Arc Welder - Smoother, Faster, Better 3D Prints! Its like magic to improve your 3D Print quality.
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- čas přidán 19. 06. 2024
- In this video we cover using Arc Welder to improve your 3D Prints. The Arc Welder Software works via the command line, in Cura Slicer, in Octoprint and has an embeddable library. This magic software converts straight line data from most slicers and converts it into arc data for your 3D Printer. The results are spectacular. Improved 3D printing speeds, smoother prints and the ability to print faster than before. This improvement comes from converting the line segments of your 3D Prints into arcs. Arcs are also more efficient at creating smooth 3D prints because there is less data for your 3D Printer to process. This all comes together like magic to improve your 3D print quality. The plugin is completely free.
We cover how Arc Welder works, the installation and show examples of the results. Arc Welder was developed by @formerlurker / formerlurker . This is the same author of the very famous octolapse plugin. Go check it out!
Please mash that like button if you enjoyed this video and leave your comments below!
Test Object in the video
social.thangs.com/m/54315
Chapters
0:00 - Introduction
3:58 - How Arc Welder Works
4:48 - Cura Installation & Use
5:47 - OctoPrint Installation & Use
7:50 - Command Line Installation & Use
10:14 - Print Quality & Tests
12:21 - Wrap Up
Octoprint Plugin Arc Welder plugins.octoprint.org/plugins...
FormerLuker Github: github.com/FormerLurker
Arc Welder Lib (Command Line Version) github.com/FormerLurker/ArcWe...
OctoPrint Plugin
Bug Reports: github.com/FormerLurker/ArcWe...
Questions/Comments: github.com/FormerLurker/ArcWe...
How to Install the Beta: github.com/FormerLurker/ArcWe...
OctoPrint Discord Server (use ONLY the support-plugins channel please): / discord
Console Application
Bug Reports: github.com/FormerLurker/ArcWe...
Questions/Comments: github.com/FormerLurker/ArcWe...
Latest Release Binaries (scroll down): github.com/FormerLurker/ArcWe...
Latest Beta Release Binaries (Mac OS doesn't work here yet, sorry): github.com/FormerLurker/ArcWe...
Cura Plugin
The cura plugin was written by FieldOfView, who did a fantastic job. I know of a few issues that are solved in the latest development snapshot, but it takes a few weeks for those to work their way into the marketplace, so check back often. If you search the Ultimaker forums for 'Arc Welder Plugin' you might be able to find a copy, or ask questions. Please be kind to FieldOfView!
Please consider helping support the channel through Patreon so we can continue to develop new content.
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Arc Welder is cool, but for technical parts it needs some considerations. Like any lossy compression it produces digital artefacts. The curves produced by Arc Welder are estimations that might differ from reality. The next problem is that firmwares like Klipper take this curves and try to combine small straight lines to reproduce this curves. So you have several stages of lossiness: 3D Software (original Dimensions and spacings)->STL Export Rasterriser (loss)->Cura Arc Welder (loss)->3D Printer Firmware (loss). As mentioned it might not be a big problem for figurines but maybe for technical parts with high expectations in spacings and dimensions.
HOLY CRAP!!! It's like I have a brand new printer. I used the Octoprint plugin to parse an existing print. Didn't touch a single thing. Same filament... just a few hours apart. Incredibly smooth and ALL of the vector change blobs are just gone. Thank so much for publishing this video. This is just amazing.
The blobs go away?!
That fact that 3d printing relies so heavily on stl's is to blame. These file types are polygons to begin with. On "actual" cncs you're generating cam from file types that themselves are made up of Tru arcs. Interesting that stl's are default. This is old tech from machinists point of view. Excited to get this in the mainstream slicera
Slicers should abandon STL already and start using nurbs. Granted it's not going to be a walk in the park, but we're at a milestone that nobody wants to cross to evolve.
@@hunam3876 But how would you model with basic geometry? Sure works great for cad precision models, but what about everything else?
You would have to convert from a poly-based mesh anyway.
STL is generally considered a particular evaluation of the NURBS geometry anyway. They will get to using IGES files eventually...
Many of the CAD softwares use STEP files, which uses parametric functions to describe surfaces, and make perfectly smooth surfaces possible. I imagine it’s much easier to do arcs with a STEP file, because it’s hard to come up with arcs from polygons.
@@LuisHansenNH isn’t it possible to have a slicer that supports both CAD files and STL files?
this is what i as a cnc gcode programmer have found strange in 3d printing gcode. The sotware produces a lot of unsnessesary data out of lasy programming .
so i find this a super logical solution. TOP!!
