SL1toPhoton

Converts SL1 files to .photon format, suitable for Anycubic Photon

The Photon S is currently not supported. ".photons" differs quite a lot from ".photon", and requires a lot of new code. See this issue.

Anti-aliasing is not supported. There are alternatives to exporting prusa-generated files into ".photons". Same issue.

Friendly Reminder

Use at your own risk. Please verify that what you are doing will not break your printer. This project also relies currently on beta software, so please be aware of future breaking changes.

PrusaSlicer/SuperSlicer Setup

It is recommended to use PrusaSlicer/SuperSlicer 2.0.0 and later, as this version added an option to disable anti-aliasing. Earlier versions will work, but the resulting Photon file will omit some pixels.

Steps:

• Add a new SL1 Printer

• Go to: Printer Settings -> General -> Corrections -> Printer gamma correction and set this to 0. This will disable anti-aliasing. This is currently recommended, since the Photon does not have support for this.

• Go to: Material settings -> Notes

  Add any per-material flags you want on a separate line. E.g:

  photonflags -ls 40 -bls 40
  

  You can do the same with 'Printer settings -> Notes'.

I would also recommend to increase the support thickness as the Photon does not have a tilting mechanism, which will increase peeling forces. I tried to copy the default settings from the AnyCubic Photon Slicer and came up with these values, which work ok:

• Print Settings -> Supports -> Support head front diameter -> 0.8
• Print Settings -> Supports -> Support pillar diameter -> 1.2

Further testing need to be done. I will add further recommendations, once they pop up. Please leave your test results and I will try to update this page with more information.

Installation

Note: this section is hopelessly old, and hadn't been tried for many years

Source

Obviously clone or download the source first and change into the new folder.

git clone https://github.com/cab404/SL1toPhoton
cd SL1toPhoton

(Optional) I would recommend to create a new venv with and activate it:

python3 -m venv venv
source venv/bin/activate  # linux
venv\Scripts\activate     # win

For the full project:

pip install -r requirements.txt

If you don't want the GUI version with the PySide2 dependencies, just install

pip install pyphotonfile

If you want to build your own binaries:

pip install pyinstaller

# win
pyinstaller SL1_to_Photon.py --add-binary venv\Lib\site-packages\pyphotonfile\newfile.photon;pyphotonfile\data --onefile --clean
pyinstaller SL1_to_Photon_gui.py --add-binary venv\Lib\site-packages\pyphotonfile\newfile.photon;pyphotonfile\data --onefile --noconsole --clean

# mac (currently not working)
pyinstaller SL1_to_Photon.py --add-binary venv/lib/python3.7/site-packages/pyphotonfile/newfile.photon:pyphotonfile/data --onefile --clean
pyinstaller SL1_to_Photon_gui.py --add-binary venv/lib/python3.7/site-packages/pyphotonfile/newfile.photon:pyphotonfile/data --onefile --noconsole --clean

I am by no means fluent in pyinstaller, so if there is a way to remove the ugly binary import, please let me know.

Example Usage

./SL1_to_Photon.py 3DBenchy.sl1
Found additional flags in material_notes: -ls 40 -bls 40
Final argv: ['./SL1_to_Photon.py', '/home/cab/Downloads/Sorted/models/3DBenchy.sl1', '-ls', '40', '-bls', '40' ]
=== PARAMETERS ===
Exposure Time: 6.0
Bottom Exposure Time: 35.0
Layer Height: 0.05
Bottom Layers: 10
Layers: 1080
Used material: 19.749867 g.
Lifting speed: 40
Retract speed: 180
=== CONVERSION ===
extracting layers... DONE
converting layer 1080 / 1080
Output file written to: 3DBenchy.photon

Alternatives

PrusaSlicer now allows the export of STL. You can export model with supports and slice it with another slicer, which supports your printer directly.