I got a job at a facility where we prototype and manufacture medical products using FDM and SLA 3d printers. I can honestly say I wouldn't know the slightest bit of what I'm doing at my job if it wasn't for your channel. my very first day on the job, I was tasked with repairing 5 broken ender 3's. I repaired 2 the first day. I literally play with 3d printers for a living now and am in love with my work. Edit: I've been with this job for 2 and a half years now. I now build medical lasers, nebulizers, operate laser cutting machines, fiber lasers, ultrasonic welders, mix proprietary resins from chemicals in house for SLA 3D printing, and design parts and molds in software all after learning on the job. follow your dreams and don't let haters get you down. You can do anything you put your mind to. anyone who tells you otherwise isn't worth listening to.
@@pcdc1337 I have a buddy who already worked for the place as an engineer and he asked me if I'd like to come check it out and possibly work there as an engineering tech (basically his assistant). I have no degree and no prior experience otherwise. I just love 3d printing and watch a ton of videos about it.
In Cura: The Cubic support can be done in a similar way with essentially any infill using the infill subdivision feature. A separate setting also works on supports that get denser at the top (not roof, the support structure itself). Starting with a version several months back (I think 4.11), seam placement is (finally!) also nicely visible. Seams: nothing like the aligned that I know of, but sharpest corner+smart hiding works quite well most of the time. In some cases, I set my own seam coordinates. Still, seam painting in PS is clearly superior. Settings I changed in Cura: (Ender 3, but most apply anywhere) Infill - grid is fine for visual parts, cubic or gyroid anywhere else. Connect infill lines (for prints that I want strong), sometimes I drop in infill line multiplier too (IMO works better than high infills >30%). Initial layer line width to 150% for materials where adgesion is notoriously poor. Combing - on, but with max comb range 10mm and "not in skin" setting. Regular fan speed from 3. layer (2. is then 50% of set fan speed), minimum layer time 6s. Low jerk on first layer (10, with some materials even 5). Helps prevent ripping of at sharp corners etc. Acceleration tuned down a bit too. Increased travel to 200mm/s, including on first layer. Support density 15% (but depends on project), support roof 100% density concentric, 1mm thick. Z gap 1-2 layers depending on model needs (1 is fine under flat surfaces but can be hard to remove on complex shapes). Support brim on. Support overhang angle 50-60° (but can go to 70° in some cases). Support skin fan speed 100% (cools stuff above support so it can be easier removed, useful when your base speed is not 100%, like PETG etc). Often Conical supports or even tree supports can work wonders, reaching over structures to support stuff above, without building supports on top of parts of the model. Unless brim needed, skirt with just 2 lines. Huh, that was quite a lot :-D
Man that was a lot. I would love to see a video from you describing how you came to these settings and what made you pick the numbers you did. I got pushed into cura when I bought a new 3D printer Qidi i-fast. I'm really not thrilled with their version of it and so I'd like to build my own profile but I'm scared to death of all the settings.
This is great information, thanks! I just got an Ender 3 V2 and am working on tuning it. My prints look pretty nice so far, but I want to push it to print a bit faster if I can without compromising strength and appearance.
Do you know what the insure vertical shell thickness is in Cura?(Nevermind, found it. It is "Skin removal width" in the infill advanced settings. I increased it to 3mm and all of the extra infill on the slanted walls disappeared. Took my time down from 1hr 44min to 1hr 27min. Only 1 gram difference but it's not that much infill, just takes extra time.
Hey I am very very interested in your comment because I am relatively just staring out with an ender 3 on cura but it is really hard to follow your writing and obtain the great information your sharing. If you wouldn't mind could you make your info in more of a list format, I thank you for sharing this information in the first place the community is only benefited by people like you spreading knowledge and wisdom
You know what man I'm sorry I read your comment back again except this time on my desktop and it was way easier to follow. Before I was viewing on my phone and it was very hard to tell where you were stopping one setting and starting another lol disregard my original comment, thank you again man this is great knowledge
Another one to save your bacon in case you use variable layer height is minimum shell thickness. If you reduce the layer height of the top of a dome for example, you might only have 3 top layers at 0.1mm which is very thin, but the rest of the print is at 0.2mm so 3 layers is plenty. setting minimum shell thickness to 0.5mm will ensure that if you reduce the layer height anywhere you don't accidentally create holes. Otherwise it changes absolutely nothing, so no hurt in enabling it just in case.
Really helpful video! Quick suggestion: it would have been very interesting for you to show the cube printed once with the default settings, and once with the improved settings at the end.
My 3D printer came as a gift, rather than a planned purchase. My primary use is to print miniatures for tabletop RPGs. Currently, I'm focused on improving the quality of my prints, after which I hope to learn how to speed up printing. Any videos you have already done and would like to direct me to, or any new videos in this vein would be appreciated. You're one of the better TH-camrs for 3D printing - thank-you for your work.
The "ensure vertical thickness" algorithm has changed recently in PrusaSlicer (I think in either 2.6.0 or 2.6.1). Instead of all of the short moves perpendicular to the perimeters, they are now generated parallel to the perimeters. Much less print-induced vibrations.
Instead of a third perimeter I like to use Cura's "Connect Infill Lines" feature (probably available in other slicers). This greatly strengthens infill by linking sections together where they connect to walls, reduces the number of retractions you need to make, and provides a modest improvement to wall strength without printing a full third perimeter. For a similar reason I also use the zig-zag top/bottom pattern instead of lines; I don't have the equipment to measure improved mechanical strength, but logically it should be more robust to have a single undivided line of extrusion rather than many separate ones. Another option is Cura's "Alternate Extra Wall" feature, which adds an extra wall every second layer. I don't imagine this is very useful on its own, but combined with "Connect Infill Lines" it uniquely sandwiches infill and perimeters together, noticeably improving strength. On some occasions I've used these two features together and only used a single regular external perimeter. For my parts at least, this is obviously stronger in the hand than just having regular unconnected infill with 2 perimeters, while printing much faster and using less filament. Cosmetically it won't be as attractive though since the infill will show through. To both make my seams less noticeable and improve print speed, I print external walls narrower (and a bit more slowly), say 0.44mm for a 0.4mm nozzle, and internal ones wider depending on desired strength. 0.8mm or even 1mm is fine for a 0.4mm nozzle. This technique doesn't harm external appearance in any way I've been able to notice. Printing wider than your nozzle opening (but no wider than the nozzle tip) is a good way to improve layer adhesion and strength, as it sandwiches the plastic together across a wider surface and forms a *much* stronger bond to the previous layer. Wider infill can also a good idea for reducing print time without sacrificing strength but it's not always practical, it depends on the structure of the part you're printing. Sometimes you want lots of small supports in thin spots, while other times you have a big space to fill and printing wide infill has no downside. If you use a low infill percentage this may not be beneficial as it greatly increases the gap between infill lines. Before using wider extrusion you should check to see how fast your hotend is capable of melting filament or else you could have hidden underextrusion in your internal walls. Also when using wider top/bottom lines, I recommend specifying a custom top skin line width and selecting 2 "top surface skin layers". In Cura this is an experimental feature and I use 0.4mm. It greatly improves surface finish, ensuring the top of prints are as flat as possible with virtually no blobbing. I don't use it very often since it leads to an inconsistent and unattractive surface finish with glossy filament, but if that doesn't matter I like to use Adaptive Layers. I normally use 0.24mm base height with 0.08mm variation in both directions, so when I'm printing an angle or a curve it's smoother (0.16 layer height), but if I'm printing a flat section it's much faster (0.32 layer height).
The seam in cura recently is really cool. Its called smart hiding and it aligned for the sphere like in your example but instead of protruding outward in goes in like a nice zipper and I find it a step better and smoother. Thanks again for your tips.
Thanks for these videos. I purchased a Bambu Lab P1S last week and your content is incredibly educational. The printer itself just worked out of the box, but learning about print settings has been so helpful. In one of your previous videos you discussed overhang angle vs layer height and it has saved me so much time and material already. Thanks!
Excellent video. Glad I went back and watched again. Continue pumping out your outstanding content, you are greatly appreciated! I would love to see a 2024/2025 update to this video, perhaps getting even deeper into all the settings you use for certain prints based on quality, speed, filament use etc. A deep dive into your current philosophies and software and printers used would be an amazing video for the new year coming up! The slicers out there used all have tons of updates.
I can't adequately express how helpful your videos have been! I've been trying to figure out what the white dots are, and how to get rid of them, since I began printing.
11:10 It seems that the slicer would need "nearest, then aligned" setting which would do the best of both worlds. Hide seams if possible but fallback to aligned if no suitable area is available for given layer.
Thank you for this, and all your videos. I've been printing for about a year now, and have learned everything I know only from TH-cam since I'm not part of a local community of print enthusiasts. Thanks a ton!
