v1.43

overview welcome to printer software v1 43 this release includes the following improvements to your print process v1 43 docid\ a0gh07euhjtl7zz9vj3 e none printing behavior is not impacted by this release v1 43 docid\ a0gh07euhjtl7zz9vj3 e improvements to part supporting workflows expanded functionality via print plan adjustments improvements to print profile selection options v1 43 docid\ a0gh07euhjtl7zz9vj3 e reduced incidence of projection errors due to light engine failures new “print again” functionality (replaces “reprint”) easier access to “request help” (removed “rate print”) v1 43 docid\ a0gh07euhjtl7zz9vj3 e minor changes miscellaneous bugfixes version details v1 43 0 1616 52 released to select printers on or after 05/21/2024 v1 43 0 1616 59 released to select printers on or after 06/20/2024 v1 43 0 1616 60 released to select printers on or after 07/23/2024 v1 43 0 1616 62 released to select printers on or after 08/20/2024 note that certain printers (select m1s and m2s) that contain an older server configuration are not eligible to receive this software version , and must receive a no cost server upgrade before this software update can be made available please reach out to support\@carbon3d com with any questions about the server configurations for your fleet of printers version support note carbon requires that customers update software regularly with the exception of specified version lockable older version(s), carbon does not support non current software versions if you require support but are running an unsupported software version, the first troubleshooting step is to move to a supported software version the following are supported printer software versions as of the publication of these release notes (may 2024) v1 43 (current version) v1 42 (most recent version; supported until october 2024) v1 39 (supported until april 2026 if your printer is enrolled in version lock ) beta features note any feature marked as “beta” in the user interface and/or release notes is considered by carbon to be an early access technology early access technologies may not be at the level of performance typical of a final product or feature offering, and such features may be altered or withdrawn by carbon at any time and without warning changes in how we print this release contains no changes to printing behavior print preparation improvements improvements to part supporting workflows a variety of improvements make it easier to support parts in the carbon print prep user interface click on an existing bar or fence support to see the dimensional parameters associated with that support this functionality makes it easier to review parameters used in a successful or unsuccessful print to determine future supporting and printing strategies example select a support (pictured in red) to see relevant measurement parameters parameters can only be viewed for new supports created using v1 43 (or later); selecting supports created using software v1 42 or lower will not display relevant parameters (with the exception of the tip diameter and neck diameter for bar supports, which are available for supports created prior to v1 43) if multiple supports are selected that have different parameters, measurement fields will display “multiple ” select an individual support to see relevant dimensions edit support locations the start/end points of bar supports and the polylines of fence supports can now be edited this allows you to more easily fine tune support placement to meet the needs of your application bar supports to edit the start or end point of a bar support, select a support, click “edit support,” and then drag the connection point(s) to your desired location(s) when relevant, base points can be relocated from the platform to a part surface or vice versa only one support can be edited at a time, and processing support edits on large, complex models may be slow press “esc” to cancel a support edit if desired note that when a support connection point is edited, the final connection point may differ slightly from the spot indicated by the cursor due to requirements of the back end support generation algorithm this effect is likely to be most obvious on steep part faces if the result of a support edit is unsatisfactory, press “undo” and try again, or continue to adjust the support connection point until you are satisfied trussed supports when bar supports are trussed together, editing one element of the trussed support (eg, a single branch or the trunk) may have unexpected impacts on other supports involved in the truss, as each element is algorithmically dependent on the others if you are unsatisfied with the results of a support edit, simply click “undo” or add/delete other supports individually until you have achieved the desired state note that in some cases, supports that appear to be unrelated may actually be interconnected based on the way the supports were initially algorithmically generated when selecting a support to edit, note that any other supports that appear as red may be impacted by an edit pre existing projects created prior to v1 43 for pre existing projects created prior to installing v1 43 that include support structures, support editing will not be available until you make at least one alteration to supports editing capabilities can be quickly enabled for such projects by deleting a support or adding a new support to avoid an undesired change to your project, you can undo such a support addition/deletion and still maintain access to editing functionality fence supports fence supports can now be edited by adjusting the polyline that defines the fence to edit a fence support, select the support, press “edit support,” and then edit the polyline as needed move points hold the e key and drag existing fence polyline points to new locations add points click to add new points to extend the polyline delete points box select unwanted points (start your selection box outside the part to avoid inadvertently creating new supports) and press “delete” click “generate all” to regenerate the fence according to your edits editing automatically generated fences fences generated automatically via patch supports can be edited, but because such fences did not have defined polylines prior to generation, a new polyline will be estimated for editing purposes depending on the shape of the fence, estimated polylines may behave in unexpected ways if editing an automatically generated fence does not yield the desired results, consider deleting the fence and drawing a new polyline pre existing fences generated prior to v1 43 for existing projects that include fences generated prior to installing v1 43, the following caveats apply regardless of whether the fence was manually or automatically generated, the polyline used for editing