Slicers and Quality

[Roberts_Clif]

PrusaSlicer 2.3.0 has downloadable profiles one is a Ender 5

Click Configuration Tab > Select Configuration Wizard > Select Other Vendors and the Creality check box
Then select Creality FFF and select your 3D Printer and complete the profile installation by clicking on Finish.

You will note that on the configuration Wizard page you can select different filament i suggest you select all than apply.

[curious aardvark]

yeah the ender 5 is a pretty solid cartesian machine.
I just wish creality would stop using bowden extruders. Just not necessary on a machine with good and even z-axis support.
It wouldn't make it any faster - but would let you use flexibles much easier and you just get that it of extra control and tighter tolearances on print dimensions.

yeah gambo had a couple little niggles setting his sapphire pro up - but as far as I know, it's running well now.

Of the free slicers I've used - prusaslicer is definitely the easiest to use.

Although the way it handle print speeds for the various areas of a model is weird and daft.
In simplify3d - all aspects of a print speed are handled as a percentage of the maximum set print speed.
Logical and easy to change when you want to.

On prusaslicer some things you have to set as individual speeds and others are a percentage of max set speed.
Just makes no sense. Either have one or the other - but mixing it up is just daft.

That's pretty much my only objection to prusaslicer.
That and not being easy to change between filaments and printers.

I haven't looked at it for a few months and - give them their due - prusa do keep improving it.
Might have alook today and see how it's progressing :-)

Every time I look at cura - it's harder to use.
The original cura - up to version 13 and change, was actually very good and well laid out.
When they reset the version number - it just got ridiculously complicated with simple and often changed setting buried under a half dozen layers of menu.
No clue what they were thinking there.

If you have a replicator clone of any make that still uses a mighty board and x3g files. I will make a case for flashprint.
It has one single flaw. You can't adjust the z-axis offset.

Something I use a lot, as different prints and materials will stick differently to the printbd and that's one of the best ways to adjust the level of 'stick'.

It's also fantastic if you have a jpg you want to urn into a 3d image. It will wrap it round a cylinder or a bunch of other shapes as well as producing a flat extrusion. All of which can be exported and used as you like in any other program.
So even if you're not using it to slice - it's still worth having on your machine.

[Gambo]

Hi
Just to update things and nothing to do with slicers Curious Aardvark mentioned I had got a Sapphire Pro and had a few niggles, unfortunately the few niggles have grown and today the main board seems to have failed Display of extruder temp -2C no power to Extruder! extruder resistance nominal. Thermistor resistance 101 Ohms so also nominal at 20 C.

When it worked the results were superb when it worked -not a happy bunny- new main board £42 from Amazon.! what with having a faulty Extruder driver module on delivery it's about time these chinese supplier had some sort of Quality Control. I wanted a TOOL not a PROJECT. End of Rant.

Gambo

[sonnichs]

I downloaded Prusa this weekend and per "Curious" it definitely has much better thought out menus that Cura. Modern software writers can get Byzantine with their menus and finding an option on things like Cura can be much like playing "Dungeons and Dragons" on old mainframes.

I still was wondering if it has a feature where I can stop at a layer in the graphic and then display the GCODE there? Not sure if I am looking in the wrong place but maybe Prusa does not do this.
Does simplify do it?

Thanks
fritz

[Martin_au]

PrusaSlicer does not do that. Why do you want to view the gcode at a particular layer?

[sonnichs]

Well- you ask a good question--in theory we would hope that one does not have to go there. But at times I find looking thru the code useful. With my CNC printer I catch some things that way.
One thing I immediately noticed (and others did) is that Prusa "seems" to take about double time compared to Fusion or Cura using similar print parts. Having a look at the GCODE each generates may be revealing. (Aside: One nice thing that Fusion does, is print the time for each layers so you can look for costly layers).

In the end I suppose it is academic--just knowing some of the underpinnings. But to your point, 3D print is not my field and I suppose I can spend too much time on it!

thanks
Fritz

[Martin_au]

There's a few reasons why I wouldn't worry about it in the slicer. The first is that often some critical settings may be set elsewhere in the file, and not set specifically for that layer (e.g., fan speed). The second is that on a object with a decent chunk of infill, the gcode for a layer may be huge. I just opened the gcode for a fairly simple box structure, with a texture in the outside. That single layer had almost 2000 lines of gcode in it. I'd use a decent text editor, with some good search capability. I use BBedit for browsing gcode.

Just checked another one with gyroid infill. It had 9500 lines in a full gyroid layer.

[Martin_au]

With regard to speed, it's unlikely that there will be any major time difference between any slicers, if the speeds, accelerations and print parameters are all set the same. I wouldn't read too much into the speed differences betwen Fusion and PrusaSlicer until you are sure you're comparing like for like.