Personally I have found that each different print may require some tweaking of the settings, one setting never does it all. I do agree the "3 wall parameter" setting is a great over all setting, that I don't mess with much. And on a side note, I'm really impressed how many options and how great that Prusa slicer works. I've been a hardcore Simplify 3d user, but slowly starting to switch over now
I knew simplify3D had fallen behind but I didn't realise how far, wow. I've really only stuck with it because of how much i paid for it. But I do agree, every print is different and you are always tweaking settings to get the best print for the application. No two prints are ever the same.
Really great tips! I love how the advice on this channel is always so practical. The seam in particular is one things I've tried to adjust a few times and was never happy with. Interestingly I've actually never considered setting to "aligned", thinking it would show up and I could just hide it by using random. It's not hidden… now it's much harder to clean up since there are bits sticking out everywhere.
Dude, this video was insanly helpful. I struggled for months with elephant foots and didn't even know there where a setting to prevent it. Thank you so much for the Other Tipps as well.
Angus, as ever your videos are fun and informative - I use Cura, but I completely agree with your observations about seam positioning, I do a lot of repeat printing of the same parts, as I make 3D prints commercially, putting the seam in the same place every time removes those seemingly random blobs from surfaces that should be smooth, walls too - many of my parts are handled by customers, one part in particular was breaking until I increased the wall count to five and the top and bottom thickness to 1.6mm - its a handle for a lever arm, and people turn it, so we had a few breakages in the early days, not any more. No amount of infill solved the problem, I hardly ever use infill at greater than 30% - and gyroid is my go-to. As for elephants foot, everything I print has a 45 degree or steeper chamfer at the bottom, and if its a cuboid, every edge has a chamfer, same with cylinders and holes. The finished parts look way better and take a lot less finishing. As I use OpenSCAD its just been a question of building / finding the right code to do the heavy lifting.. Great job.
I change the layer with for the perimeters so they are wider except the external perimeters. So except the outer perimeter if have wider layers. I don't think I loose quality but it goes faster to make the print stronger. When I want 100% infill, I just print a very large number of perimeters.(Mostly on a tiny part of the part) The chamfer trick is also a good one. I think Angus also mentions the chamfer one in off his design vidoes.
@@83darksteel yeah, definitely came off one of Angus' videos, along with thin elements to provide support, although I avoid printed supports like the plague, I'd rather chop a model into three and fabricate than print supports. Bitter experience of a model needing 'Everywhere' and then being unable to get the support off without destroying the part.. I use a combination of solvent welding or blunt point self tapping screws depending upon the application.
@@martyboi We make 3D printed Circular Sock Knitting machines, based in the UK, you'll find us with a swift Google. We could make other stuff of course, everything is made in-house, apart from the metal bits.
This was really helpful. I've been 3D modeling and printing for years, but I've never really focused much on the slicer itself. Thanks for making the video
Now start designing your parts that actually fit together and do the job YOU want them to do. When I started I soon got fed up with printing someone else's stuff off say Thingiverse and finding that I spent more time making the bits fit together than actually printing them. Want really strong parts? - fabricate them with internal hidden voids to make them even stronger. Walls matter more than infill.
Love it!! I agree with so many of these, including the vertical shell thickness, HOWEVER there are times where the vertical shell thickness is worth it. Models that are more anatomical tend to benefit to leave it enabled so you do not lose detail near the head. Great vid with helpful tips!
Future 101 idea, “Detect Thin Walls” , fight with this detail when building my own supports or small details frequently, if done correctly it allows some overhangs that waste far less plastic and time. I wish the logic inside prusa slicer could handle overhangs better for circle based geometry, struggle with single orientation layers when it could bridge easily by a “spoke style” layer, it requires overprinting edges to get enough support on DIY scaffolding like referencing the above.
This, this 1000x this. When you don't want it creating a bajillion artifacts, 'detect thin lines' is the bane of my existence. when putting in supports, or designing breakaway interfaces into a part, to interface with supports (especially nice, when working on rounded overhangs or other things that BEG to curl / print poorly) it can be a lifesaver. Definitely one of those 'great power, great responsibility' things.
Great advice! Thank you! FYI: SuperSlicer 2.3 equivalent settings are: Infill Infill -> Support Cubic -> Connected Perimeters & Shells -> Advanced -> Seam -> Seam Position -> Aligned [Default is "Cost Based". Have you tried it?] -> Quality -> Avoid Crossing Perimeters -> Uncheck Cannot find any setting for "Elephant Foot" in SS. Your experience on "Speed" and "width & Flow" settings will be a great future subject; maybe? Cheers!
@@MakersMuse if you don’t have silent steppers, gyroid sounds like you’ve stepped into an ‘80s arcade when it gets going. That alone endears it to me. :)
Can you do more of these? I love this but I have all these changed already. Would love to see some really niche stuff you've changed that maybe most people wouldn't think could affect their print
These are the main ones to be honest! The other settings I tweak based on the model I'm printing. I rarely change settings such as print speed / accelerations and extrusion widths unless I encounter issues.
@@MakersMuse I think what would really benefit me would be changes you might make for mechanical parts which is the majority of what I'm building. Lots of supports or brackets things that I'm trying to 3D print rather than make out of aluminum. If you have specific changes that are out of the box standard for you I would sure appreciate it. I usually end up getting frustrated and just printing at 100% which I know is not the best way to do it most of the time.
Great Video, will definitely be using some of these on my prints. Also to note about the Seam Placement: PrusaSlicer has a paint on seams setting where you can literally tell it exactly where it should place the seam. That way you can place it on the back of models or in internal corners to hide them much better.
Prusaslicer 2.5 hides it so insanely good. Definitely a big upgrade and time saver. It has hidden the seams better than what I could do after over an hour painting seams on it. However it might still put them in front instead of the back if the back is a slope (seams on slopes are not good)
WOW!!! What valuable resource for beginners. I recently got a Prusa and have been printing a week now and this is exactly the material I needed to take it to the next level of my fast track crash (and i mean CRASH!) course through the basics. Can't wait to see the difference! I especially love the explanations as to "why". Great job and thank you VERY much!
I feel just a little bit clever now, since having just started this hobby a month ago, I use these same settings for the same reasoning. Didn't know about vertical thickness, but it seems it's off by default for me. Love the efficiency of your videos.
Perimeters: 3 Infill: Cubic or Support Cubic Infill Elephant foot Compensation: 0.3mm (Only if this is happening) Seam Placement: Nearest or Aligned Ensure vertical thickness: Disable it
Wow. Just got my printer 2 days ago. Did my first big-ish print (8 hours). Basically just hit print. And after I went back to my slicer and everything you just covered I saw in this print. Huge learning experience here. If I knew any of this I wouldn't have run out of material on it.
Cura has fairly recently added what they call "lightning infill". It's similar to the infill that you showed here but with even less plastic usage. Might be worth checking out and making a video on. It has cut some print times almost in half vs default infill settings.
Wow. TY. New to 3D printing and this really helped my prints. Saved 5 hours on 1 print. The perimeter also helped on the walls for a shipping container I just printed.
Very educational. That's pretty much my settings on Cura apart from the 3 walls. I've only ever used 2, but after seeing this video I will definitely be changing to 3 walls especially to hide infills.
Thanks Angus, this is great. I like Prusa slicer and appreciate you explaining what the features do. This is great list. I haven't used it enough to recommend any setting tweaks.
Based on my experience in the 3D printing world, here are some key takeaways for material selection and part strengthening: * Material Selection: * PLA: Ideal for prototyping due to its ease of use and printability. * ABS: Suitable for final products due to its durability. * PETG CF: Offers enhanced strength, making it a good choice for functional parts like car components. * ASA: Known for its UV resistance and strength, similar to ABS but with improved outdoor performance. * Part Strengthening: * Acetone Smoothing with Bondo: This technique can be used to strengthen and smoothen ABS or PETG CF parts before painting. Acetone dissolves the plastic surface slightly, creating a smoother finish after sanding and filling with bondo. * Infill Tips: * Use a strong infill pattern like a triangula grid (similar to the Star of David) for maximum strength. * Consider the breathability of plastics when choosing infill density. Similar to pores in skin, some infill is necessary to allow for slight flexing and prevent warping. * For small or big projects, I always use 4 up to 5 lines ABS and PETG CF, PLA whatever ASA whatever
When I make my millions....im going to seek you out. You have been a big inspiration when it comes to engineering......like nikola telsa inspiration. Thanks
I end up going back and forth increasing speed and changing temperature. So first, crank the travel speed, to like 200mm/s, because that is the speed the print head moves when it is not printing. Super high travel speed works well with TPU, because it reduces time that the TPU is doing weird things. Back to speed. I look at what crazy speed other youtubers are using and use that as an absurd top limit. So, if sombody can run at 200mm/s, and I am running at 50mm/s I can probably bump up to at least 80mm/s without problems. When changing speeds I need to monitor the prints, and increase or decrease temperature in 5 degree increments, until I get to something I can use as a slicer setting.
