MatterControl 2.19.6 Release!


  • MatterHackers

    MatterControl 2.19.6 is officially released!

    You can find PC and Mac downloads here

    Release Notes:

    • Printer setup dramatically improved with new unified experience
      • Show outstanding tasks and progress
      • New Leveling visualization
    • Dual extrusion improvements
      • New Nozzle Calibration Wizard (for calibrating dual extrusion printers)
      • Support for custom wipe tower shapes
      • Improved support material detection
    • UI improvements
      • Faster updates in Cloud Library folders
      • Restore UI on re-open
      • Better Keyboard navigation support
    • New error detection and warning system
      • More hardware errors handled
    • Design tools improvements and optimizations
      • New Twist tool
      • Improved Curve tool
      • Improved Align
    • Many bug fixes and optimizations

    If you find bugs - please report them to our GitHub.

    FYI, we are working on another quick release, to add some additional UI improvements.
    We will also work to address issues that are reported.

    Have fun and be awesome! 🙂



  • Any chance to get a list of the bug fixes? I am particularly interested if the time estimates have been fixed which have cooling implications on small or pointy parts, It some of the slicing irregularities in regards to bridging have been fixed and problems like reading gcode where the Z gets repeadetly set to the same position like if another slicer like SLIC3R slices multiple objects. And has the speed improved of the slicing itself? does it still die on high layer counts like if I print a 200mm tall item with .2 layer height (1000layers) does it still die at layer 5something? I stopped using MC as a slicer as it was/is unusable for our needs. And I don't want to spend a week and 5kg of filament to find out what has and has not been fixed. So it would be nice if the "multiple bugs" would be more specific. Right now I am using SLIC3R and then run the GCODE through MC for bedleveling and that has its issues as I reported. But at least I have cut the waste of filament by at least 70% as it is now down to just "regular" failures like a print loosing bed adhesion or curling up or someone making a design mistake. I have posted some of the stuff we print with the pulse and especially for gears MC is utterly poor compared to SLIC3R. Especially as it is lacking predictability. Sometimes I had problems printing a proper straight line with MC and sometimes it sliced beautifully. Now the "sometimes" is the problem.

    Besides the bug fixes here again some shortcomings that are not bugs.

    1.) Layer width control (printing with 120% layer width makes a lot of difference for layer adhesion strength)
    2.) Volumetric E. = Drastic improvement of flow and layer adhesion and most of all constant wall thickness. So a 2mm wall comes in consistently with +/- .04 mm or better which is absolutely not the case with the standard way MC slices. Now that difference might not be noticable when you print a model but it becomes noticable when you print gears that are to mesh in a planetary system especially double helical ones and especially if you got to get the unit correction right cause you need to change the # of ring teeth.

    There were/are also other "flow" problems that I did not narrow down. Switching to SLIC3R got rid of those. Those became obvious when printing solid pars. I.E. up the perimeter count to fill in every last nook and cranny (like printing a gear with a .8 nozzle and setting perimeters to 15. You do that with MC you either get under extrusion or a "bumpy" ride. Never been able to dial that in. It seems MC is not able to adjust the flow properly. To test make a 2mm wall have a .8 nozzle. SLIC3R will lay a 3rd line with very little extrusion between the 2 perimeters nice and smooth whereas MC either will leave the gap or try to force a whole .8mm wide line in there making a "speed bump" This eventually causes a bulging of the wall.
    etc

    I miss the feature where you could "call" SLIC3R form MC 1.7something


  • MatterHackers

    @mpirringer

    Please keep in mind that our Development team is very busy with a wide range of tasks, fixing bugs, maintaining and updating features and working on new features.

    As we have seen you state before, you feel that MatterSlice is lacking in many areas. We understand that there are things you wish it would do that are not currently available, please be patient with us. You will not see massive changes come in just a patch or two, software development is a slow and careful process.

    I am currently working with the team to get more consolidated patch notes that shows all the hard work these guys put in for this build.

    The development team works to ensure we have all the required features of a robust slicer, but we do not have as a goal total feature parity with other slicers. They work to add features to our software that differentiate it as well as fix bugs and bring parity.

