Are there printer firmware specifics when adding printer profiles to slicer software?

Question

In this question, I was struggling with my printer not recognizing sliced files. Switching from ChituBox to Lychee solved the issue until the printer stopped recognizing the .ctb files sliced by Lychee as well. Something clicked and it occurred to me that perhaps I shouldn't have set up the Saturn profile and print on a Saturn S. (I'm currently printing on the smaller Saturn build plate since my Saturn S build plate is currently out of commission.) I switched to the Saturn S profile initially set up. Lo and behold, the printer was recognizing the file again!

I figured the printer profiles in slicer software simply adds optimized print settings (like exposure times, retraction settings, build volume, etc.) to serve as a solid starting point and the user could tweak from there as needed. However, since my sliced files were not being recognized using the Saturn profile, it seems that there's more to these profiles than just print settings. Do any firmware or hardware considerations go into creating the .ctb files? It reminds me of compiling code to specific architectures back in my computer science days.

Answer 1

I reached out to Lychee (didn't even think to ask Chitu but the answer is probably something similar). The guy's response was basically:

The ctb file has some data inside that allows it to be printed only on a specific printer. V4 is even encrypted... To add a pinch of fun for us. Supporting it was not an easy task.

Anycubic for example use the ctb format too but each printer has its own file extension to avoid any confusion.

So the file does have model-specific parameters so one has to match the correct printer profile to the physical printer model, even if the printers are only slightly different as is the case with Elegoo Saturn and Saturn S.

In Lychee and ChituBox, one can set the build volume. So instead of using the Saturn profile for the smaller build plate, add a new printer, select Saturn S model, rename it to something that reminds you that it's the smaller build plate, then change the build volume x and y values to match the build plate. In Lychee, the x and y dimensions can be edited even in the free version (the pro version is required to change the z dimension).