These are really good tips. I'm going to have to try disabling "ensure vertical thickness". I usually pull infill down to 15%, and change the bottom layer to 5 for strength and stability. Some adjustments I make in CAD, though. I normally put a shallow radius on the bottom to eliminate elephant's foot and give a consistent finish, at least with PLA. To make the sides stronger, I'll print the sides at a 3mm or so width. That makes for a hollow exterior wall with the infill, and it's quite a bit slower, but it's very light and strong. A bit like making the side walls of a print with balsa core plywood.
Very well explaination. Thank you. As for the elephant foot, I usually have it turned off for PLA and ON for PETG. I was always under the impression that the bed at 90c was causing it more than the first layer adjustments. I'll play a bit more with it to see. That #5 hint is great to know. I always wondered what was causing this wiggling. Thanks again.
I'm printing footplates for an electric unicycle in carbon fiber nylon. I changed a lot. A 0.6 ruby nozzle with a stainless steel insert replacing what would otherwise be XS PTFE, 0.3 layer height, 5 perimeter wall count, 8 top layers, 6 bottom layers, 50% infill, triangle pattern, I slowed the print speed right down, 20 mm/s & walls top and bottom 10mm/s. 250C (I even tried 260C but that was too hot), the bed up to 100C and I left it on until the chamber got to 40C. No part cooling fan. Changed out the bed plate for borosilicate glass and glue stick (6 layers). Each footplate took 35hrs to print on my Qidi X-Plus printer, but speed wasn't the concern, strength was. Very happy with the result.
I usually reduce the number of solid layers to 4 (top, default was 5) and 3 (bottom, default was 4). I use to always drop the skirt height to just a single layer, but leave it at 3 when printing extra thin layers, especially on a textured print bed surface. I also change the Start G-code script to wait until the bed is warm before setting the nozzle temp. I find that the nozzle heats up so much faster than the bed, and will end up oozing filament if left hot too long. Also in the Start G-code, as I use Octoprint to host the files for my Prusa MK3, I add the "@BEDLEVELVISUALIZER" line to have it watch for the mesh values - the visualizer makes it so easy to adjust the screws for leveling the bed... Thanks for your tips!
Great video many many thanks for the seam tip !! A lot of your parameters tips are corrected by default in the fork SuperSlicer ! But your video allowed me to learn a lot about all these parameters and will allow me to improve the quality of my prints so thank you very much !
Since you asked I am Happy to share my settings. Ender 5 pro, using Cura 5.1.1 Super quality (.12mm) for miniatures. My only changes are infill density 40, nozzle temp 190 with bed temp at 60. Print speed is 40, limit support retractions is off. using support with overhang angle 45-55, wall line count is 0. Build adhesion method is raft. Any figure/creature not on its own base is moved 3 mm off the ground plane. those with a base I move down to bottom of feet so as to not print the base. Tweaked the star Gcode to draw the second purge line 2mm away from the first, and put a ";" in front of "G1 Z2.0 F3000 ;Move Z Axis up" no issues with it so far... apart from bed height rarely being "just right". I their a "thickness gauge" one (or more) can buy for setting the build plate an exact distance from the nozzle?
I print functional parts and I set the wall thickness and number of top/bottom layers depending on strength and other requirements of that particular part. For example, if you want to drill or thread the printed holes, you will certainly need more wall layers. In some circumstances, for example when you want thick walls but the item or a substantial section of it is narrow anyway, the infill in that narrow section might take longer to print than a few more lines. In that case, I set the wall thickness higher to make essentially a solid at those thin sections. Another feature you can save a TON of print time is the Combine infill every X layers option. Default is 1. You can use 2, but you have to use smaller layer height than nozzle_dia/2 for this to work. It usually works alright up to 0.15mm layer height with a 0.4mm nozzle. In theory, you could combine 3 layers of infill if you print with 0.1mm of layer height with 0.4mm nozzle. There is a slight disadvantage though, it feels that the end product is less strong, which can be an issue with functional parts.
I nearly always turn on "support interface" options when doing prints now - I had a lot of trouble with taking supports off and them leaving ugly lines, spots, craters, etc, but with support interface since it basically prints a flat layer on top of the support (before the programmed support z-gap) I find that the surface finishes are so much better. Perfect? No, nothing is. But I've noticed a significant improvement in surface quality since doing so :)
@@NexGen-3D It's used with soluble supports, but with zero gap. For regular filament, 1mm roof with 1-2 layers gap work well for me (1 on flat surfaces when I want the best possible finish, 2 under curved parts).
@@NexGen-3D if you turn the support interface density down to like 20% it is just as easy if not easier to remove than regular supports. gotta have your z distance tuned right for your filament/temps/speeds too
Wish I had seen this video a year ago! :) I eventually arrived at everything you mention (including the Cubic infill, which is also my favorite!), but it took me quite a while to figure out what exactly the settings do (or that they even exist). Some things I change in addition are: - "Avoid crossing perimeters" as I now print on a Bowden extruder Prusa Mini most of the time, and it really helps with reducing stringing. - "First Layer Speed" - I slow it down a bit from the defaults, I can take the extra couple of minutes in exchange for a more reliable first layer. - First layer filament temperature - I don't know when it changed, but it used to be that the (Prusa Slicer) filament profiles had a temperature couple degrees higher for the first layer (whereas now it's LOWER for PETG?) and now they don't, but I find that worked slightly better for first layer adhesion, so I usually change that too. - "Ironing" SOMETIMES - the print time hit is huge and not all prints benefit, but man, is it magic! It ends up with a top layer that's smoother than the bottom one!
Thank you for pointing out about Ensure Vertical Thickness. I turn Wipe off. With eSun ePA-CF it leaves boogers all over the place. I turn on Detect Thin Walls, as I often make support manually by adding 0.2-0.4 vertical thin walls.
I just recently did a print that took 12 hours on my old settings. Out of curiosity I re-sliced the model using these new setting tweaks and it would have taken 7 hours!! I'll definitely be using these from now on.
"Back in the dark ages of 3D printing..." And then Angus shows a clip of my printers! I still love these old Wanhao Di3's - Modded and refined, tweaked and tinkered over the last decade, they produce some amazing results. One thing is for sure, I need to look at these new slicers. I'm still using S3D. Thanks for all the hints and advice over the years!
I use the CHEP super fast profile in Cura which is fantastic. And I've always used triangle infill as CNC kitchen found this to be very good for strength
Agree totally on the aligned seams option; can't abide those little pimples scattered randomly all over. I need smooth walls, so I just sand the seams away. Having said that, the Prusa Slicer on the Prusa produces very neat seams which don't require a great deal of tidying. Loved the video; so useful, as always. Would be great to see a similar one on speed settings 🤗
Regarding bed adhesion and elephant foot, I've not seen this talked about in years but I still often do it, if you're having adhesion issues without getting too close to the bed, a bit of pritt stick on the bed, then a bit of water and spread it as thinly as possible with a spatula, and everything sticks fine. Can just wash it off with water afterwards too.
I use Cura. It has gradual infill and lightning infill that can shorten time. Another thing I do is change the speed of interior walls much faster than the exterior wall (or "perimeter"). I found it saves lots of time. Cura 5 also has variable line width and bridging speeds I'm not sure that pursha will do.
I'm on the fence on 5, it does some things really well and a few I can't sort out yet (like inside out by default for walls) As always, still learning! Like I tell me peers, the good thing about Cura is they are always updating it. The bad thing about Cura...is they are always changing it 😁
@@WhereNerdyisCool I've been using it awhile. You always have a soft spot for the first software you use. I would be lost with any other slicer. I see cool features in Prushaslicer, but it would be a learning curve I don't want.
Thanks Angus for another helpful video. Can any of you Cura users tell me the Cura equivalent of Ensure Vertical Thickness? Or maybe Cura has it but I have it hidden?
On Cura, I'm always trying to improve movements and retraction to avoid stringing. I use materials that are quite subject to stringing and it's super hard to remove it. For instance, the Zelda Ocarina you showcase in this video, I tried 3 different PLAs from eSun to make it, and it had stringing all the time. So to reduce stringing, I try my best to "diagnose" the movements in Cura to see if it might induce stringing, and compare filament retraction with Z-axis moves on every finished line, and it always depends on the shape, so it's quite hard. I learnt a LOT with your videos before even having a 3D printer, and I experimented a lot of different shapes to have "perfect" config for each print, and I noticed both vertical thickness and perimeters impact, so I'm super glad that you're talking about them because they seem quite critical to me! However, thanks a lot for your "seam placement" recommendation, because I didn't knew this one, it's gonna be SO helpful!
Aligned seams make for a weaker part. If the part will be under stress then a random seam is better since it spreads the weakness, seams are weak points, randomly across the part yielding a stronger part. If the part is purely decorative then strength is usually not an issue so seam alignment is not typically an issue.
