What next?

IMG 0814I have a love/hate relationship with my Tiertime Cetus 3D printers. I love how they print. Excellent linear bearings for X, Y and Z axis. My best-looking prints have come off a Cetus printer. What I hate the most is the lack of any type of manual bed leveling.

The printing plan with Cetus is to build a level RAFT for every print. That consumes a good bit of filament and time. I can live with the filament use. All creative crafts have some sort of waste factor. Only a worry when I am near the end of a spool. The time required is irritating.

The most dislike is the surface finish of the model base contacting the raft. Not possible to obtain that glass smooth finish as can be obtained printing off a level glass build plate.

The Cetus IS a minimalist 3D printer so there are compromises in design. The irony is that Cetus produces an outstanding print quality except for the base surface. There is the Love/Hate.

I can run Simplify3D sliced prints with Cetus. The original UP Studio slicer produces dependable prints but user control is very limited. The new Version 3 will be a great improvement and has worked well. But it is not ready for prime time.

Currently my WIN10 OS computer has developed a fault that will not open version 3 and also blocks material editing in version 2. UP Studio (any version) is not a Type accepted application to the WIN10 OS so there is no (apparent) co-operation in keeping system “hooks” and drivers working together. Meaning a WIN10 system upgrade can possibly “break” UP Studio functions. This seems the case for me.

I have loaded UP Studio on a “Surface” PC running fully updated WIN10 and UP Studio functions with no issues. I am stumped at what is different between The two hardware platforms running the same software.