¶ Library Management
The libraries are a collection of printer, material, profile and nozzle definitions or templates, and they are installed with INTAMSUITE NEO. You can create custom templates you want available for use. Templates supplied with the products are locked (ready-only), and when listed in the dialogs, the color (blue vs. yellow) and tag (preset vs. custom) indicates their condition. You can copy locked templates, and then edit and modify it for your own. The templates here can be shared in all projects and studies.
Printers Library
All INTAMSYS printers are defined and provide there, and its template is consisted of general information, printer parameters and extruder parameters. Generally speaking, you can just select and use the preset printer template and no need to customize it.
Materials Library
All printable materials for each printer type are defined and provided here, and its template is composed of general information, physical properties and print settings, such as suggested nozzle temperature, chamber temperature, retraction speed etc. And these values are tested and validated in ITANMSYS lab.
Profiles Library
A print profile includes the complete list of print settings and the parameters set, which depends on the 3D printing strategy. This library provides preset profiles which are validated by INTAMSYS lab and used directly in general applications. If needed, you can take the efforts of fine-tuning all available settings in your scenarios.
The availability of print profiles is dependent on the 3D printer, nozzle and material configuration currently active. For dual extrusion printer type, its print profile consists of two base profiles, from which the parameters take effect depends on the extruder assignment. And its values can be overridden.
Generally speaking, several preset profiles are available for each configuration of printer-nozzle-material or two-material group, and they are optimized for application-specific printing strategies as following:
- Balance. This profile works for general applications and offers a good balance between surface quality and printing time.
- Quality. This profile is intended for visual prototypes and models that require a high visual surface quality.
- Performance. This profile is intended for functional prototypes and end-use parts with better accuracy and closer tolerances.
- Speed. This profile is intended for quick prototypes and concept validation with significantly reduced print time.
Nozzles Library
It contains all applicable nozzles for each type of printer. There are several different types of nozzle available, with different sizes. Choose the nozzle that suits your preferred material, and select the right nozzle size for your required print speed or level of detail. Currently the nozzle template is mainly defined on nozzle size or diameter.
You may wonder what's the difference between Extruder and Nozzle. Here extruder is considered as nozzle holder , and nozzle is mounted on extruder. The filament is heated up inside the print core and then extruded for nozzle. Nozzle is the quick - wear part of the printer, and better to be replaced regulary.
¶ Feature Entrance
There are two ways to invoke this function:
- Ribbon → Manage tab → Library panel
- Application menu → Library command
¶ Managing Library
Beside preset templates of printers, materials, profiles and nozzles, you can create your own with specific printing strategies. Here are three methods to achieve, take print profile as an example:
- If you are happy with the print result and want to save the settings for reuse, you can go to activate the related study, and open the profile detail setting dialog under ribbon Home tab to save it as a template.
- If some preset profiles are close to your requirements, you can select one to copy it, and then modify the parameters even change the material and base profile of the copied one in Library Management dialog.
- If someone has created a good one print profile, you can ask help to export the profile template in Library Management dialog. Once you get the exported file, please get it imported in Library Management dialog. In this way, print profile can be shared in the team.
Here are some notes for library management you need to know:
- For copied printer, the original materials, print profiles and nozzel are still there and can be used as before.
- For copied material, currently there is no any related profiles to use directly, and you need create them by yourslef. We will get this improved soon.
- Nozzle template cannot be copied and exported currently.