Well, I mainly use Ideamaker but some settings that save a lot of time are those for example for retraction. Turn it off while not needed! No retraction in infill, no retraction on inner-walls and I have many profiles without any retraction or I just enable it on certain layers. With other settings that will stop retraction before the end of the lines you reduce the need to almost zero or zero in many cases. This saves tons of time on the prints. About the 'zips' well, this also helps a lot: no lots of filament squeezes out on those seams and if you tweek it right (and use parameters for this build-up and down of pressure) they are invisible even in the middle of the surface of circles so further reducing printtime and movements.
Good video. I tend to make exactly the same changes on my Prusa :) One remark about Support Cubic: It saves a lot of filament and print time. But the beware that the bottom surface will be poorly supported. So the strenght of the bottom layer is not very good.
First time to hear about support cubic. I will definitely try it. I'm surprised how I don't see people change extrusion width. I increase it at least for infill, and for functional parts I increase it for everything. It increases strength & cut printing time
Using Superslicer not Prusaslicer, so not sure which of these may be carried over from Prusaslicer, or unique to Superslicer, but... In perimeters and shells I turn on "Only one perimeter" for "On top surfaces" and then in Infill change the top surface pattern to Monotonic (not connected). In Width & Flow I then change "top infill" width to (usually, unless it's a quick draft print) 0.28mm I find this combination gives me a really nice balance between speed and a great top surface finish... I'd argue it's not far behind ironed, but without anywhere near the additional time (or risk of drag lines). If these kind of settings are available for your slicer I def recommend trying it out. I also find that setting seams to "corners" then using the paint seams tool to paint where I want them gives me the best results on simple-ish models where seams can jump about a bit even with aligned and where they occasionally appear on overhangs where you really don't want them. Using corners mode seems to work best with painting as you don't have to be super accurate painting the corner you want, it'll just find the corner within the area you painted, whereas leaving it on aligned can cause it to wobble either side of the corner sometimes. I tend to find it's a few minute job to paint where I want them, and that seems worth it to me.
Here's a few of my first things to check that are more slicer than firmware based. 1. Alternate extra walls - I find this to be preferential to just going up to 3 walls as the layers without an extra wall will bring the infill in to that space so you get both great adhesion between wall and infill, and you don't need to bring that infill in anywhere near to overlapping your main 2 walls. 2. 0.3mm first layer - even with a voron getting me completely flat on that first layer, using 0.3mm first layer just seems to give me much better adhesion and much less corner lifting, regardless of material 3. Fan speed - most slicers seem to have a variable profile, with more cooling if there's overhangs, I find this variation in cooling leads to wobbly walls and inconsistencies with surface finish, I find a good constant speed that kicks in on the 3rd layer, and I see finding the best fan speed for a material to be MUCH more important than the perfect hotend temp, and the fan staying a constant speed is much less irritating to listen to. 4. Wipe distance - playing with this figure (along with pressure advance) I've found I can make most seams almost completely disappear 5. Object rotation - This one sounds a bit redundant at first, but is very important in getting faster, more consistent prints. The main aim is to ensure you're using as many motors as possible, for as much of the model as possible. Imagine your normal ender 3 style cartesian, one motor moves in the Y axis, one in the X axis, so if you do a horizontal wall, nearly all of your print is going to be using just one motor, if you put it at a 45 degree angle however, you've split that load across 2 motors, with each having to move much slower, giving you more control, so placing your most important features at 45 degrees to the print bed should give the best results. CoreXY uses one motor for diagonal movements, so you should ensure that your most important walls are square with your print surface. If you're using a delta, then you've got 3 motors working on every direction at all times, so you've got nothing to worry about.
I use MK3s with prusaslicer and use cubic infill as well (the gyroid robs time and shakes a bit too much), 1 skirt layer and 1 loop, some custom start-stop-pause g code (thicker purge line (removes any blob on the nozzle at start of print), first heat bed then the extruder (so it does not ooze while heating bed and that is substantial more time for 80-90degrees for bed for petg for example), at the end move the y forward, home X, raise the z, start part cooling fan until it reaches 50deg (realy fast way to not ooze and cook filament in the nozzle after print completes), Also adding custom G code for octoprint if i pause, or cancel a print.. to raise the nozzle far away so i can clean it. (the default in octoprint is not nice.. it just stop there and then cooking the leftovers on the buildplate), after colorchange M600 a little purge in the air that i can grab with tweezers. - I've seen that some of what i stated is already in standard form in Slic3rPE, but it was not always the case for older versions so i've learned my ways into Gcode.
Things not mentioned here I have set to not default: First layer speed: 10 (default is 20, I like reliable prints and not using glue) Support material style: Snug Bridge flow rate: 0.8 (does a good job of keeping them from sagging) Bridge speed: 20 (instead of 25, helps it cope with lower flow rate) Retraction: 3
About the bridging: I find it goes better on FAST movements. Like 120 or 200% of normal parts. No time at all for the filament to fall down since it is strechted. But that is also the only time the partcooling-fans are running full-speed (normally 20% or max. 40% depending on printer). And I draw manual supports where I need them so I can easily remove them. So for longer bridges I put one or 2 small supports below them if needed (like if a bridge is like 8 cms wide or more). Of course in the design I also make some changes like inner-chamfers if possible so that there are less bridges that are longer then a few cms.
@@elvinhaak Bridging is the thing I adjusted longest ago and am probably overdue for recalibrating it based off changes to everything else made since. I tend to put planks floating out in space so they can have support material below them at the ends and above them in the middle as a hack to avoid having any support material on top of the actual model.
For larger prints, or prints with 8+ hours print time, I often decide if changing the Nozzle diameter from .4mm to .6 or .8 is worth the print time savings. With Prusa Slicer, it’s easy to see if there is any print detail loss by using a larger diameter nozzle. I also look at turning on the feature to detect thin walls, sometimes details are not printed, or a .3-.4mm thin wall for support are not printed because this feature is OFF by default.
I change support pattern space length values to reduce support amount. Sometimes giving some bridge that your machine can handle will reduce the time significantly...
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I got a job at a facility where we prototype and manufacture medical products using FDM and SLA 3d printers. I can honestly say I wouldn't know the slightest bit of what I'm doing at my job if it wasn't for your channel. my very first day on the job, I was tasked with repairing 5 broken ender 3's. I repaired 2 the first day. I literally play with 3d printers for a living now and am in love with my work.
Edit: I've been with this job for 2 and a half years now. I now build medical lasers, nebulizers, operate laser cutting machines, fiber lasers, ultrasonic welders, mix proprietary resins from chemicals in house for SLA 3D printing, and design parts and molds in software all after learning on the job. follow your dreams and don't let haters get you down. You can do anything you put your mind to. anyone who tells you otherwise isn't worth listening to.
How did you get that awesome opportunity for the job?
@@pcdc1337 I have a buddy who already worked for the place as an engineer and he asked me if I'd like to come check it out and possibly work there as an engineering tech (basically his assistant). I have no degree and no prior experience otherwise. I just love 3d printing and watch a ton of videos about it.
I work at a biotech company and it's so cool to see the instrument prototypes 3D printed
@@TheLazzarus101 Goodluck it's indeed a good opportunity !
Man's living the dream.
In Cura:
The Cubic support can be done in a similar way with essentially any infill using the infill subdivision feature. A separate setting also works on supports that get denser at the top (not roof, the support structure itself).
Starting with a version several months back (I think 4.11), seam placement is (finally!) also nicely visible.
Seams: nothing like the aligned that I know of, but sharpest corner+smart hiding works quite well most of the time. In some cases, I set my own seam coordinates. Still, seam painting in PS is clearly superior.
Settings I changed in Cura:
(Ender 3, but most apply anywhere)
Infill - grid is fine for visual parts, cubic or gyroid anywhere else.
Connect infill lines (for prints that I want strong), sometimes I drop in infill line multiplier too (IMO works better than high infills >30%).
Initial layer line width to 150% for materials where adgesion is notoriously poor.
Combing - on, but with max comb range 10mm and "not in skin" setting.
Regular fan speed from 3. layer (2. is then 50% of set fan speed), minimum layer time 6s.
Low jerk on first layer (10, with some materials even 5). Helps prevent ripping of at sharp corners etc. Acceleration tuned down a bit too.
Increased travel to 200mm/s, including on first layer.
Support density 15% (but depends on project), support roof 100% density concentric, 1mm thick. Z gap 1-2 layers depending on model needs (1 is fine under flat surfaces but can be hard to remove on complex shapes).
Support brim on.
Support overhang angle 50-60° (but can go to 70° in some cases).
Support skin fan speed 100% (cools stuff above support so it can be easier removed, useful when your base speed is not 100%, like PETG etc).
Often Conical supports or even tree supports can work wonders, reaching over structures to support stuff above, without building supports on top of parts of the model.
Unless brim needed, skirt with just 2 lines.
