Better slicer?

[RobH2]

Yea, it's a little different approach but it works well for me and I find it efficient. It does in fact, in totality, have infill on every layer but it does it by creating a weave sort like cloth, or a matrix, but without the thread going under one then over one. It lays down infill lines in, say, the 45 degree direction. Then the next infill is at, say, the -45 degree direction. There is a separation between the threads of layer 1 and 3 that are both running in the 45 degree direction but those are overlaid by layers 2 and 4 in the opposite direction, -45. At every one of those crossings is a meld point. It's fast and I find it satisfactory. It's just a different way to do it.

I feel like it's a better way to infill as sideways (sheer) forces are distributed along the infill of the layers above and below a particular shear plane. With a typical (slic3r) infill stack, you still have discrete planes of material. Everything for layer 1 is on layer 1. All the perimeters and all of the infill are on layer 1. Same for layer 2 and subsequent layers. If your were very careful, you could pick any layer and separate the print into two perfect parts by splitting between two layers. With S3D you can't do that because the layers above and below that plane where you have your hypothetical slice are woven into each other. If you cut it through that hypothetical plane, you'd see that you are cutting through filament for layers above and below also. The infill creates a matrix thought the whole interior. Standard infill from sli3er does not create that matrix.

It's also not apples to apples when you apply infill percentages. If slic3r prints structurally sufficient infill at 15%, you may need to use 30% infill for S3D. Since the infills are calculated in different manners, you can't apply one to the other and have a fair comparison. You could print the part in slic3r at 15% that has the part sticking out that you need pliers to snap off. Then, print the same part in S3D at say 15%, 20%, 30% and 40%. Test to see where parts exhibit the same structural integrity. You may find that S3D equals the slic3r part at 30%. But remember, the method/algorithm S3D employs, utilizes 1/2 of the material for infill because of that weaving-like algorithm. So if S3D has the structural integrity at 35% infill, it's only used the same amount of filament as slic3r at 15%. So it's about equal.

I don't think you can hold S3D up against other slicers side by side and just replace settings and make comparisons. It's a little bit of a different creature but once you get your settings right, it makes beautiful prints that are super strong. I've tested mine with pliers too and I've never been disappointed if I've sufficiently designed the infill parameters.

Here's a microscopic shot of the infill. I know it's not the best shot as I rushed it but you can see how the layers interlace and weave.