Rapidia Cura 5 Tour from Rapidia on Vimeo.
Download Rapidia Cura 5 here.
New Rapidia Print update will be released soon!
Rapidia Print is our print management software. It provides built-in extrusion calibration, extruder alignment, and print monitoring.
Download Rapidia Print here.
All settings are grouped identically to how they appear in Cura's User Interface when 'Show Custom' settings is selected. The notable exception is 'Material' which combination of Slicer settings and the Drying Lamp parameters found within Rapidia Print. There are accompanying descriptions for each settings' relevancy to our unique printing + sintering process, where applicable.
All settings are in As Printed, not As Sintered dimensions.
| Setting Name | Value | Description | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Quality | |||
| Layer Height | 0.25 mm | Metal Paste Deposition (MPD) is very sensitive to the (layer height / nozzle diameter) ratio for dispensing accuracy and effective drying. For a 0.40mm nozzle, we've found that values between 0.20-0.30mm work well. Values outside this range are known to cause poor performance. | |
| Initial Layer Height | 0.25 mm | Kept the same as Layer Height by default. We've left it exposed as an optional parameter for when there are consistent first layer fill issues. The strategy is to adjust the value in very small increments of 0.005-0.01mm: increase for over-extrusion, decrease for under-extrusion. | |
| Line Width | 0.4 mm | Usually the same as the nozzle diameter. If you are struggling with thin wall features, adjusting it to be slightly larger (5-10%) can compensate for issues with the variable line width slicer engine. | |
| Initial Layer Line Width | 100% | ||
| Walls | |||
| Z Seam Alignment | Sharpest Corner | Sharpest Corner forces the slicer to place the seam at hard edges, making it easier to hide them (inside corners) or clean up the surface by hand (outside corners.) There are other strategies for selecting the Z Seam location but it's typically part-specific; Z-Seam control is an advanced slicing topic itself. | |
| Seam Corner Preference | Expose Seam | Exposing the seam location by default makes it easier to clean up the seam line in the green state. | |
| Wall Line Count | 3 | ||
| Optimize Wall Printing Order | Active | This setting speeds up the sliced part toolpath by deciding to print inside or outside walls first with the goal of minimizing wasted toolhead movements. | |
| Hole Horizontal Expansion | 0.0 mm | An optional parameter that we initialize to 0. In FFF printing (or our similar MPD process,) holes often print undersized due to polygonization errors in STL conversion and slicing algorithm errors. Cura provides this setting to apply a fixed offset to hole sizes in each layer. It's a setting you may adjust by 0.1-0.3mm while printing multiple iterations if the holes come out consistently smaller despite the rest of the part being within spec or oversized. However, Cura applies this value to every hole in the part, therefore it's better to make these iteration-specific hole size changes within the original CAD model itself. | |
| Top/Bottom | |||
| Top/Bottom Layers | 4 | ||
| Monotonic Top/Bottom Order | Disabled | ||
| Infill | |||
| Infill Density | 25.0% | ||
| Infill Pattern | Zig Zag | ||
| Infill Overlap Percentage | 10.0 % | ||
| Infill Layer Thickness | 0.25 mm | Same value as Layer Height | |
| Gradual Infill Steps | 0 | ||
| Material | |||
| Scaling Factor Shrinkage Compensation | Varies | The slicer scales up all parts on the buildplate by this percentage. There can be separate scaling factors for xy and z, respectively. See material-dependent settings here. | |
| Build Plate Temperature | 40°C | ||
| Lamp Speed Multiplier | 2.00 | ||
| Lamp Min Speed | 6000 mm/m | ||
| Lamp Max Speed | 10000 mm/m | ||
| Z Layer Threshold | 0 | ||
| Number of Lamp Passes | 2 | ||
| Wait After Each Layer | 0 s | ||
| Speed | |||
| Print Speed | 40.0 mm/s | ||
| Wall Speed | 30.0 mm/s | ||
| Travel Speed | 100.0 mm/s | ||
| Enable Acceleration Control | Active | ||
| Travel | |||
| Enable Retraction | Active | ||
| Retract at Layer Change | Active | ||
| Retraction Distance | 1.0 mm | ||
| Retraction Speed | 25.0 mm/s | ||
| Z Hop When Retracted | Active | ||
| Z Hop Height | 1.0 mm | ||
| Z Hop After Extruder Switch | Active | ||
| Support | |||
| Generate Support | Active | If this is enabled, Cura will generate support structures automatically. It's possible to supplement these auto-generated supports by placing additional modifier volumes with the property Print as support selected; they are not mutually exclusive. However, disabling Generate Support allows the use of modifier volumes to place supports exactly where you want them - convenient for cases where custom supports have been modelled beforehand. | |
| Support Structure | Normal | Tree Supports print reasonably well with MPD but cause more issues in sintering with non-uniform shrinkage and mold-lock. We do not recommend them since the basis of our slicing knowledge comes from traditional support generation strategies (Normal). | |
| Support Placement | Everywhere | For most parts, if support is needed, it's needed Everywhere. There are exceptions where Touching Buildplate is useful (Generating a sintering support separately from the printed part) but these are limited to unusual advanced slicing techniques. | |
| Support Overhang Angle | 40.0 | MPD is not as tolerant of unsupported overhangs as traditional plastic FFF due to the different solidification mechanics. 40 degrees is a conservative value to guarantee success for every overhang. In practice, 45 degrees is achieveable and parts with 50-55 degrees have printed successfully, albeit for specific geometries. | |
| Support Pattern | Zig Zag | ||
| Support Density | 50.0 % | 50% is a reasonable | |
| Support Horizontal Expansion | 0.0 mm | ||
| Support Infill Layer Thickness | 0.25 mm | Same as Layer Height. | |
| Gradual Support Infill Steps | 1 | ||
| Gradual Support Infill Step Height | 1.0 mm | ||
| Enable Support Interface (Roof/Floor) | Active | Interface layers are a requirement for sintering with separable metal supports. | |
| Support Interface Pattern | Concentric | A Concentric interface pattern follows the part contours as closely as possible, ensuring that the contacting part surface prints as best as possible. | |
| Build Plate Adhesion | |||
| Build Plate Adhesion Type | Raft | Besides None, this is the only applicable setting type for the MPD technology. Rafts are critical to uniform shrinkage during sinter while also functioning as a buffer for adhesion issues. | |
| Raft Middle Layers | 8 | Controls the thickness of the metal raft. Adjust this parameter to strike a balance between not wasting material for small parts (less layers) and ensuring the raft doesn't crack during the sintering of heavy parts (more layers). Typical range is 6-12 layers (1.5mm - 3mm as-printed) but exceptionally heavy parts can require additional raft thickness. |