    Martin, please give our team some time to make the system what it can be, dropping them a bulk breakdown of what you do not like every time they post is not encouraging, at least not from my perspective.



  • No problem. If I had more time i'd joing in. I would love to use MC again. So I would love to know when something gets fixed. Only issue I had is the "multiple bugs" thing. As IDK what that means.

    Please understand me too. I got one printer - the pulse for the team. We got it in the middle of last August and have logged almost 6500 printing hours on it. This means except when its broken it runs 24/7 As soon as the print plate is cool enough to take the print off it comes off and the next one starts. And it was not enough for what we need. So we got to keep mishaps - failures to a minimum hence the slicer switch which helped a bit - it also makes operation more complicated. So I am dying to just use one. MC has a good look, nice feel so I'd rather use that one if it can work for us and I'd rather do it today than tomorrow. Right now the printer is down again until the new hotend comes and I got 18kg of filament sitting here that are already spoken for for projects. BTW we will be in some form at the ERRF in october if you are there you can see what we do. We might bring some of the team if the BOE springs for a bus or allows "self" travel or something like that. Otherwis its going to be me and maybe some seniors or former seniors who are 18 or over at that time and have the means to get there. I also know that how we print is probably different than most. MC does a good job printing models and simple mechanical parts like an electronics box or parts used on the printer



  • I hope most of the bugs from the previous release are fixed as I see at lease some of them are, however this another version that I can not use. I know this program can be better than this, and this is 90% a disappointment response. And this is even worse for me because of all the wonderful help I have received from Michael and Eric at Tech Support.

    (I will post later at home, as I don't remember my github pwd)
    When it does its original purge it stops at the end of the purge and pools a little then it moves around, usually back near the X,Y Origin, then goes to start the print. When it starts the skirt one of two things happen, first it is clogged. The second is that it doesn't start the skirt, then eventually goes after 2 to 3 inches of movement. When it does this it usually has strings that hold on and pull around. Then this stringing screws up the first brim edge or perimeter of the model.

    I printed 3 items with this version. The first went okay... had the stringy problem but just pulled it off by hand. Second item it clogged on me twice and stringed out a couple times... But I finally got it going...

    Then the third...
    I tried to start but got tired of the ridiculousness of retrying to get a good first layer... So, I went back to the old version I have been using (2 stable versions back).... I started it up, went to bed leveling and it F'd it up. The X,Y starting point for the Mesh was off thanks to the new versions settings and cloud sync. It dove into my bed on the 5th point because the Y was off and just caused havoc from there. I am not sure why but it also decided it needed to try and move the Y direction again and pulled out my drive belt. Thankfully all items were manageable.

    So I went back to the new version having spent another 45 minutes resetting things up.. and then another 20 minutes (give or take), until I finally got a good first layer.

    So my question now is this,

    Since this program is the only supported slicer for the Pulse, how is it that having issues in this, and the previous version are acceptable? These are not stable/release versions, these are at best, Beta versions.

    Last night, if it had been 10 minutes earlier I would have been on the phone with tech or sales support, and I guarantee it wouldn't have been pretty as I was ready to send my pulse back because of this. When you have a product that essentially relies on another product to work, you cant have a nonworking piece, and for the past 4-5 months, that is exactly what there has been.

    Thankfully from previous experiences, I knew how to handle the issue and am now running back on the old version successfully with only a pit in my buildtak at the area I rarely print at. And I admit, I should have known better than have my syncing on in the new version so it wouldn't have F'd up my settings. I also admit for the last few weeks I haven't been looking to see if there has been a beta version to test, as honestly I really haven't had the time.



  • Do what I do use SLIC3R to make a GCODE file and then run it through MC for bed leveling. I have not tried the latest version on that yet as i am waiting for a new hotend



  • I've never had a problem with the slicing itself, especially after learning why I got bad prints and other things. Just happened on the reason I was getting print shifts on the Z here recently and everything has pretty much fixed itself. It has been the program itself that has had consistent problems.



  • I just wanted to say that they have fixed my purge issue, and I am waiting for the Alpha to come out to test it. Can't wait, as the rest I have seen has fixed everything I had problems with in the previous versions.

    Here is hoping!


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