z axes). Then, in upper right, click the blue button to "Open G-code File" - that brings your Cura slice straight into Luban. From there, you can connect to your Snapmaker 2.0 via wifi and send the file over.
Brilliant video, keep it up!
Thanks, Adam! :)
Hi John, I have had my A350 in boxes since August-ish last year but finally had time to put it together today, Iv'e updated the firmware for touch screen and controller and just in the process of setting up cura when I stumbled upon this, I've seen you alot on the Snapmaker forums and appreciate the detail you've gone into with this video. I have three questions - 1. Should I do anything else for now before I try printing anything. 2. this is for Cura 4.8 and ive just gotten to the part in your video which points me to your Github 4.8 profiles and Cura has just gone into 4.9 will these files still work or should I stick with 4.8? 3. What should I print first a XYZ cube thingy or a benchy (or is there a more fun but still easy first print to do asking this as my wife saw a simple polymer ring on thingyverse (she then saw they made a remake with a tpu insert to turn it into a fidget spinner ring (may hold off on tpu for now :) ))). - Regards, Jeremy
Hey Jeremy, grats on finally getting it together, haha! :)
1. You shouldn't really need to do anything unless you start seeing problems. You might need to calibrate your extruder, but I wouldn't worry about it unless issues pop up.
2. They *should* work just fine in Cura 4.9, although I haven't had chance to test them myself yet. I've heard reports that they do.
3. I'd go with the cube first, just to double check that your X, Y & Z axes are all plugged in the right holes and dimensions are accurate. Then give a benchy a go. They don't take too long to do and they're easy to find solutions for if problems pop up because so many people print them. Then you can jump onto the other stuff your wife wants. :)
Hey John,
great work! Just installed Cura and will try it out. I am not so happy with Luban as I had even trouble already 2 times as the head went right at the start into the bed.... nasty bug. Probably G-code generation issue. After generating it again it worked...
Do you plan to create also other profiles for materials? I did some research and the PRUSA filament seems to be very good for a fair price.
I just ordered:
Prusament PETG Ultramarine Blue for easy prints
Prusament ASA Prusa for my caravan and outdoor tools
Flexfil 98A for some slightly felxible housings.
Br
David
Hey David, thank you! Yes, I do plan to do profiles for PETG and other materials as I can get to them. I just have too much on my "to print" list right now, haha. But yes, I will most definitely be creating profiles for other filaments as the opportunity arises. :)
@@JohnAldred Just seen your PLA+ video... difficult to catch up with all new materials that are comming :)
Looking forward to you PETG profiles :) My PETG is comming next week :) Wish you a nice week!
Any recommendations on settings to change for a 0.2mm nozzle (I’m interested in printing HO and N scale models)?
The main thing with smaller nozzles is that you typically have to slow them down quite a bit sometimes, because they're not able to push out filament at the same rate. You might need to tweak the retraction, but just try printing with it, see what happens, and then slow it down first if issues pop up and try printing again before checking other settings. :)
@@JohnAldred thanks. I’ve found that for very tiny objects I need to print at 5-7mm/s, and 110% flow. Also had to modify the model some, but got it to work for a 10mm German shepherd. Now to see if that’s going to work for others.
Hello, can someone tell me how to add my snapmaker original to Cura? Thank you!
I have added my original Snapmaker to Cura. That's what I've been using with it since very early on (Snapmakerjs wasn't great for printing). I'll see if I can get a video together on that. :)
For A250, are all settings identical except X, Y, Z?
Yup! That's the only thing you should need to change. Everything else is the same.
Has anyone had any issues with these profiles? I feel like I’m missing out by not using them, but I’ve done countless tests including all different qualities, support (tree and regular), and different models (all smaller He-Man sized action figure parts), the print falls apart after a few layers into a spaghetti like mess and it doesn’t stick to the build plate in areas (even with a clean plate and glue sticks).
Is it too fast of a profile for a smaller models? I may dial that down next, however the super fast times was too tempting not to use compared to the other official Snapmaker 2 A350 profile for Cura.
So, I created them and even I still need to tweak them occasionally depending on the model. Some models just place demands that need a certain feature to be enabled or disabled in order for the best results. Or maybe adjusting the horizontal expansion or line width (which can be a little more or less than the nozzle diameter) will give a cleaner smoother result - or a quicker print.
I don't know about the Luban profiles (I don't use them), but I've printed fairly small models with my profiles and they've done quite well overall. Some filaments (particularly silk ones) do sometimes string a bit with my fast profile, but that's easily taken care of with a heat gun if you're careful. :)
When I used this profile on cura to slice a file it estimated the time for my print at 89hours. The same file sliced on luban was estimated at 64hours. Is this the same sort of results that you are having or did I do something wrong?
The estimate is going to be based entirely on the model. My profiles are set to print the first layer very slowly to ensure that it holds well to the build plate and then it speeds up. If the surface area of that first layer is large enough, it could potentially take longer than whatever setting is used in Snapmaker Luban. As to whether it normally produces longer or shorter estimates than Luban, I've no idea. I don't use Luban at all for printing. I don't even have it installed. :)
@@JohnAldred Ok that makes sense. It’s funny that you answered back right now since I’m currently watching another of your videos on updating my firmware. (I definitely haven’t done it at all since getting my Snapmaker last June)
I want to thank you for this video, the profiles and the continued education. I used Cura for the first time last night with your PLA profiles. Worked perfectly. Printed faster than the Luban slicer. Any experience with PETG and profiles for those yet ?
You're very welcome. I've just posted TPU this week. I'm working on PETG at the moment and it will be coming soon. :)
What about the download files to use for snapmaker original 3 in 1 model? Can this 2.0 download work?
Nice one mate looking good don 🤠🇬🇧👍👍👍👌👌
Thank you! :)
Thanx You John.. SUPER JOB.
You're welcome, jeeffi, hope it helps! :)
hi, is this compatible with the A250?
It should be. You'd just need to change the build volume :)
Will this setup work for Cura 5.3.0?
Well done, thank you.
You're very welcome! :)
Thank you so much for the Cura profiles. I really didn't like the other slicer.
No problem, glad they're useful for you! :)
Is this still up to date?
What is with the 350T?
I'm not sure what you mean. With it how?
Kudos and thanks.
Thanks Doug, and you're most welcome! :)
You are the boss
J1 s ? Cura add
Unfortunately, I don't have the J1, so I've no idea how to create a profile for that one. :)