will be estimated depending on the shape of the fence, estimated polylines may behave in unexpected ways if editing an automatically generated fence does not yield the desired results, consider deleting the fence and drawing a new polyline support editing will not be available until you make at least one alteration to supports editing capabilities can be quickly enabled for such projects by deleting a support or adding a new support to avoid an undesired change to your project, you can undo such a support addition/deletion and still maintain access to editing functionality see an example of this in the bar supports section, above any specific parameters that were set for the fence at the time of generation (tip/wall/base thickness and tip direction) will not be applied when a fence is edited; editing a pre v1 43 fence will result in a new fence with your currently set fence parameters if your existing fence uses non default parameters, adjust parameters to your desired values before editing the fence easily regenerate supports after transforming a part prior to software v1 43, transforming a part (rotating, scaling, orienting, toggling between on /above platform part location) required that all existing supports be deleted as part of the operation in v1 43, supports can easily be retained and regenerated after transforming a part this workflow will reduce the need for manual re work to reselect support points when editing a build when a part that has supports is transformed, an onscreen prompt will ask if you would like to regenerate supports select “yes” to generate supports using the original support points and polylines; select “no” to delete all supports from the part roll your mouse over the prompt to see the locations of existing support points if you plan to regenerate supports, note that the functionality will no longer be available if you add new supports after the part transformation but before regenerating supports, or if you refresh/reload the page after transforming the part but before regenerating regenerate supports immediately after transforming your part to avoid accidentally deleting existing support points note that regenerated supports are not guaranteed to be suitable for your altered part; after regenerating supports, review results carefully and add or remove supports as needed depending on the type of transformation performed, some supports may not be able to be regenerated (if, for example, a support point that previously was on a platform facing surface is now facing away from the platform) pre existing projects with supports generated prior to v1 43 post transformation support regeneration will not be available for older projects until you make at least one alteration to supports regeneration capabilities can be quickly enabled for pre existing projects by deleting a support or adding a new support to avoid an undesired change to your project, you can undo such a support addition/deletion and still maintain access to editing functionality you can now control the generation path of a new bar support at the time of placement click to mark a bar support point, then press and hold the “ctrl” key to see a projection of the support path drag your mouse to the desired location, then click to confirm the support placement click “generate all” to create your support(s) multiple support points and/or guidelines can be placed and then generated in one operation fence supports are generated with embedded triangular vents to reduce resin usage and avoid creating unvented volumes previously, the orientation of triangular vents was randomized, and triangles might point in any direction if vents happened to point toward the platform, the result could be an unnecessary difficult to print overhang all triangular vents will now orient pointing away from the platform to reduce the introduction of unintended overhangs expanded functionality via print plan adjustments print plan adjustments is an optional software feature available to some customers depending on use case contact support\@carbon3d com for access to print plan adjustments part temperature “part temperature” graphs now display part temperature in absolute degrees celsius rather than as a percentage keep in mind that the part temperature graph in print plan adjustments will be blank for force feedback enabled prints (l1, m3, and m3 max), as temperature is not predicted ahead of time but rather is managed live during the print for force feedback prints, temperature data can be accessed post print via the print analytics dashboard (an optional software feature) slice thickness the “slice thickness” parameter can now be set to 0um (non zero values less than 25um are still disallowed) if slice thickness is set to 0, the slice(s) will be skipped (not printed) keep in mind that the slice thickness parameter adjusts the thickness with which indicated slice groups are printed, but does not impact the original slicing of the file, which is governed by the slice thickness set during print preparation; plan model geometry accordingly if using this feature if the first slice (slice 0) is set to have a different slice thickness than the remainder of the print, any difference is corrected for in the first 1mm of print height to preserve the total stl height improvements to print profile selection options certain print profiles are intended for use with indicated resins only, and should not be used with other resins new limitations are in place for the following print profiles rpu 70 low exposure print analysis will fail and display an error if this print profile is selected for a resin other than rpu 70 dpr 10 high/low exposure these print profiles will not apply at print time if selected for a resin other than dpr 10; an error will not be displayed and the default print plan will be used small unvented cavities (low et) the print profile will not apply at print time if this plan is selected for a resin other than dpr 10; an error will not be displayed and the default print plan will be used none of the print profiles mentioned above are available by default these print profiles are typically enabled and recommended in response to specific printing problems contact support\@carbon3d com for assistance with these print profiles l1b1 epu default print profile is no longer a selectable option as of july 2024, the l1b1 epu default print profile will no longer be a selectable option from the print profile drop down menu use the default print plan to achieve the same printing behavior and results, as all functionality of this print plan was added to the default print plan as of software v1 41 existing projects that have the l1b1 epu default print profile selected will not be affected, but the option will no longer be available for new projects printer