Huh, that was quite a lot :-D
Man that was a lot. I would love to see a video from you describing how you came to these settings and what made you pick the numbers you did. I got pushed into cura when I bought a new 3D printer Qidi i-fast. I'm really not thrilled with their version of it and so I'd like to build my own profile but I'm scared to death of all the settings.
This is great information, thanks! I just got an Ender 3 V2 and am working on tuning it. My prints look pretty nice so far, but I want to push it to print a bit faster if I can without compromising strength and appearance.
Do you know what the insure vertical shell thickness is in Cura?(Nevermind, found it. It is "Skin removal width" in the infill advanced settings. I increased it to 3mm and all of the extra infill on the slanted walls disappeared. Took my time down from 1hr 44min to 1hr 27min. Only 1 gram difference but it's not that much infill, just takes extra time.
Hey I am very very interested in your comment because I am relatively just staring out with an ender 3 on cura but it is really hard to follow your writing and obtain the great information your sharing. If you wouldn't mind could you make your info in more of a list format, I thank you for sharing this information in the first place the community is only benefited by people like you spreading knowledge and wisdom
You know what man I'm sorry I read your comment back again except this time on my desktop and it was way easier to follow. Before I was viewing on my phone and it was very hard to tell where you were stopping one setting and starting another lol disregard my original comment, thank you again man this is great knowledge
"Ensure vertical shell thickness" is now called "Extra perimeters on overhangs" and is off by default as well as being marked as Experimental.
Another one to save your bacon in case you use variable layer height is minimum shell thickness. If you reduce the layer height of the top of a dome for example, you might only have 3 top layers at 0.1mm which is very thin, but the rest of the print is at 0.2mm so 3 layers is plenty. setting minimum shell thickness to 0.5mm will ensure that if you reduce the layer height anywhere you don't accidentally create holes. Otherwise it changes absolutely nothing, so no hurt in enabling it just in case.
Really helpful video!
Quick suggestion: it would have been very interesting for you to show the cube printed once with the default settings, and once with the improved settings at the end.
i agree, I was hoping to see that too. At least we saw the the aligned difference
Agreed - Please
Bit late for this at this point 😂😂😂 From my own experience up to now though, everything he says works exactly as he says it will
Miss these tips and tricks videos, Thank You, always learning new helpful concepts and approaches here!
Hope to keep making them ! Thanks for sticking around :)
@@MakersMuse is nossel clogging common
@@Randomperson0467 it happens for me lol
@@Randomperson0467 but my prints turn out just fine!
Ok
My 3D printer came as a gift, rather than a planned purchase. My primary use is to print miniatures for tabletop RPGs. Currently, I'm focused on improving the quality of my prints, after which I hope to learn how to speed up printing. Any videos you have already done and would like to direct me to, or any new videos in this vein would be appreciated. You're one of the better TH-camrs for 3D printing - thank-you for your work.
The "ensure vertical thickness" algorithm has changed recently in PrusaSlicer (I think in either 2.6.0 or 2.6.1). Instead of all of the short moves perpendicular to the perimeters, they are now generated parallel to the perimeters. Much less print-induced vibrations.
You also can't remove them now...
Vertical shell thickness!
I’ve been wanting those purple lines to go away.
Thanks again Angus.
Instead of a third perimeter I like to use Cura's "Connect Infill Lines" feature (probably available in other slicers). This greatly strengthens infill by linking sections together where they connect to walls, reduces the number of retractions you need to make, and provides a modest improvement to wall strength without printing a full third perimeter. For a similar reason I also use the zig-zag top/bottom pattern instead of lines; I don't have the equipment to measure improved mechanical strength, but logically it should be more robust to have a single undivided line of extrusion rather than many separate ones.
Another option is Cura's "Alternate Extra Wall" feature, which adds an extra wall every second layer. I don't imagine this is very useful on its own, but combined with "Connect Infill Lines" it uniquely sandwiches infill and perimeters together, noticeably improving strength. On some occasions I've used these two features together and only used a single regular external perimeter. For my parts at least, this is obviously stronger in the hand than just having regular unconnected infill with 2 perimeters, while printing much faster and using less filament. Cosmetically it won't be as attractive though since the infill will show through.
To both make my seams less noticeable and improve print speed, I print external walls narrower (and a bit more slowly), say 0.44mm for a 0.4mm nozzle, and internal ones wider depending on desired strength. 0.8mm or even 1mm is fine for a 0.4mm nozzle. This technique doesn't harm external appearance in any way I've been able to notice. Printing wider than your nozzle opening (but no wider than the nozzle tip) is a good way to improve layer adhesion and strength, as it sandwiches the plastic together across a wider surface and forms a *much* stronger bond to the previous layer.
Wider infill can also a good idea for reducing print time without sacrificing strength but it's not always practical, it depends on the structure of the part you're printing. Sometimes you want lots of small supports in thin spots, while other times you have a big space to fill and printing wide infill has no downside. If you use a low infill percentage this may not be beneficial as it greatly increases the gap between infill lines.
Before using wider extrusion you should check to see how fast your hotend is capable of melting filament or else you could have hidden underextrusion in your internal walls.
Also when using wider top/bottom lines, I recommend specifying a custom top skin line width and selecting 2 "top surface skin layers". In Cura this is an experimental feature and I use 0.4mm. It greatly improves surface finish, ensuring the top of prints are as flat as possible with virtually no blobbing.
I don't use it very often since it leads to an inconsistent and unattractive surface finish with glossy filament, but if that doesn't matter I like to use Adaptive Layers. I normally use 0.24mm base height with 0.08mm variation in both directions, so when I'm printing an angle or a curve it's smoother (0.16 layer height), but if I'm printing a flat section it's much faster (0.32 layer height).
Yep 👍
i think it is always-on in prusaslicer.
I wonder if this is the combine infill every X layers setting in Prusa
@@shanold7681 it is.
prusa do that by default
notes for myself 😊
number of walls :4
cubic infil 20%
elephant's foor compensation 0.2
alligned seams
ensure vertical thickness : disable it
It's stuff like this that makes this channel the gold standard for 3dprinting videos for me. Keep it up.
The seam in cura recently is really cool. Its called smart hiding and it aligned for the sphere like in your example but instead of protruding outward in goes in like a nice zipper and I find it a step better and smoother. Thanks again for your tips.
Thanks for these videos. I purchased a Bambu Lab P1S last week and your content is incredibly educational. The printer itself just worked out of the box, but learning about print settings has been so helpful. In one of your previous videos you discussed overhang angle vs layer height and it has saved me so much time and material already. Thanks!
This is why I love that my printer has community driven profiles for it in prusaslicer which always gives me optimal prints
Excellent video. Glad I went back and watched again. Continue pumping out your outstanding content, you are greatly appreciated!
I would love to see a 2024/2025 update to this video, perhaps getting even deeper into all the settings you use for certain prints based on quality, speed, filament use etc. A deep dive into your current philosophies and software and printers used would be an amazing video for the new year coming up! The slicers out there used all have tons of updates.
I can't adequately express how helpful your videos have been! I've been trying to figure out what the white dots are, and how to get rid of them, since I began printing.
Im REALLY surprised. I finally bought feeler gauges (after blindly using whatever is preset from facrory in sparkplug world
These “Tips” videos are sooo appreciated and extremely under rated. Thank you so much for all your help
Thanks! Plenty more to come.
11:10 It seems that the slicer would need "nearest, then aligned" setting which would do the best of both worlds. Hide seams if possible but fallback to aligned if no suitable area is available for given layer.
Thank you for this, and all your videos. I've been printing for about a year now, and have learned everything I know only from TH-cam since I'm not part of a local community of print enthusiasts. Thanks a ton!
Personally I have found that each different print may require some tweaking of the settings, one setting never does it all.
I do agree the "3 wall parameter" setting is a great over all setting, that I don't mess with much.
And on a side note, I'm really impressed how many options and how great that Prusa slicer works. I've been a hardcore Simplify 3d user, but slowly starting to switch over now
I knew simplify3D had fallen behind but I didn't realise how far, wow. I've really only stuck with it because of how much i paid for it. But I do agree, every print is different and you are always tweaking settings to get the best print for the application. No two prints are ever the same.
Check out the new Cura 5 as well, that really improved my prints.
S3D is really outdated, I wouldn't use it anymore..
Really great tips! I love how the advice on this channel is always so practical. The seam in particular is one things I've tried to adjust a few times and was never happy with. Interestingly I've actually never considered setting to "aligned", thinking it would show up and I could just hide it by using random. It's not hidden… now it's much harder to clean up since there are bits sticking out everywhere.
Dude, this video was insanly helpful. I struggled for months with elephant foots and didn't even know there where a setting to prevent it. Thank you so much for the Other Tipps as well.
Awesome! Thanks for the comment, glad it helped. Elephants foot was so frustrating to figure out when I first got started too.
