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I started out trying to test printing tolerances for multipart assemblies and realized that I was experiencing some bed adhesion issues. Equipment: Ender 3 V2 with a CR touch installed. Filament: PLA Goal: Dial in Cura settings for optimal bed adhesion on the Ender 3 V2 with PLA filament. There are two parts to figuring this out: Cura Settings Machine Settings Machine settings: I've got my bed leveled. I've got the appropriate Z-Offset Cura Settings: You can have the best Cura settings but if your machine settings are off...it wont matter. So deal with that first. I found that the standard dynamic quality profile seems to work well. Regarding downloading profiles from other makers: I downloaded some profiles from the net where the user claims that they are getting really good results. I would still recommend starting with one of the defaults...lea This is what the part looked like in SolidWorks This is how it was oriented on the printer This is how it came out once printed. Its a little hard to see but the printer struggled printing the minor details that make up the knurled grip feature between plus/minus approx. 45 degrees. This feature was created with a .20mm extrusion I am setting to .4 to see what happens.

There's a lot of trial and error when it comes to CNC. I started designing in Carbide Create but I quickly learned that I wanted a lot more functionality so that I can design more accurately. I enjoy the designing process in Vetric a lot better. One of my hesitations for using Vetric was that I felt like I was over complicating my design process by adding another software. These were my concerns: I didn't know how Vetric would fit into my work flow. I didn't know how Vetric would output G Code that could be run by the Shapeoko. My tool library is in Carbide Create I knew that there were some settings I'd have to screw around with and I was being lazy. My thinking was to: 1. Design in Vetric and then export to SVG. 2. Open SVG in Carbide Create to generate Tool Paths and GCode 3. Run the GCode in Carbide Motion. I've since learned that this is not the way to do it. What I do now is 1. Design, generate Tool Paths and GCode all in Vetric 2. Run the GCode in Carbide Motion. I ended up simplifying my design process. Vetric Export Settings: I didn't know wtf to do here: For some reason this held me back longer than it should have. It wasn't really that big of a deal. I reached out to Carbide for help. They are super helpful by the way. My query to them was "I would like to start using Vectric software. I was watching a video and I saw that at the end of the process the software wants to know if it is Shapeoko 3 (inches) or Shapeoko 3(mm)." This was their response: You can go into your carbide motion settings and change the units of measurements under "user interface": Even though they gave me great guidance I didn't bother double check when I finally got around to cutting my project. The GCode output from Vetric was set to Inches and of course my Shapeoko was set to mm. When I ran the GCode through carbide motion I was wondering why the heck it was moving so aggressively. Also, it made the cuts but it wasn't clean at all. You can see my machine is set to MM This was my test project with the settings mismatched. You can see how rough the cuts are. So thought I'd try again. I did use a different font in my second test but the point of this second test was to match both the post processor and machine to MM. Second test with Vetric Post Processor and Shapeoko matched to MM. Still rough but it looks better. I didn't get the results I was looking for but I did learn something. My pass depth, feed rate, plunge rate and step overs were all too aggressive. I used the default tool library but I should have made the necessary modifications. Pass depth should be 1/2 of the cutting diameter Step over should be less than 50% Feed rate should be conservative at 40 inches/minute Plunge rate should be 1/2 of feed rate or less. I am going with 15 inches/minute.