Scarf seams, Sketch printers, and more with the Cura 5.9 beta

In this release, we strike another blow against ugly Z seams, introduce Sketch series printers, add lots of Method series material profiles, and much more! Read on to discover everything that's been added in the Cura 5.9 beta release!

Note: A second beta was released with a change that affects the UI. Please use buttons, dropdowns, menus, and flows in order to help us troubleshoot any issues. If you see a crash please report it to us!

Scarf seams

As part of our neverending quest to make ugly Z seams a thing of the past, we have introduced new experimental settings for scarf seams!

What are scarf seams?

Scarf seams are a way of printing seams that is based on scarf joints in carpentry. A scarf joint is where you connect two opposing tapered ends together so that they match up perfectly and can be glued or fastened together. Below is an example image of a scarf joint taken from Wikipedia.

In a similar way, a scarf seam is made possible by gradually increasing the flow rate when first starting a new line and then gradually decreasing it when ending a line. The result is that the start and end of the line match up and fit snugly together. When done well, you should end up with a seam that is thicker than usual but much less pronounced and hopefully less noticeable overall. We have done a ton of prints testing out these new scarf seam settings and we have been able to get some impressive results.

How do I use scarf seams?

In this release, there are three new settings you can use for tuning your scarf seams. Each one lets you decide how aggressively you want to apply your scarf seam. They are:

• Scarf Seam Length
• Scarf Seam Start Height
• Scarf Seam Split Distance

For now, these settings are experimental and we hope to make improvements to them in future releases. In the meantime, we look forward to seeing the results our community gets out of them! Try it for yourself using our showcase model for this release!

Sketch printers and Method series materials.

This release adds support for the MakerBot Sketch and Sketch Large printers, as well as the recently announced Sketch Sprint. With these new printers, Cura now supports all of the printers currently being produced by UltiMaker and our education brand MakerBot.

We have also added material profiles for PETG and Tough PLA and updated the profiles for ABS and CF 12. Finally, we have introduced support for materials that use the Method series Labs extruder, including:

• BASF Ultrafuse 316L
• TPE SEBS 1300 95A
• Polymax PC

Note that BASF Ultrafuse 316L will not be available on the Method XL.

Conditional statements in start and end G-code

It is now possible to include conditional statements such as If/Else statements when editing the start and end G-code for both printers and extruders in your machine settings. This allows you to set up much more complex printer automation that responds to things such as the status of your printer or user input.

You can access your machine settings inside of Cura by selecting your active printer and then going to Preferences > Configure Cura... > Printers > Machine Settings.

In your machine settings, you will find tabs for your printer and extruders. At the bottom of each tab are two text entry boxes, one for the start G-code that will run before your print and one for the end G-code that will run after. Note that some printers have custom G-Code set up by the manufacturers, with custom commands that may be necessary. Remove them only if you know what they are used for.

For more information on how to use start and end G-code, check out our wiki on the subject.

Better printing over sparse infill

A new setting has been added called "Extra Infill Lines To Support Skins" which can be used to add additional lines within infill to support the skin layers above. This, alongside some other small improvements, can make printing using low infill percentages much easier and more reliable.

Previously, when printing using low infill you can get blobs, pillowing, or tearing on the first layers above a section of infill. With this new setting, you can still get beautiful prints without resorting to increasing your infill percentage and using more material.

Note that this setting is not needed when lightning infill is enabled as lighting infill is already designed to give extra support to the skin layers.

Additional improvements

The following improvements have also been implemented in the Cura 5.9 beta release:

• Time Lapse Post Processing script and Insert at Layer Change post-processing scripts have both been expanded to make it easier to capture a time-lapse, contributed by @GregValiant
• Introduced an error message that informs when a file is too big to slice
• Made it possible for multiple engine plugins that are registered to the same slot to be used together. (Only for Modify plugins, and Plugins will be addressed alphabetically)
• Introduced an Anycolor option for the UltiMaker S and F series enabling you to print with any UltiMaker color loaded into the material station that is compatible with the printjobs. Note that it’s only compatible with the latest version of the firmware (for Factor 4 >=10.1 and for S-series >=9.0)
• Significant UI speed improvements interacting with custom settings especially if your printer has multiple extruders
• Various bug fixes

Note that there is also a known issue in this release where seam placement does not work as expected for rounded models where the sharpest corner + smart hiding settings are enabled. We hope to have this fixed for the stable release.

Check out the full release notes on GitHub for a complete list of changes.