With seams, doing aligned on something with threads will cause binding. If printing something threaded use random.
Angus, as ever your videos are fun and informative - I use Cura, but I completely agree with your observations about seam positioning, I do a lot of repeat printing of the same parts, as I make 3D prints commercially, putting the seam in the same place every time removes those seemingly random blobs from surfaces that should be smooth, walls too - many of my parts are handled by customers, one part in particular was breaking until I increased the wall count to five and the top and bottom thickness to 1.6mm - its a handle for a lever arm, and people turn it, so we had a few breakages in the early days, not any more. No amount of infill solved the problem, I hardly ever use infill at greater than 30% - and gyroid is my go-to. As for elephants foot, everything I print has a 45 degree or steeper chamfer at the bottom, and if its a cuboid, every edge has a chamfer, same with cylinders and holes. The finished parts look way better and take a lot less finishing. As I use OpenSCAD its just been a question of building / finding the right code to do the heavy lifting..
Great job.
I usually go with 80% infill for mechanical parts, I‘m gonna try thicker walls next time and less infill
I change the layer with for the perimeters so they are wider except the external perimeters. So except the outer perimeter if have wider layers. I don't think I loose quality but it goes faster to make the print stronger.
When I want 100% infill, I just print a very large number of perimeters.(Mostly on a tiny part of the part)
The chamfer trick is also a good one. I think Angus also mentions the chamfer one in off his design vidoes.
@@83darksteel yeah, definitely came off one of Angus' videos, along with thin elements to provide support, although I avoid printed supports like the plague, I'd rather chop a model into three and fabricate than print supports. Bitter experience of a model needing 'Everywhere' and then being unable to get the support off without destroying the part.. I use a combination of solvent welding or blunt point self tapping screws depending upon the application.
What's the name of your business? and what are your products? Thanks
@@martyboi We make 3D printed Circular Sock Knitting machines, based in the UK, you'll find us with a swift Google. We could make other stuff of course, everything is made in-house, apart from the metal bits.
Dear Angus, you are so kind regarding empowering us with technology. Thank you. Also I am a 3 perimeter person.
This was really helpful. I've been 3D modeling and printing for years, but I've never really focused much on the slicer itself. Thanks for making the video
Been printing for about 1.5 months and only now brave enough to escape the presets. This was a great video, thank you
Now start designing your parts that actually fit together and do the job YOU want them to do. When I started I soon got fed up with printing someone else's stuff off say Thingiverse and finding that I spent more time making the bits fit together than actually printing them. Want really strong parts? - fabricate them with internal hidden voids to make them even stronger. Walls matter more than infill.
Just an fyi for those who may not know, support cubic is now adaptive cubic.
Love it!! I agree with so many of these, including the vertical shell thickness, HOWEVER there are times where the vertical shell thickness is worth it. Models that are more anatomical tend to benefit to leave it enabled so you do not lose detail near the head. Great vid with helpful tips!
This is EXACTLY what i am looking for. A to the point explaination of each setthing to take notes for myself. Thx!
I've been printing for about 1 year and it's amazing (insane) the amount of i fo I get to pick up on on a daily basis. This was very helpful! 🎉❤😊
This has been the single most useful 3D printing video I’ve ever seen. Seriously! Thank you so much!
Your videos are very helpful. It has made my introduction to 3d printing much less painful. Thank you.
I'm considering buying my first printer and this type of video is invaluable. Thanks for taking the time!
Future 101 idea, “Detect Thin Walls” , fight with this detail when building my own supports or small details frequently, if done correctly it allows some overhangs that waste far less plastic and time.
I wish the logic inside prusa slicer could handle overhangs better for circle based geometry, struggle with single orientation layers when it could bridge easily by a “spoke style” layer, it requires overprinting edges to get enough support on DIY scaffolding like referencing the above.
This, this 1000x this. When you don't want it creating a bajillion artifacts, 'detect thin lines' is the bane of my existence. when putting in supports, or designing breakaway interfaces into a part, to interface with supports (especially nice, when working on rounded overhangs or other things that BEG to curl / print poorly) it can be a lifesaver.
Definitely one of those 'great power, great responsibility' things.
Great advice! Thank you!
FYI: SuperSlicer 2.3 equivalent settings are:
Infill
Infill -> Support Cubic -> Connected
Perimeters & Shells
-> Advanced -> Seam -> Seam Position -> Aligned [Default is "Cost Based". Have you tried it?]
-> Quality -> Avoid Crossing Perimeters -> Uncheck
Cannot find any setting for "Elephant Foot" in SS.
Your experience on "Speed" and "width & Flow" settings will be a great future subject; maybe?
Cheers!
You missed the last one.
Perimeters & Shells -> Quality -> uncheck Ensure Vertical Thickness 14:42
I like me some Cubic, but man, Gyroid is SO NICE.
Cubic vs Gyroid fight!
@@MakersMuse if you don’t have silent steppers, gyroid sounds like you’ve stepped into an ‘80s arcade when it gets going. That alone endears it to me. :)
gyroid for life
Im late to the 3D printer scene but there is SO much information in this one video. You sir, get a sub.
Can you do more of these? I love this but I have all these changed already. Would love to see some really niche stuff you've changed that maybe most people wouldn't think could affect their print
These are the main ones to be honest! The other settings I tweak based on the model I'm printing. I rarely change settings such as print speed / accelerations and extrusion widths unless I encounter issues.
@@MakersMuse I think what would really benefit me would be changes you might make for mechanical parts which is the majority of what I'm building. Lots of supports or brackets things that I'm trying to 3D print rather than make out of aluminum. If you have specific changes that are out of the box standard for you I would sure appreciate it. I usually end up getting frustrated and just printing at 100% which I know is not the best way to do it most of the time.
You have become my favorite 3-D mentor.
Great Video, will definitely be using some of these on my prints.
Also to note about the Seam Placement: PrusaSlicer has a paint on seams setting where you can literally tell it exactly where it should place the seam. That way you can place it on the back of models or in internal corners to hide them much better.
Prusaslicer 2.5 hides it so insanely good. Definitely a big upgrade and time saver.
It has hidden the seams better than what I could do after over an hour painting seams on it.
However it might still put them in front instead of the back if the back is a slope (seams on slopes are not good)
Aligned seams also makes sense since we are used to seeing seams on the injection molded items
The seam thing can also be caused by a printer saving the progress so that if the power goes out it’ll automatically start from where it left off.
WOW!!! What valuable resource for beginners. I recently got a Prusa and have been printing a week now and this is exactly the material I needed to take it to the next level of my fast track crash (and i mean CRASH!) course through the basics. Can't wait to see the difference!
I especially love the explanations as to "why". Great job and thank you VERY much!
I feel just a little bit clever now, since having just started this hobby a month ago, I use these same settings for the same reasoning. Didn't know about vertical thickness, but it seems it's off by default for me. Love the efficiency of your videos.
Perimeters: 3
Infill: Cubic or Support Cubic Infill
Elephant foot Compensation: 0.3mm (Only if this is happening)
Seam Placement: Nearest or Aligned
Ensure vertical thickness: Disable it
Wow. Just got my printer 2 days ago. Did my first big-ish print (8 hours). Basically just hit print. And after I went back to my slicer and everything you just covered I saw in this print. Huge learning experience here. If I knew any of this I wouldn't have run out of material on it.
Cura has fairly recently added what they call "lightning infill". It's similar to the infill that you showed here but with even less plastic usage. Might be worth checking out and making a video on. It has cut some print times almost in half vs default infill settings.
And now Prusa Slicer recently had Lightning added as well!
Just tried that in the slicer on a 28 hr print and it raised the print time by 6½ hours over cubic
Wow. TY. New to 3D printing and this really helped my prints. Saved 5 hours on 1 print. The perimeter also helped on the walls for a shipping container I just printed.
Nice! Glad it helped
Very educational.
That's pretty much my settings on Cura apart from the 3 walls. I've only ever used 2, but after seeing this video I will definitely be changing to 3 walls especially to hide infills.
Thanks! Just after a few testprints i am convinced to switch from Cura to Prusa Slicer. It just works so much better for my Printer
Thanks Angus, this is great. I like Prusa slicer and appreciate you explaining what the features do. This is great list. I haven't used it enough to recommend any setting tweaks.
Thanks Robert! Glad you found it useful.
I really enjoy your videos and your enthusiasm. Very informative and engaging. Well done! Thanks
Based on my experience in the 3D printing world, here are some key takeaways for material selection and part strengthening:
* Material Selection:
* PLA: Ideal for prototyping due to its ease of use and printability.
* ABS: Suitable for final products due to its durability.
* PETG CF: Offers enhanced strength, making it a good choice for functional parts like car components.
* ASA: Known for its UV resistance and strength, similar to ABS but with improved outdoor performance.
* Part Strengthening:
* Acetone Smoothing with Bondo: This technique can be used to strengthen and smoothen ABS or PETG CF parts before painting. Acetone dissolves the plastic surface slightly, creating a smoother finish after sanding and filling with bondo.
