Back in 1992 (when my final year project at Nottingham Uni was "Retrofit Rapid Prototyping System", based on attaching a modified Hot Melt Glue Gun to CNC Milling machine, where the Push Glue Stick command was controlled by the Coolant ON/OFF code. It was FDM, and the cheapest Stratysis was over £20k. SLA's & SLS's were even more), I'm sure Variable Layer Thickness was available on at least one of the market leader's machines.
This feature was great for saving lots of time for parts which have a lot of constant Cross Sectional Area (like the print I did last week, see attached image), where most of the part can be done in big layer thickness "Low Resolution" and just some Z-Axis regions can be done in small layer thickness "High Resolution".
Ok, so for my particular example attached, I could've done it all in big or medium Layer Thickness and then filed/sanded the 2 round-bottomed slots, but its a good example to show the principle of this feature opportunity.
Do you think this feature is possible for the M200 someday_?
I do agree it could be quite a nice addition, but how would you imagine this feature ? Something with automatic layer thickness determination, something graphical before slicing, something manual specifying thickness for each height range ?
In my opinion, first option will be fabulous, second one not precise enough and the third one a bit too complex to be used often, so reserved to special parts I need to print often.
It could do 0.39mm layers where the cross-sectional-area is constant ie (plus 1 or 2 smaller ones to make up the correct height), then do eg. 0.09mm layers where the part's angle is less than 45 degs from horizontal, and eg. 0.19mm layers from 45-89 degs.
Simplify3D allows you you set different layer thicknesses at different heights of your print but… The M200 does not use gcode. I use this software on my flashforge dreamer and love it best $150 I ever spent of software for 3D printing.
I think that variable thickness depending on the layer would be awesomeâ€¼ï¸ I imagine it like the insert command in zsuite, but instead I see a Thickness change… This is a great addition!!