Build Your Own SLA/SLS

Try pre-rendering and exporting the images before printing. This way, CW will use the pre-rendered images during printing and it will be much more processor and memory friendly, otherwise, CW will have to render the slice (intersecting the full 3d geometry) every time an image is displayed.

I assume that configuration option is under Configure --> Options (tab) --> Export Images and Gcode (checkbox). Do I check Scene File (.cws) or Subdirectory? If so, where are those files then created?

You'll want to export to Subdirectory, which just creates a folder in whatever folder the model you loaded is in. The folder is named <your model name>.slice, and will contain the generated gcode file and a bajillion pngs.

Even doing that, I had trouble running CW on a netbook, as sometimes usage would still be high, causing timing errors in the print, like a half second delay in lifting, or turning on/off the image... that was on an older version of CW so it might be better now, but back then I just switched to a beefier computer.

I can verify this indeed does help. Slicing takes longer of course, but I had significantly fewer bands across my part with this and all of the CPU spikes are now gone. I had maybe 1 band on a 2" part printed @ 0.1mm layer height. This is down from ~12 for that same print, when generating the images on the fly.

Thanks for the input everyone. I will try prerendering today. A flex bottom vat and a slight reconfiguration of my z-axis drive is still in the plan. Working on a vat design that will have a 3D printed part or two and some machined aluminum.

I did notice a few bands still, even with pre-slicing the layers to a subdirectory. Does it go out of sync because it loads the images right as its supposed to show the image? If this is the case, could the image files be pre-loaded?

one idea could be add a 500ms after pre-loading an image

hp