Printer, resin and support profiles

Before you start

You have read Your first print, which adds a printer and a resin once. This guide covers what that one skips: a printer or resin that isn’t listed, a resin that needs different numbers on a second printer, and where the files live. For a custom printer, have the maker’s specification at hand: panel resolution, lit size, build height and file format.

Know what is installed and what is library

Encrust ships profiles, and none is yours until you install it. The Machines list in Settings shows only your own copies; the shipped ones are the library behind the + above it. A first run has no printer and no resin.

Installing a machine writes a copy of the shipped profile into your profiles folder. Removing it deletes that copy and puts the machine back in the library. The shipped numbers are transcribed from published specifications, not measured, and each file’s header says UNVERIFIED. Check them against your printer.

Install a printer from the library

1. Open Settings (File, then Settings…, or Cmd+, / Ctrl+,) and pick Printers.
2. Click the + beside “Machines”. The page is titled “Add a machine”.
3. Click the brand, then the model. Or type in “Search every machine”, which matches brand and model.

The library closes onto the new printer’s form. Change the Name or any value there. There is no save button.

Add a printer that isn’t in the library

1. In the same library page, click Custom printer. A printer named “New printer” opens, with a 4096 x 2560 px panel, 143.36 x 89.6 mm lit area, 165 mm height, mirrored across X, and the .goo format. These are placeholders.
2. Set Name and Manufacturer.
3. Under Display, enter Panel width and Panel height in pixels, and Lit width and Lit height in mm. Under the fields, Display shows the pixel size those numbers work out to, in micrometres; check it against the maker’s figure.
4. Under Build volume, enter Volume X, Y and Z. Mirror across X and Y decide which way round the mask is written: a wrong setting prints a mirrored part, so check it with a small asymmetric test piece.
5. Under Output, choose the file format your printer reads from the list.

When the printer is the one the plate uses, changing its panel, volume or output format re-seats the plate for the new values.

The firmware card has two switches, Per-layer settings and Variable layer height. A file format can’t say whether a given machine honours them. A custom printer starts with Per-layer settings on and Variable layer height off. Turn Per-layer settings off if your printer’s maker says it ignores per-layer values, and test on an empty plate first. Some bundled profiles ship with it off for that reason.

The window has no field for the machine name written into the sliced file. The firmware matches that string, and it is the printer’s Name unless the profile sets machine_name. If your printer rejects the file by name, add machine_name = "..." to the printer’s TOML file, using the name your printer’s maker documents.

Retune a resin for one printer

A resin is one file holding the resin’s own numbers and a table of overrides per printer. Under a printer in the Machines list:

• Add resin, then New resin starts from the stock numbers; “From the pool” lists every resin the catalogue has that this printer isn’t set up with, shipped ones included. A pooled resin opens on the numbers of the printer it was last saved for, or its own: a starting point, not a measurement for this machine.
• Hover a resin’s row for two buttons. Duplicate on this printer makes “ copy”, with this printer’s numbers, on this printer alone. Take off this printer removes it from the printer and leaves it in the pool.

The resin form edits the resin as this printer has it. The card is named for the printer, “Exposure on the Saturn 4 Ultra” for example. Exposure, bottom exposure, motion and waits go into this printer’s table; name, type, colour, density and price belong to the resin. Renaming a resin that other printers use splits it off as this printer’s own, so theirs keeps its name.

Duplicate before you experiment: change the copy, keep the original. Changing the layer height rescales the exposure along the resin’s working curve and says so under the field, as Your first print describes.

Edit support profiles

Settings, then Supports lists the support profiles. The + makes a new one, the duplicate button copies the one open, and Delete this profile removes it, but only a profile you made: a shipped one can’t be deleted. A support group on the plate keeps its own copy of the numbers, so editing a profile later doesn’t change a plate already built. The groups and what the numbers do are in Supports.

Find the files

Each profile is a TOML file in your profiles folder, in the subfolders printers, resins and supports, named by the profile’s id. The folder is profiles inside Encrust’s folder in your platform’s configuration directory, or the folder the environment variable ENCRUST_PROFILE_DIR names.

The id is made from the name when the profile is created and doesn’t follow later renames. A file whose name matches a shipped id replaces the shipped profile entirely; nothing is merged inside a file. That makes the folder easy to back up or copy to another computer.

If something goes wrong

My printer isn’t in the library

Use Custom printer with the maker’s specification. If a print works, “Report a test print” on the printer’s page under Printers is how a profile gets confirmed.

The Print block offers no printer or resin

The pickers list installed profiles only. Install the machine, then add a resin under it.

A profile didn’t save

The status bar reports it, for example “cannot save the printer”. Check that the profiles folder is writable.

A resin file doesn’t load after editing by hand

Unknown keys in a resin’s per-printer table are refused, so a misspelt key stops the file loading instead of being ignored. Fix the key or delete the file.