What do these mean?
Printed material must never be where the extruder will be. Looking down the nozzle axis, each wall already printed is allowed to stand higher than the nozzle tip by an amount that depends on how far away it is:
- Closer than the nozzle radius: at most one layer. These walls are printed in step with their neighbours, layer by layer.
- Between nozzle radius and shroud radius: at most the nozzle height. Branches this far apart are printed in alternating chunks of that height.
- Beyond the shroud radius: at most the gantry height, or unlimited if blank. Branches this far apart become single full-height spirals.
Measure your extruder from the nozzle tip and add a millimetre or two of margin. For a paste or clay extruder with a long nozzle, nozzle height is the length of the nozzle itself and shroud radius is the radius of the extruder body above it.