Great explanation! I’ve been using Arc Welder for a couple weeks now. And it works well. You described it better than I ever could. Thanks.
Wow, great software!
"It is in the software the magic is happing"
Thanks for sharing your experience to all of us👍😀
Added arc-welder to Octoprint and it works really well and the improvement is noticeable!
This just popped up as a recommended video. After watching it I added the plug-in to Octoprint and tried it using the legacy slicer plug-in in Octoprint and I'm impressed with the results. I don't design many projects where this would be needed but when I do I will certainly use Arc Welder. Thanks for posting this video.
I've not seen too much for ruined prints, but I have always audibly heard the printer not changing pitch smoothly during arcs. Very interesting idea for a plugin! Love that it can run right in octoprint
I have just watched your video and installed this to my Cura instance. I'll complete some prints with it and update. Thank you for this information.
Thanks for this! Has made a HUGE difference in print quality with my Ender 3 Pro... Printed 4 parts at once with no stringing, blobs, ect.
This is fantastic! Thank you very much. I'm definitively gonna give it a go. I love these quick videos with tips.
I just printed a multi-arc print and my printer ran smoother and I think even a bit more quiet. The printout was excellent. I'll be using this and it might even push me over the edge on Octoprint. Thanks for the review.
I've been using it for 5 months now. Great Video works great. prints better quality and faster prints. :) Thanks
I was just talking with my class about this a few days ago and wondered if someone had built any software that turned the line segments into arcs. Thanks for the video!
This is awesome, thank you! Something I really enjoy about 3D printing is how much there is that is simple and improves print speed/quality. Just by enabling a plug in I can get rid of artifacts and smooth out my prints!
Seen it in Cura. Makes sense to use arc commands. Definitely going to try it!
Arc Welder seems to work great. Thanks for the video. Most of my test prints have been vastly reduced in size, but for one odd one. It was just a test piece to check if I had enough clearance to fit over something. Simple washer shape. 1.25" ID, 1.5O" OD and .25" thick. Arc Welder added 3% to the file size.
This is awesome! I'm definitely going to give it a test today! Thank you for making this video!👍
Tried some prints sliced with Cura on a CR10s Pro with this and I have to say that the print quality with cheap PLA on "standard" settings are impressive!
I'm so glad I found this video. Thanks for making it and thanks to FormerLurker! I had no idea Marlin could handle arcs in GCode.
Top notch software works a treat.
If anyone is curious I'm running my octo-print server on a Pi Zero W and Arc Welder runs fine.
Love arc Welder! Been using for a while. The other big thing is the speed improvement which I can't believe you didn't talk about! So to give an example I have a 1.5 hour print, when I arc weld it now takes 40 minutes!
I've already been using the octoprint installed plug in, but really didn't get into the weeds of it. This video was really informative. Thanks for posting this. I am sure I can get even more out of arc welder now.
Tested this in Octoprint and as far as I can see the quality of my regular prints is slightly better but I guess time will tell. It really is a set-and-forget function,
Thank you just installed and can’t wait for the print to finish!!! Awesome made me subscribe!!
Thanks for sharing! As a cnc machinist, ive always wondered why arcs aren't used.
Thank you foe a very interesting and useful utility. I am just about to test it and will no doubt be very impressed with the results, compressed the test file by 50% !! The result looks like an injection moulded part. A fantastic find, thank you once again.
Can hardly wait to try it out.
thanks for the info. Just installed this on my creality slicer. can hardly wait to see the difference.
I disabled arc support in my firmware because slicer doesn't use it. I definitely re-enable it and use arc welder. you earned a subscribe
Dind't know about this plugin thanks dude :)
I saw that plugin and downloaded it to my Cura just because it sounded super nifty, but couldn't figure out how it worked. Now I know, nice!
I downloaded it as well but didn't use it because i did not know how it worked !!! nice
Thank you so much! Definitely will be using this plug in.
Mate, what a well put together and well explained video. Subscribed and looking forward to trying this out when I get home.
Amazing Video, I started to print a duck call, then i noticed that no matter what i did to make things go faster, the printer was stuttering and slow printing. That's when I hit google looking for an answer. I came across your video. I installed Arc Welder to Octoprint. To my amazement I achieved a 94% compression on this print! My Ender 5 Pro is now printing as fast as it should be! I did install it on Cura too, but I like to see the stats that the Octoprint plugin shows. I'm going to be using Arc Welder in everyone of my prints from this moment on.