ecosystem improvements reduced incidence of projection errors due to light engine initialization failures the incidence of projection errors due to light engine initialization failures for m2, l1, and m3 printers is reduced a light engine initialization failure can occur when a light engine does not start up properly after a software update, when a printer is power cycled, or when a light engine restarts automatically as part of overall system monitoring symptoms of such errors are typically egregious and obvious, and include situations such as an improperly scaled half image, a missing half image, and black bars example a large portion of a full platform print is missing as a result of a projection error note that projection errors due to light engine initialization failures are still possible on m2, l1, and m3 printers (the incidence rate is reduced, but not to zero), and that m1 and m3 max printers are unaffected by this change for information on how to resolve a projection error, reference projection error docid\ mohhxcbpao7ya70mctrou new “print again” functionality (replaces “reprint”) print records now include a “print again” button in the top right hand corner pressing this button will queue another print of the project to the same printer where it was previously printed the project will be resliced and a new print plan will be calculated for this print example the new “print again” button is visible in the top right hand corner of the print record this functionality replaces the prior “reprint” button, which printed the project again using stored slices and the previously calculated print plan “print again” offers superior functionality to the former “reprint” because new slices and a freshly calculated print plan are able to adapt to specific hardware factors at a specific point in time to create the same print result, and are less likely to result in a print time error easier access to “request help” (removed “rate print”) prior printer software versions included a “rate print” feature that offered the opportunity to assign a print a star rating (1 5) and leave a comment this feature has not been widely adopted other than to occasionally report a failed print in such cases, carbon prefers that customers contact us via the “request help” button, as the information reaches support representatives more efficiently accordingly, “rate print” has been removed from all post print workflows so that “request help” is more readily accessible and there is no confusion about how to most effectively contact carbon note that when requesting help from carbon, a checkbox indicates whether or not models will be shared with carbon support the box is checked by default (models are shared); while you may opt to uncheck this box to protect sensitive models, this will limit the support carbon can provide additional improvements while the features described above are the most noticeable and impactful changes in this software release, there are some additional minor changes you might want to be aware of in the scale tool, if a user has previously altered any xyz scale factors such that the aspect ratio has changed, the “lock aspect ratio” button will no longer be selected by default the next time the scale tool is visited some carbon customers have the ability to create and upload custom print scripts to control the operation of their printer during a print this release includes the following usability improvements for customers who do not have this capability users can delete a custom print script from a project the filename of a project’s custom print script is visible in a print’s “detailed info” dialog box miscellaneous bugfixes the following issues have been resolved with this release gen2 auto layout has been optimized to more capably handle meshes with features smaller than a single pixel in size, which previously might have been placed off the platform in the orientation toolset, manual snap can now more effectively handle models with certain mesh abnormalities in print plan adjustments, global parameters can be successfully deleted without disrupting other global parameters improvements to the printer screen when a project is analyzing before a print begins “preparing” is properly displayed on the printer screen regardless of which workflow was used to start the print pre print analysis can be canceled from the front screen of m1, m2, and l1 printers (the project remains in the print queue) removed an obtrusive but unimportant user facing alert to enhance the overall user experience in the print details for an aborted print, average speed is more accurately calculated and displayed improvements to the process of printing from cloud prepare (an optional, early access software feature) the print record can now be accessed from the receiving printer’s status page during the print a print can be successfully canceled from the front screen of an m1 or m2 printer during pre print analysis updates update for v1 43 0 1616 59 resolves a bug related to the automatic model deletion setting used by some high throughout printers update for v1 43 0 1616 60 resolves a bug in which an attempted print that encountered an error before the print started could be erroneously removed from the printer queue update for v1 43 0 1616 62 resolves a bug in which printers did not display the “preparing” screen during print preparation/processing after a user pressed “start print” at the printer for a project that was queued remotely (“project queued remotely” could apply to a print queued to any printer via the api, including automatically prepared prints, and/or a print prepared on printer 1 and then queued to and started at printer 2) while the print would eventually start despite the lack of the “preparing” screen, the lack of the “preparing” indication led some users to press “start print” multiple times, which resulted in a “project busy” error version lock while carbon encourages customers to stay current with software updates to access the latest features and printing improvements, we recognize that some production applications have stringent validation rules and may be better served by a stable software version for this reason, carbon offers a version lock program that allows customers to stay on a single, specified version of software for up to three years, with full support v1 39 is available for version lock if you are interested in placing your printer(s) on version lock, contact support\@carbon3d com feedback and early access we love hearing from you about your workflow, your parts, and how we can improve reach out to the carbon support team at support\@carbon3d com to share feedback interested in receiving early access to new features and functionality? contact support\@carbon3d com to be added to our early access user group