* Infill Tips:
* Use a strong infill pattern like a triangula grid (similar to the Star of David) for maximum strength.
* Consider the breathability of plastics when choosing infill density. Similar to pores in skin, some infill is necessary to allow for slight flexing and prevent warping.
* For small or big projects, I always use 4 up to 5 lines ABS and PETG CF, PLA whatever ASA whatever
Being fairly new in the 3d printing world, this was absolutely amazing. Cheers.
When I make my millions....im going to seek you out. You have been a big inspiration when it comes to engineering......like nikola telsa inspiration. Thanks
I always come back to your videos, well explained, easy to follow and most importantly actually useful. Great job
I end up going back and forth increasing speed and changing temperature. So first, crank the travel speed, to like 200mm/s, because that is the speed the print head moves when it is not printing. Super high travel speed works well with TPU, because it reduces time that the TPU is doing weird things. Back to speed. I look at what crazy speed other youtubers are using and use that as an absurd top limit. So, if sombody can run at 200mm/s, and I am running at 50mm/s I can probably bump up to at least 80mm/s without problems. When changing speeds I need to monitor the prints, and increase or decrease temperature in 5 degree increments, until I get to something I can use as a slicer setting.
3D noob here - and I appreciate this video. Thanks!
These are really good tips. I'm going to have to try disabling "ensure vertical thickness". I usually pull infill down to 15%, and change the bottom layer to 5 for strength and stability. Some adjustments I make in CAD, though. I normally put a shallow radius on the bottom to eliminate elephant's foot and give a consistent finish, at least with PLA. To make the sides stronger, I'll print the sides at a 3mm or so width. That makes for a hollow exterior wall with the infill, and it's quite a bit slower, but it's very light and strong. A bit like making the side walls of a print with balsa core plywood.
Very well explaination. Thank you. As for the elephant foot, I usually have it turned off for PLA and ON for PETG. I was always under the impression that the bed at 90c was causing it more than the first layer adjustments. I'll play a bit more with it to see.
That #5 hint is great to know. I always wondered what was causing this wiggling. Thanks again.
I'm printing footplates for an electric unicycle in carbon fiber nylon. I changed a lot. A 0.6 ruby nozzle with a stainless steel insert replacing what would otherwise be XS PTFE, 0.3 layer height, 5 perimeter wall count, 8 top layers, 6 bottom layers, 50% infill, triangle pattern, I slowed the print speed right down, 20 mm/s & walls top and bottom 10mm/s. 250C (I even tried 260C but that was too hot), the bed up to 100C and I left it on until the chamber got to 40C. No part cooling fan. Changed out the bed plate for borosilicate glass and glue stick (6 layers). Each footplate took 35hrs to print on my Qidi X-Plus printer, but speed wasn't the concern, strength was. Very happy with the result.
I usually reduce the number of solid layers to 4 (top, default was 5) and 3 (bottom, default was 4).
I use to always drop the skirt height to just a single layer, but leave it at 3 when printing extra thin layers, especially on a textured print bed surface.
I also change the Start G-code script to wait until the bed is warm before setting the nozzle temp. I find that the nozzle heats up so much faster than the bed, and will end up oozing filament if left hot too long.
Also in the Start G-code, as I use Octoprint to host the files for my Prusa MK3, I add the "@BEDLEVELVISUALIZER" line to have it watch for the mesh values - the visualizer makes it so easy to adjust the screws for leveling the bed...
Thanks for your tips!
Great video many many thanks for the seam tip !!
A lot of your parameters tips are corrected by default in the fork SuperSlicer ! But your video allowed me to learn a lot about all these parameters and will allow me to improve the quality of my prints so thank you very much !
Is Ensure vertical thickness available on the latest Prusaslicer? i can’t seem to find it.
PrusaSlicer 2.7.2
Since you asked I am Happy to share my settings.
Ender 5 pro, using Cura 5.1.1 Super quality (.12mm) for miniatures.
My only changes are infill density 40, nozzle temp 190 with bed temp at 60. Print speed is 40, limit support retractions is off. using support with overhang angle 45-55, wall line count is 0. Build adhesion method is raft.
Any figure/creature not on its own base is moved 3 mm off the ground plane. those with a base I move down to bottom of feet so as to not print the base.
Tweaked the star Gcode to draw the second purge line 2mm away from the first, and put a ";" in front of "G1 Z2.0 F3000 ;Move Z Axis up" no issues with it so far... apart from bed height rarely being "just right". I their a "thickness gauge" one (or more) can buy for setting the build plate an exact distance from the nozzle?
I print functional parts and I set the wall thickness and number of top/bottom layers depending on strength and other requirements of that particular part. For example, if you want to drill or thread the printed holes, you will certainly need more wall layers.
In some circumstances, for example when you want thick walls but the item or a substantial section of it is narrow anyway, the infill in that narrow section might take longer to print than a few more lines. In that case, I set the wall thickness higher to make essentially a solid at those thin sections.
Another feature you can save a TON of print time is the Combine infill every X layers option. Default is 1. You can use 2, but you have to use smaller layer height than nozzle_dia/2 for this to work. It usually works alright up to 0.15mm layer height with a 0.4mm nozzle. In theory, you could combine 3 layers of infill if you print with 0.1mm of layer height with 0.4mm nozzle. There is a slight disadvantage though, it feels that the end product is less strong, which can be an issue with functional parts.
I nearly always turn on "support interface" options when doing prints now - I had a lot of trouble with taking supports off and them leaving ugly lines, spots, craters, etc, but with support interface since it basically prints a flat layer on top of the support (before the programmed support z-gap) I find that the surface finishes are so much better. Perfect? No, nothing is. But I've noticed a significant improvement in surface quality since doing so :)
I have the opposite result, support interface bonds to well, as its actually designed for dissolvable support filament.
@@NexGen-3D It's used with soluble supports, but with zero gap. For regular filament, 1mm roof with 1-2 layers gap work well for me (1 on flat surfaces when I want the best possible finish, 2 under curved parts).
@@NexGen-3D if you turn the support interface density down to like 20% it is just as easy if not easier to remove than regular supports. gotta have your z distance tuned right for your filament/temps/speeds too
Same here! I had a shit of a time getting strong outputs from slimming down the infills.
@@NexGen-3D Select 0.2 in "Top contact Z distance" and it should pull away well :)
Wish I had seen this video a year ago! :)
I eventually arrived at everything you mention (including the Cubic infill, which is also my favorite!), but it took me quite a while to figure out what exactly the settings do (or that they even exist).
Some things I change in addition are:
- "Avoid crossing perimeters" as I now print on a Bowden extruder Prusa Mini most of the time, and it really helps with reducing stringing.
- "First Layer Speed" - I slow it down a bit from the defaults, I can take the extra couple of minutes in exchange for a more reliable first layer.
- First layer filament temperature - I don't know when it changed, but it used to be that the (Prusa Slicer) filament profiles had a temperature couple degrees higher for the first layer (whereas now it's LOWER for PETG?) and now they don't, but I find that worked slightly better for first layer adhesion, so I usually change that too.
- "Ironing" SOMETIMES - the print time hit is huge and not all prints benefit, but man, is it magic! It ends up with a top layer that's smoother than the bottom one!
Would have been great if you had printed both and shown the differences in quality between the default printer settings and your custom defaults.
Thank you for pointing out about Ensure Vertical Thickness.
I turn Wipe off. With eSun ePA-CF it leaves boogers all over the place.
I turn on Detect Thin Walls, as I often make support manually by adding 0.2-0.4 vertical thin walls.
I just recently did a print that took 12 hours on my old settings. Out of curiosity I re-sliced the model using these new setting tweaks and it would have taken 7 hours!! I'll definitely be using these from now on.
"Back in the dark ages of 3D printing..." And then Angus shows a clip of my printers! I still love these old Wanhao Di3's - Modded and refined, tweaked and tinkered over the last decade, they produce some amazing results.
One thing is for sure, I need to look at these new slicers. I'm still using S3D. Thanks for all the hints and advice over the years!
I use the CHEP super fast profile in Cura which is fantastic. And I've always used triangle infill as CNC kitchen found this to be very good for strength
Agree totally on the aligned seams option; can't abide those little pimples scattered randomly all over. I need smooth walls, so I just sand the seams away. Having said that, the Prusa Slicer on the Prusa produces very neat seams which don't require a great deal of tidying. Loved the video; so useful, as always. Would be great to see a similar one on speed settings 🤗
Regarding bed adhesion and elephant foot, I've not seen this talked about in years but I still often do it, if you're having adhesion issues without getting too close to the bed, a bit of pritt stick on the bed, then a bit of water and spread it as thinly as possible with a spatula, and everything sticks fine. Can just wash it off with water afterwards too.
Glue stick is good insurance! I do this as well.
