This may not go over well but I am going to say it. this comes after so many hours of frustration with Creality Print and eventually realizing that I just can’t use it anymore. I have switched over to OrcaSlicer which appears to be significantly more stable and works better with my K1C (prints are actually turning out now and I don’t have huge waste of filament). I am sure the intent of Creality is for the best of its brand and its products, but the results for me have not reflected this as an end experience. Obviously Creality Print is a branch from the same open source project Orca is based on (I think it is PrusaSlicer).
Here is what I would suggest for Creality:
Promote, and even support, the Orca community. Let them maintain the software as they appear to know what they are doing.
Create and maintain config files for each of your printers for distribution with Orca or better yet is a download for Creality customers to then import into Orca.
Create and maintain Filament profiles for each of your filaments. Also make those available for customers to download and import into Orca.
Provide top tier instructions on how to calibrate your printer for each filament, using the OrcaSlicer software.
I think in the end Creality would spend less time maintaining the software, and would help the customer base far more with better experience using their printers and filaments.
I’ve kinda gone over to Orca as it will work will all my Qidi, Ender and Snapmaker printers. One slicer fits all and will work over the network (mostly)
I think the KE likes a certain webcam protocol. I’ve tried it with cheap cameras and it caused it to crash lots. I have just bought a new nebula camera off of Aliexpress and it was less than £16 which I thought is good for a camera. I know that it will work on my KE and it has the bonus of night vision and can be focussed which is quite rare. I’ll be fitting it to my Qidi Xplus3, it is much cheaper than the Qidi camera and has the night vision which Qidi doesn’t (well my Q1Pro camera doesn’t). I have Lenovo camera that works on the KE, but is more expensive, no night vision or focussing. I have never got the AI detection to work on any of them.
I have a 1 Nebula, and I’m with you on the focus and night vision. However I have a metric poop-ton of Microsoft Lifecams that I dont need and want to repurpose. I’m just looking for a way to remotely monitor using stuff I have. I only use Creality print because of the away from home stuff and do larger prints on the lone KE with the Nebula. I know it’s about $75USD to do the other printers, but it’s the principle … and the wife factor.
BFMan, you never mentioned if you could remotely monitor prints, regardless of the camera, with your setup. That’s the only reason (even without the cams) that I’m sticking with the Creality stuff. I often have all 4 running and just want to see where stuff is at regardless of where I am.
One thing I notice with Orca is that I can write to my Sonic Pad, something I can’t do with Creality Print. So I can write the files and then access Fluidd and just press print.
Cura is my solution. Printer runs slower, but produced great solid prints. I use mostly LW-PLA and even after 4 attempts I can’t get Creality to say what of their thousand pre-installed filaments is even close to LW-PLA. I haven’t opened Creality print in months…junk…if you can’t manage to manipulate filaments effectively then you have no chance in managing the print.
If Creality want to show their hardware and filament at their best they could lean in to Orca and provide tuned profiles for their printers, materials and their dirty fork of Klipper. That said, for someone just starting out who just wants to hit print and not worry too much then using one of the more mature downrevs of CrealityPrint gives a decent output with little effort or risk.
Well it did until the latest release, this one fails on many levels. Never liked Orca before this version of CP but it gets more right than CP does at the moment.
There has been a steady stream of failed updates of Cprint.
it doesn’t slice well: gaps in gcode layers
it fails to render 1st layers (I’ve posted several pics of this)
part splitting is an exercise in futility
CRASH
I’ve reached out to CS over a dozen times detailing issues with each new crappy update with no answers, or even replies. I include workarounds, if applicable, potential avenues for solutions, features that have disappeared or just don’t work.
and…nothing. Not once, not ever, have I received a reply.
If you don’t support it, skid it!
Orca works just fine, complete 1st layers and all. Not much of a learning curve either.
K1Max has enough issues without Cprint.
Embrace the change to better software!
Cheers All!
I’m not sure if the right call is to kill the creality print (because of the few things that most probably they put for the creality cloud), but if they are going to push it… at least be sure that every release is for all 3 platforms (win, mac, linux). And put your QAs to work there before releasing broken software.
Because every version is a collection of fix something and break 5 things.
AND at the same time do everything you said in the orca community.