To the right of the materials list, you’ll
find the
Information
pane that allows you to
edit the various parameters that define your
new material. The description fields are pretty
self-explanatory, so I won’t dig into those. In
order to set your material color, just click on
the square color icon next to the text that
describes the color. This will open a “color
picker” dialog that you can use to choose the
color that’s the closest match to your material.
Make sure you don’t forget to update the color
name field.
The
Density
property describes how
much a 1cm cube of the material weighs. If you don’t know that already, going with the material
default is perfectly fine and is a good reason to duplicate known filament types.
The
Diameter
property describes the optimal diameter of this filament. As
recommended earlier, it’s a good idea to measure out some filament and check its diameter.
You can then average your results and put them into the
Diameter
field. You’ll want to do this
for every new roll of filament you get, even if it’s from the same vendor. The more accurate the
filament diameter is, the better job Cura will do slicing your model.
Enter what you paid for your roll of filament in the
Filament Cost
field. That in
combination with the
Filament weight
field will allow Cura to give you an estimate of the cost in
material of things that you print.
The
Description
and
Adhesion Information
entry fields (not shown here) are basically
free-form text fields that you can use to describe any special properties that your material has.
Click on the
Print Settings
tab in
order to adjust settings that directly relate to
printing with your new material.
The
Default Printing Temperature
should fall within the range recommended
by your material vendor. Generically, PLA
prints well from 190C to as high as 230C.
Note that printing temperature is also
dependent on your print speed – the faster
you print, the hotter your extrusion temperature must be in order to keep the plastic flowing
properly.
Build Plate Temperature
is pretty obvious – PLA is happy around 55-60C, where ABS
likes it
hot
, 90-110C! For other material types, go with what your material vendor recommends.
The
Retraction Distance
and
Retraction Speed
parameters control how far and how
fast material is pulled out of the hot end during a non-printing move if you’ve got retracts
enabled. Good retraction settings are essential to help avoid stringing or hot end jams. For the
25
Filament parameters.
Print Settings.
