Slic3r 0.9.9 vs 1.2.9

[tonybuckley]

Hello,

I've been playing with Cura but mostly been using Slic3r 0.9.9 but I know there is version 1.2.9 out there.

0.9.9 (recommended by Colin) has been working very well. Just started to use 1.2.9 and it seems good but not radically better than 0.9.9.

So my question is, are there any gotchas in using 1.2.9 or is it all good and the Makerfarm documentation is just lagging behind?

My policy is if it aint broke, don't fix it, but there may be some magic in 1.2.9 that I am missing?

Many thanks,

Tony

[Roxy]

Support is much better in v1.2.9 as compared to .9.9

[clough42]

Stuff that's good about 0.9.9:

• Colin provides config files, so it's easy to get started.

Stuff that gave me trouble in 0.9.9:

• Thin walled parts that require infill (1.2mm thick, with .4mm nozzle, .5mm extrusion width) consistently ended up slightly overfilled
• Perimeters occasionally got dropped from some interior holes
• Difficult to see the slicing preview. You had to generate GCODE and view it in Pronterface or another tool.
• Users of my double extruders come to me with a whole variety of problems that go away when they upgrade to 1.1.7 or later.

Stuff that's really great with 1.2.9

• Multiple extruder support is much better. You can now load an arbitrary number of overlapping STL files and assign extruders to each STL.
• 3D preview of the sliced layers is awesome. No longer necessary to export the gcode and load it in Pronterface to see if the slicer generated something reasonable.
• Direct integration with OctoPrint/OctoPi. You can just click "Send to printer" and it slices and uploads.
• Background processing really speeds things up. By the time I'm ready to export, it's often already mostly done processing.

Stuff that still needs work in 1.2.9

• Background processing is a little unstable. I often put 10-15 objects on a single plate for production printing, dragging them onto the app in groups. This is a sure-fire way to crash it. Turning off background processing while building up a complex plate is the workaround.
• The slicer sometimes generates bad bridges, with bridging extending partway over a gap and joining up in space with bridging built from the other side. Of course, you just get a pile of spaghetti in the hole.

[tonybuckley]

Stuff that's ...

Thanks very much!

[PyramidDave]

Stuff that's good about 0.9.9:

I appreciate you getting me to look at this version again. I tried it a few months ago when I knew less about the settings to change. The 1st time I tried it again this week the print was coming out awful, but then I realized the filament diameter was set to 3mm instead of the 1.75mm I was using. After spending an hour or sod getting the settings the way I needed, I am really liking it. It actually seems a little quieter printing now. The big problem I had understanding about this version was how to find the configuration files on disk. With v0.9.9 I could load them from the command line & wanted to do the same thing with this version. One other setting I like to change is setting the Bed & Hotend temp to 0, since I set these manually before running my prints. Even if the printer is just 1 degree below that temp specified in gcode, it will wait for it to hit that temp before starting. That could be quite awhile if your bed temp is 100 or more & your bed temp is just 1 or 2 degrees above the target temp, so setting it before hitting the print button causes no delay at all. This way I also do not need to use a separate config for ABS, PLA or PETG. You do have to be mindful to set the temp ahead of time. Guess if I was using a cooling fan for one type of filament & not the other, I might want a separate config.

Here is a blog that seems to give a good set of instructions how to get your config files set on the command line. This probably would have saved me some time if I had found this sooner.
https://brazenartifice.wordpress.com...your-settings/

[mopar]

Dave, you wouldn't by chance be willing to send me your config files or just your settings would ya? I have the 8" with the e3d head, but I can fix that, it would just save me some time and the hassle you went thru to get the setting right. Only had the printer for a month so I've only been working with PLA and ABS.

If not no problem just thought I'd ask.

Thanks.

[tonybuckley]

Dave, you wouldn't by chance be willing to send me your config files or just your settings would ya? I have the 8" with the e3d head, but I can fix that, it would just save me some time and the hassle you went thru to get the setting right. Only had the printer for a month so I've only been working with PLA and ABS.

If not no problem just thought I'd ask.

Thanks.

Hi mopar,

To be honest I just used the same MakerFarm config files that they supplied. Seemed to work fine.

But use Simplify3D now.

Tony