Cura 5.0 and FDG profiles

 

Ultimaker has recently released version 5.0 of its Cura FDM slicer, and Tom Tullis of Fat Dragon Games has, as usual, provided the 3d printing community with some excellent profiles for the Ender 3-ish printer family. They're available via his website, as usual.

Cura has an all-new slicing engine, and the improvements in its rendition of surface detail are marked.

This is one of Tom's own FDG miniatures, designed to be printed supportless. The print shows some striations and boogers; that's because I'm too lazy to be constantly tinkering with my machine to keep it in a state of ultimate tuning, and also it's getting a bit long in the tooth now. I'm not too concerned; at tabletop distances, those imperfections largely disappear under a coat of paint.

More importantly, observe the surface detail on the figure's helmet: the rivets and plates are defined much more crisply than I could have expected before with my stock 0.4mm nozzle. Likewise the chain over his groin, and the smooth upper curve of the plackart (the lower part of the breastplate).

This figure was intentionally designed not to be a challenge for the Ender series printers, which is why I chose it for this test. I wanted minimal complication so that I could see just what Cura's new engine could do. If I had thought ahead, I'd have also done a print using its old engine, but never mind, I've already uninstalled it. I'll just have to rely on my memory, and from what memory tells me, the new engine is a great improvement.