Faster Printing & Intent Profiles - Cura Plugin Update
Hydra Research Nautilus Plugin v1.2
The biggest update yet to our powerful plugin for Ultimaker Cura is here! Print up to twice as fast and optimize the printing process for your application with just one click.
Plugin update available now in the Ultimaker Cura Marketplace.
Print up to twice as fast
You will now see drastically reduced print times with the same great exterior surface quality you expect from Hydra Research printers. Your parts will print up to twice as fast for low layer height print jobs thanks to new, carefully tuned optimizations of infill and support material. These gains will be most noticeable on parts will a lot of large infill areas or support material. Our new optimizations apply to all Tool cartridges and all materials supported on the Nautilus.
This means you can now get high detail parts faster, decreasing your machine time for the same part resulting in higher profit margins and faster throughput.
You can enable and disable this feature in Cura with the Optimize Infill/Support Layer Height setting checkbox located in the quality section of your custom settings. Optimize Infill/Support Layer Height is enabled by default for all materials and tool cartridges.
Support material generation has also seen numerous improvements. Supports will print faster, break away more easily, and leave more accurate surfaces on your parts. As with Optimize Infill/Support Layer Height, these improvements to support material will be most noticeable on lower layer height jobs.
Intent profiles optimize your part for your application
Intent profiles are a powerful new feature included in the Ultimaker Cura 4.4 update. Intent profiles aim to adjust the printing process to better suit the application of your printed parts. This saves you the time of figuring out what key settings need to changed in order to achieve your desired results. We have spent time tuning three intent profile categories specifically for the Nautilus that are now available for you as part of the Hydra Research Nautilus Plugin update 1.2. We’ll take a closer look at each of these three categories below.
Intent profiles are available for the X 400 Tool Cartridge and all materials except for flexible materials. We are continuing to investigate and develop further support for intent profiles.
This images shows an indication of the surface quality, productivity, mechanical properties and dimensional accuracy per printing profile.
Source: Ultimaker
Visual (better-looking prints)
The visual profile is designed to optimize the surface quality of your part. This profile will produce the best visual quality with average mechanical properties and good dimensional accuracy, but it will increase print time.
Best Uses: end-use models and visual prototypes
Architecture, print visually appealing 3D models for client presentations.
Visual concept modeling, print astatically pleasing models to show off visual concepts.
Product development, print usable 3D models with reduced need of post-processing.
Engineering (stronger, more dimensionally accurate prints)
The engineering profile provides stronger parts with high dimensional accuracy and utilizes a 3D infill pattern for more uniform part strength in all directions. For example, internal holes and geometries will see improvements in tolerance and accuracy. Print speed is the slowest and visual quality are average for this profile.
Best Uses: Functional prototypes and mechanical end-use parts.
Automotive, print high precision tooling with minimal tolerance.
Spare parts, print high precision models to fit the existing parts.
Tooling, jigs and fixtures, print high precision models to reduce tolerances in production lines.
Draft (super fast)
The draft profile is designed to print your part as fast as possible to improve throughput and reduce time spent waiting for parts. Parts printed with this profile may have reduced visuals, dimensional accuracy, and strength.
Best Uses: Initial prototypes and concept validation.
Product design, rapidly print 3D model iterations in sequence.
Small batch production, print models fast to keep productivity at a maximum.
Large parts, print large simple models in less time.