First time on your channel, nicely done, clear and concise. Subbed!
I MUST try this. Thank you!
This is awesome! Thanks for sharing, and thanks to the creator!
Just threw it on my octoprint server, cleaned up some zits and blobs on prints straight away with zero configuration elsewise...just a no brainer addition really!
How do you get octo print
Sounds and looks super awesome! I’ll definitely try it...
Thanks for sharing this. I look forward to trying it.
OMG!!! This has made such a difference to the print quality using the Cura install. It's going to be a default on everything I think. Didn't see any real difference in expected time to print with or without, but the quality change is night and day. Arc Welder and ironing makes for such smoother prints on my Anycubic Mega S.
Just found your channel, while looking for Laser engraving information and this information about Arc Welder for 3D printers popped up , just subscribed, thanks. Alan
holy crap! this is super cool !
This was awesome thanks
It’s great that it exists but frankly it’s a slap in the face of the slicers’ developers who should generate high-level primitives such as arcs natively ! 😔
Maybe, maybe not. On default settings it messes up tiny details, and on larger parts lines can occasionally stick out of the walls. In the end I uninstalled it. I guess I prefer having predictable results over ehm, mostly perfect curves.
Still may be fun for guys with lots of spare time and filament. They may turn it mainstream eventually.
@@przemekkobel4874 , your issues with tiny details could be firmware related. The default deviation in ArcWelder is the same as the maximum deviation (0.05mm) in cura. If you need more accuracy, you could decrease the maximum deviation in cura, and let arc welder compress the extra gcode.
It's definitely an issue that slicers are reducing the resolution before ArcWelder gets hold of the gcode. It actually often does MUCH better with high res gcode. It is also definitely an issue that many printers are running forks of Marlin 1, where arc interpolation isn't mature. Recent updates to Marlin 2 (starting in 2.0.6) and smoothieware have greatly improved results.
@@FormerLurker This is a good point for not enabling arcs (at least not by default) in any slicer that cares about the size of its user base. In few years situation may change though.
Honestly, it is mostly because STL files are purely based on vertexes and the lines that join them, NOT (analog) geometry. The slicer simply takes the model and slices it without knowing what the original modeler intended. If slicers accepted geometry files like STEP or OpenSCAD scripts, *THEN* the gcode could include arcs and full-on NURB splines. The problem with that is whether or not the printer controller's firmware and hardware will support those computationally expensive features.
@@KeithOlson I think that CPU power could become a non-issue in a very short time. For example, you could throw a bunch of Pi Picos at your printer instead of typical controller. They are 1 GHz twin core ARMs. Even a single board could handle typical printer features, and it costs what - four bucks?
Thanks for the video. Never heard of Arc Welder before. Everything has it's use cases so I'm not saying Arc Welder doesn't have it's place and I will keep trying to use it. But so far I've observed on some of the apparent benefits:
1) faster data transfer on 8 bit boards - use klipper. I run an Anet A8 and Anycubic Kossel simultaneously on a single raspberry pi 3B+ at 100 mm/s (actual, not just set) with no lag.
2) file compression - doesn't help with typical linear infill so there'll be lots of old G1 gcode in there. A hollow circular pipe is about the best example of file compression you'll get.
3) on smoothness - if you have the source file then use higher resolution to generate STL. Of course there'll be a ton of stuff from Thingiverse that might benefit.
For the zillions of people who ask how to run ArcWelder with ... go to the Arc Welder github kindly linked by Makers Mashup. It's spelled out there for all the most popular ones. A couple of clicks, paste a line of text and your done. It's that easy.
Thanks for this! Not only did I learn about Arc Welder mode but I didn't realize Cura had a Dark Mode! Thanks
Thank you for this!
Ive been waiting Years for this
Same here.
Thanks for this , always looking to better my prints.
Thank you very much fot the detailed explanation.
I´ve used Arc Welter Plugin since the first print caus someone recommended it to me - but i never understood what AW is doing....even after a quick research....
So now i got it!
THX for the Video again
See you next time!
Thanks for sharing! Will try it out! :)
Thanks for sharing this info mate! I will def be giving this a try with both my FDM printers. Cheers!
Incredible. I was just going through some GCODE last night when I made the sad realization for the first time that every move was a G1 and not a single arc... Odd and inefficient. Trying this out today!
How’d it work for you?
