I have a Cube Pro and a Cube 3. I would like to start learning to slice outside the 3D System ecosystem.
Where’s a good place to start?
I have a Cube 3rd gen. It does not accept input from “outside” sources, to the best of my knowledge. Do you have reason to believe that the Cube Pro will accept non-proprietary sources?
There are a number of slicers available, one of which has a quite good reputation, Simplify3D, while there are a couple free slicers which also have strong user backing.
The first answer is the critical one, unless you are considering to purchase or use a different printer.
I’m pretty sure you’re not going to be able to control either printer with anything other than the manufacturer’s proprietary software unless you pull out the electronics and replace them with one of the open source options.
It would be great if someone could come up with a method to crack open this box and make it accessible. So many aspects of Simplify3d that would make a half-way decent printer all the better. The negatives of the Cube3d are tolerable, albeit expensive.
People have managed to print with BFB style gcode on earlier Cube variants. Maybe that still works? Not sure where the info is.
What is BFB style gcode? If something worked on an earlier manufactured version, it would not surprise me to learn that the manufacturer locked that ability out in later construction.
V2 of the Cube has a workaround that allows generic filament to be used, but nothing out there for Cube v3, unfortunately.
You may find some useful information in this thread: https://forum.simplify3d.com/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=2067
@Stephen_Baird
Ninety percent of that topic went over my head, but you’ve given me a new forum to peruse and perhaps locate something helpful or promising for the Cube v3. Thank you.
To summarize the problem (as I understand it from that thread) the Cube series doesn’t use the same style of gcode as most other hobbyist printers.
Gcode is the set of commands that your computer sends to the printer to tell it what to do, they tend to consist of a lot of move commands, so move to XYZ coordinate and move the extruder E mm while doing so. Slicing is the process of taking a 3D model and creating the list of gcode commands necessary to make the printer recreate that 3D object.
You can look up lists of gcodes online, but they’re just a standard set of commands that a printer controller will understand to mean certain things. Things like G1 X001 Y100 Z00.1 E010 gets translated into moving the printer to (1,100,.1) while extruding 10mm of filament.
The problem is, the Cube series uses BFB gcode which is short for bits from bytes gcode. Bits from bytes was another 3D printer manufacturer that 3D systems bought and used to make the Cube series, so they carried forward the BFB list of commands rather than using the standard gcodes other printers use.
So what you need to do to use different slicers is basically to take the gcode output of the slicer you want to use, run it through a translator that understands “when you say G1 in standard gcode, you actually mean [whatever other command]” so it can then produce a file in BFB gcode which your printer can make sense of.
There seems to have been a fair amount of success with that in the thread I linked you to, and they also seem to have links to places where you can get the translation program you need, so hopefully that’ll get you started.
@Stephen_Baird Cura has support for BFB style extrusion. The Cube does require a special header or it will not accept the file. I cannot find the topic about it right now, but people did get it working with some minimal find&replace action afterwards.
I think the header stuff is linked to from the forum post too. I do remember seeing something about that in my quick perusal of it.
This all goes to show the importance of standards, I think.
I only have experience with the CubeX, but did get bfb to work on it some times before it broke down so it was possible at some point.
What I do not understand is why someone wants the troubles of owning these locked down printers in the first place… Everything seems to be problematic; price, software, hardware, filament types, filament prices and availability.
Hi you can check my website for Converting gcode to bfb or you can go to kisslicertalk forum to follow attempts to hack a cubepro.