I alway learn something new with your videos, thanks a lot :)
Never seen those acrylic cards before. Those are pretty cool! Not the worst mystery boxes, but not the best.
I use Cura. It has gradual infill and lightning infill that can shorten time. Another thing I do is change the speed of interior walls much faster than the exterior wall (or "perimeter"). I found it saves lots of time. Cura 5 also has variable line width and bridging speeds I'm not sure that pursha will do.
I'm on the fence on 5, it does some things really well and a few I can't sort out yet (like inside out by default for walls) As always, still learning! Like I tell me peers, the good thing about Cura is they are always updating it. The bad thing about Cura...is they are always changing it 😁
@@WhereNerdyisCool I've been using it awhile. You always have a soft spot for the first software you use. I would be lost with any other slicer. I see cool features in Prushaslicer, but it would be a learning curve I don't want.
Thanks Angus for another helpful video.
Can any of you Cura users tell me the Cura equivalent of Ensure Vertical Thickness? Or maybe Cura has it but I have it hidden?
On Cura, I'm always trying to improve movements and retraction to avoid stringing. I use materials that are quite subject to stringing and it's super hard to remove it.
For instance, the Zelda Ocarina you showcase in this video, I tried 3 different PLAs from eSun to make it, and it had stringing all the time.
So to reduce stringing, I try my best to "diagnose" the movements in Cura to see if it might induce stringing, and compare filament retraction with Z-axis moves on every finished line, and it always depends on the shape, so it's quite hard.
I learnt a LOT with your videos before even having a 3D printer, and I experimented a lot of different shapes to have "perfect" config for each print, and I noticed both vertical thickness and perimeters impact, so I'm super glad that you're talking about them because they seem quite critical to me!
However, thanks a lot for your "seam placement" recommendation, because I didn't knew this one, it's gonna be SO helpful!
Such a helpful video!
I just got a 3D Printer, and didn't know about any of these settings.
It is very helpful. I am glad that I clicked on it!! 🙂
Aligned seams make for a weaker part. If the part will be under stress then a random seam is better since it spreads the weakness, seams are weak points, randomly across the part yielding a stronger part. If the part is purely decorative then strength is usually not an issue so seam alignment is not typically an issue.
Well, I mainly use Ideamaker but some settings that save a lot of time are those for example for retraction. Turn it off while not needed!
No retraction in infill, no retraction on inner-walls and I have many profiles without any retraction or I just enable it on certain layers.
With other settings that will stop retraction before the end of the lines you reduce the need to almost zero or zero in many cases. This saves tons of time on the prints.
About the 'zips' well, this also helps a lot: no lots of filament squeezes out on those seams and if you tweek it right (and use parameters for this build-up and down of pressure) they are invisible even in the middle of the surface of circles so further reducing printtime and movements.
Good video. I tend to make exactly the same changes on my Prusa :)
One remark about Support Cubic: It saves a lot of filament and print time. But the beware that the bottom surface will be poorly supported. So the strenght of the bottom layer is not very good.
Thank you, your fine details are explained very clearly. You're including the why with the what & how which makes it make more sense.
First time to hear about support cubic. I will definitely try it.
I'm surprised how I don't see people change extrusion width. I increase it at least for infill, and for functional parts I increase it for everything. It increases strength & cut printing time
Using Superslicer not Prusaslicer, so not sure which of these may be carried over from Prusaslicer, or unique to Superslicer, but...
In perimeters and shells I turn on "Only one perimeter" for "On top surfaces" and then in Infill change the top surface pattern to Monotonic (not connected). In Width & Flow I then change "top infill" width to (usually, unless it's a quick draft print) 0.28mm
I find this combination gives me a really nice balance between speed and a great top surface finish... I'd argue it's not far behind ironed, but without anywhere near the additional time (or risk of drag lines).
If these kind of settings are available for your slicer I def recommend trying it out.
I also find that setting seams to "corners" then using the paint seams tool to paint where I want them gives me the best results on simple-ish models where seams can jump about a bit even with aligned and where they occasionally appear on overhangs where you really don't want them. Using corners mode seems to work best with painting as you don't have to be super accurate painting the corner you want, it'll just find the corner within the area you painted, whereas leaving it on aligned can cause it to wobble either side of the corner sometimes. I tend to find it's a few minute job to paint where I want them, and that seems worth it to me.
You hit the exact ones that I change to, right down to the maintain vertical shell thickness.
This is now required viewing for the Engineering Design course I teach which utilizes the 3D printer lab I’ve built up. Thanks!!!!
Very informative definitely gonna have to watch it multiple times to get all the tips and tricks Thanks
Great tips! Very useful. One suggestion is to consider Rectilinear infill because often it is faster. I use it like 90% of the time.
good tips. Thanks. Its good to know your preferences as we know they come from experience
So you're telling me that my "bubbling" problem was a seam alignment problem all along? Holy sh!tballs!
Here's a few of my first things to check that are more slicer than firmware based.
1. Alternate extra walls - I find this to be preferential to just going up to 3 walls as the layers without an extra wall will bring the infill in to that space so you get both great adhesion between wall and infill, and you don't need to bring that infill in anywhere near to overlapping your main 2 walls.
2. 0.3mm first layer - even with a voron getting me completely flat on that first layer, using 0.3mm first layer just seems to give me much better adhesion and much less corner lifting, regardless of material
3. Fan speed - most slicers seem to have a variable profile, with more cooling if there's overhangs, I find this variation in cooling leads to wobbly walls and inconsistencies with surface finish, I find a good constant speed that kicks in on the 3rd layer, and I see finding the best fan speed for a material to be MUCH more important than the perfect hotend temp, and the fan staying a constant speed is much less irritating to listen to.
4. Wipe distance - playing with this figure (along with pressure advance) I've found I can make most seams almost completely disappear
5. Object rotation - This one sounds a bit redundant at first, but is very important in getting faster, more consistent prints. The main aim is to ensure you're using as many motors as possible, for as much of the model as possible. Imagine your normal ender 3 style cartesian, one motor moves in the Y axis, one in the X axis, so if you do a horizontal wall, nearly all of your print is going to be using just one motor, if you put it at a 45 degree angle however, you've split that load across 2 motors, with each having to move much slower, giving you more control, so placing your most important features at 45 degrees to the print bed should give the best results. CoreXY uses one motor for diagonal movements, so you should ensure that your most important walls are square with your print surface. If you're using a delta, then you've got 3 motors working on every direction at all times, so you've got nothing to worry about.
I use MK3s with prusaslicer and use cubic infill as well (the gyroid robs time and shakes a bit too much), 1 skirt layer and 1 loop, some custom start-stop-pause g code (thicker purge line (removes any blob on the nozzle at start of print), first heat bed then the extruder (so it does not ooze while heating bed and that is substantial more time for 80-90degrees for bed for petg for example), at the end move the y forward, home X, raise the z, start part cooling fan until it reaches 50deg (realy fast way to not ooze and cook filament in the nozzle after print completes), Also adding custom G code for octoprint if i pause, or cancel a print.. to raise the nozzle far away so i can clean it. (the default in octoprint is not nice.. it just stop there and then cooking the leftovers on the buildplate), after colorchange M600 a little purge in the air that i can grab with tweezers. - I've seen that some of what i stated is already in standard form in Slic3rPE, but it was not always the case for older versions so i've learned my ways into Gcode.
Things not mentioned here I have set to not default:
First layer speed: 10 (default is 20, I like reliable prints and not using glue)
Support material style: Snug
Bridge flow rate: 0.8 (does a good job of keeping them from sagging)
Bridge speed: 20 (instead of 25, helps it cope with lower flow rate)
Retraction: 3
About the bridging: I find it goes better on FAST movements. Like 120 or 200% of normal parts. No time at all for the filament to fall down since it is strechted. But that is also the only time the partcooling-fans are running full-speed (normally 20% or max. 40% depending on printer).
And I draw manual supports where I need them so I can easily remove them. So for longer bridges I put one or 2 small supports below them if needed (like if a bridge is like 8 cms wide or more).
Of course in the design I also make some changes like inner-chamfers if possible so that there are less bridges that are longer then a few cms.
@@elvinhaak Bridging is the thing I adjusted longest ago and am probably overdue for recalibrating it based off changes to everything else made since. I tend to put planks floating out in space so they can have support material below them at the ends and above them in the middle as a hack to avoid having any support material on top of the actual model.
For larger prints, or prints with 8+ hours print time, I often decide if changing the Nozzle diameter from .4mm to .6 or .8 is worth the print time savings. With Prusa Slicer, it’s easy to see if there is any print detail loss by using a larger diameter nozzle.
I also look at turning on the feature to detect thin walls, sometimes details are not printed, or a .3-.4mm thin wall for support are not printed because this feature is OFF by default.
I change support pattern space length values to reduce support amount. Sometimes giving some bridge that your machine can handle will reduce the time significantly...