@@jessicalane107 Arc Welder has been compressing by about 50% on average. All samples maintained precision within 0.05mm regardless of post process. As for the print result, I didn’t find a significant advantage at typical speeds for entry level printers with faster 32 bit boards installed. I can imagine the best advantage when the processor has become the performance bottleneck.
@@Inventorsquare I have a flsun q5 mini and I’m still doing quite a bit of research. Thanks for your insight!
That is honestly ingenius
Very COOL gonna give it a go!
really interesting, thank you.
another great video!
Great video, thank you.
Thanks for the information!
Thanks for sharing!
Awesome!
Wow great video!!!
This is cool and very helpful. Thank you
Awesome.. !!! TY for sharing..
Thanks for this, I will definitely check it out. I improved my rounded prints a great deal by increasing the number of sides from the default if 40 to 100 but my file sizes went up, if I can get smoother prints with a smaller file, that will be amazing, thanks again
Solid like on this. Trying now on Cura and my Ender 5 Plus with slow 8bit processor
Excellent video! Very thorough nicely explained made me subscriber. Keep up the good work
Just awesome
Thanks! I'm so impressed with this video I'm a new subscriber.
Thank you so much !
Subscription-worthy detailed lesson. Thanks.
Thank goodness
Thanks for making this! I just overhauled and upgraded my printer yesterday and as a result most of my standby gcodes have to be deleted and re-slliced. Now is literally the perfect time for me to implement this!
Thanks again, liked and subscribed. :)
Just did the same, excited to see the improvements, I think the arc welder will also be a big help
Subscribed, and I appreciate that you said "feel that" instead of "feel like" which everyone says now. Good video, thanks.
How is this not standard? It adds a massive amount of value to a printer, they should be paying the authors
Yes please, lol
Its good software, but it also has its weakness. It's not standard because it screws with the resolutions of the print, and can ruin quality if not careful. But at the end of the day, people need to use common sense, but it's not that common.
agreed - however, Smoothieware does support this natively. It just hasn't been implemented by slicers (absolutely no idea why).
@@sandman7793 to be fair, slicers also mess with resolution. Many people suggest limiting cura resolution as an alternative to arcwelder. Just like cura, the resolution in arcwelder is also configurable.
@@FormerLurker I did my mech eng degree 20 years ago and vaguely recall g code for automation class. You mean to tell me slicers pump out straight lines to make arcs?
Great video!
great info! Thanks.
I've had arc welder enabled for a long time without even changing the settings and I've had great prints these days. I hadn't even thought about it, I watch this video thinking about getting it and I realized I already had it installed and turned on. The cura plugin is what I'm talking about. It's pretty legit guys
I wish I could like this video more than once.
Amazing video
Nice one!!!! thank you for the info!!!!!!
WOW!!!! I've just tested to generate the gcode file from Cura with this app installed and the "new" file is around 75% smaller than the original file! I will test how it is printed. Thanks for sharing!
How did the prints come out and how was the time?
@@phoenixamaranth I did not see so much improvement on speed (it could be ralated to my RepRap printer) but the final quality is amazing!
@@carlosfranciscovillegas2879 Awesome! Thanks for the reply! I'm definitely going to give it a go on mine
I really would've thought arcs would already be used if the firmware/cpu could handle em. Thanks for pointing out this isn't the case!
I just started using CURA 2 months ago. I just figured out Arc-Welder two weeks ago.
I'll definitely test that
Very Informative!!!!
Arc welder installed and testing. Can’t wait to see the results.
Let us know! I'll download it now.
Yes, please follow up and let us know your results. Thanks!
That's awesome.
Gcode supports making arcs and circles (It's been that way for a long time),, but sliders do not. It's about time we can make actual arcs.
Going to give it a shot. newbie here. I am also going to try cura.
great video
good stuff!
As a welder and a 3D printer, the title had my head spinning.
Awesome thanks 👍
You bet!
I added the Arc Welder plugin to Octoprint and it works very well, except that the other day I noticed some rather ugly perimeters on a small print with very tight curves. The model (it was an STL downloaded from Thingiverse) had a spring in it that consisted of a sub-2mm wide structure turning through 180 degrees with about 1mm between one part and its neighbour. The perimeter U-bends were far from regular and there was poor adhesion between the perimeters. After switching off the Arc Welder plugin the print from the same STL file came out as I would have expected.
I do agree though that on bigger prints the file size reduction is usually significant.
Awesome video! I'm going to try this. New subscriber.
Thanks for sharing. This video showed up in my feed this morning.
it works!
Thank you.