TUTORIAL - Cura Settings for 3D Printed Fursuit Head Bases

Wanted to do a bit of a break down on the settings I pay the most attention to in Cura. The program can look really scary to start with but if you only focus on a few things to start you should be able to print relatively strong 3D fursuit head bases out of PLA pro.

First thing we need to do is open Cura, load up a file that you would like to print. I am using a little rabbit head I am working on. Currently not to scale as this is just an example. Make sure that you have your file scaled to the correct size before printing, this way you know the exact size the print will be. If you are unsure on how to accurately resize a file I will be going over another tutorial on how to do so on MeshMixer on the PC.

When looking at Cura make sure you have the Advanced, Expert or All settings turned on. Basic settings only let you see a few things so I currently have mine in "All" settings. To change this click on the 3 little bars next to "search settings" to changes this so you have more menus to alter for your print.

Once your settings are open we are going to focus on a few things. I like to print most of my files on Draft settings. This way I do not hyper focus on detail as these bases are going to be covered with fur and foam, so detail isn't what I am going for. I want the base to print and not take a week to do so specially when we are printing a fursuit head big enough to wear. 

Quality:

Focus on layer height. I tend to do .2 or .3 for my prints. I have a stock nozzle of of .4mm on all my printers which does really well for what I need. Some people like to change their nozzles to larger ones to print faster with lesser details but we will focus on the most common .4mm nozzle. Both .2 and .3 have worked really well for me. Enough detail and the print won't take forever to print. This is usually all I tinker with in the quality section and leave the rest alone. Keep in mind the higher the number the less detail you get but the faster you print.

Walls:

Walls are exactly what you think it means. The amount of walls the print will have so the machine has to go X number of times around the object to create X number of walls. For me 3 walls have worked out extremely well for wearable masks/fursuit heads. I am able to keep the head really light and strong this way. I had to learn the hard way that high infill does not mean it will be stronger, it usually just means it will be heavy. But wall amount is really important. 3 has been a perfect balance for everything I have done as of now. Once you type in Wall Line Count  3 then you can move on to the next section. I only tinker with the wall line count, everything else I do not bother with.

Infill:

I keep my infill relatively low because I know the wall count I have is more than enough to handle what I need it for. So I mostly stay in the 5% or 4% mark and Infill Pattern I always do a Gyroid. Gyroid is extremely strong and has worked well for me for everything I do. If you are looking for a strong infill that won't add too much weight stick to Gyroid and keep it light on the infill. Once you change those settings move to Material.

Material:

You can see I have 215 for all my printing temps. I always suggest doing a temperature tower to see what your PLA pro or any filament you have likes. Every filament is different and varies from type or company that makes it. I am using overture PLA pro and Esun PLA pro and 215 has worked well for me. At times I do bump it up to 220 on my bambulab printers and it does really well with that extra 5.

Not sure what a temperature tower is, be sure to read about it here and download it to see the ideal temp your filament likes (this temp tower is for PLA):

https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2493504 

Build plate temperature and initial build plate layer I make sure stays at 60 as that usually more than enough heat to hold the PLA down without it wanting to warp. PLA is really easy to work with as it technically does not need a heated bet to print correctly. Other filaments need a heated bed such as ABS or PETG but PLA makes it really easy even if you forget to heat your bed.

Speed:

I tend to leave most of my prints at 100% speed when doing my prints. If I do not care about it being a bit "less detail oriented" I bump them to 150% or 200%. But most of the time I tend to leave it alone at 100% but you can easily play with this and see if you want to go a little faster and the print stays attached to the bed. Speed can be a bit tricky if you are printing something tall or something that has a lot of thin or small supports.  A fast print head can knock things over or not allow things to cool fast enough and create issues. So when in doubt or you are just learning on how your printer works then stick to 100% print speed.

Only time I clicked on jerk control was when I saw I was having issues with the speed acceleration hitting parts of my print. But most of the time I tend to leave it unchecked. But this is something to keep in mind if your  machine is jerking a lot and causing issues with your print just click it on.

Support:

Cura gives you 2 options, Normal and Tree. I am a huge fan of tree supports because of how easy they are to clean and how little they tend to scar your final print. Normal work totally fine but I find it means a lot more clean up in the long run for most of my prints.

Support pattern I tend to pick something weak such as zigzag pattern. I can use this and do a support density of 4% which is really low. This way the tree supports are strong enough but easy enough to knock out with a rubber mallet or just using my hands for most supports. Also make sure that support placement is "everywhere", it usually works much better this way.

Build Plate Adhesion:

Last part to look at in Cura before printing is this section. I tend to print with a Brim for pretty much every single head base I make. Brim helps keep the print down, helps avoid weird warping and does not use us as much material like a raft and very easy to clean. Brim line count is up to you, if the brim is a higher number the print will want to lift less but I have found it to work fine anywhere from 3 line count to 8 line count. 

These are examples of how the tree supports look on the model itself. They use up way less material and are much easier to remove compared to the normal supports in cura.

Cross section shows the tree supports inside holding the face while it prints, you can see the 3 line walls and the gyroid infill.

Something else I wanted to quickly touch on would be angle of your print. Angle matters with all prints. I tend to print my fursuit heads with their noses up as the backs of the heads tend to be flat making it easier to just stick to the print bed. This rabbit is not flat but I still wanted to print it facing up. Depending on how big your printer is it will also determine the sort of angle you need to print it in. Play with angles and see what works best for you.

Hopefully this helps understand the basics of Cura and gets your printing some bases. These settings have worked for me for well over a year now so wanted to share them with you.