So far, we have calibrated our feed and flow rates to get good extrusion, but some of the fine details in certain prints can be difficult to get good fill on. Well, here is where we fix that. In Slic3r configuration, in the Print Settings tab, there is a choice called Advanced. This is where we make magic happen Load up a model that has fine surface details - like lettering. Lettering is notoriously difficult to make look good with the various shapes of each letter. I will be using a small tag I created to print color samples in. This tag is 40mm wide x 38mm tall and the base is only 2mm thick with the letters being another 2mm - not very big. After loading our model, we go to the slicing tab in Repetier Host (RH) and click on the Configuration button and open Slic3r's configuration window and click on Advanced in the left menu. You should see something like this: If this is the first time you have ever used this tab, your numbers may be different than what is shown here, more likely to be almost all zeros with the exception of the First Layer setting which probably says 200%. The first thing you want to do is specify the Default extrusion width (top box), if you haven't already. That number, once set, should remain the same until you physically change nozzle size, and should be 120% of your nozzle diameter. I use primarily 0.4 nozzle size, so my default is 0.48 (0.4 x 120%). The other numbers shown above are all equal to the default extrusion width, which means everything will be at 100%. now lets slice our model with those settings and take a look at it. At first glance, it doesn't look too bad...but lets look closer. Notice the gaps in the areas the arrows are point to? These areas, when actually printed won't look very nice. So how do we fix it? Simple, we tweak extrusion width settings. Lets go back to Slic3r's Advanced settings and make some changes... First thing to notice is that we left the default setting alone. That one should not change unless you are changing nozzle sizes. Just about everything below that, however, has been tweaked. Whenever you make a change in the settings, be sure to click the save button, then re-slice your model with the new settings and see how they have affected the model. As you can see, there are differences between the original default settings and the new settings, but we still have a few gaps that need fixing, so back to the advanced settings we go and tweak a little more... Again, make sure you save the new settings, and re-slice your model. Lets take a look at what that did. The top layer of the base looks pretty good.... ....but the lettering still has some ugly gaps. To fix those, we continue tweaking the settings until we are satisfied with the overall look of the fill, keeping in mind that curved areas will never be 100% perfect. Just for fun, I went a little crazy with tweaking the extrusion widths and ended up with these settings... Resulting in this for a sliced top layer in the model... Please note that the Default extrusion width never changed throughout this process. For the record, yes, I have printed using similar settings as the last settings screen shot. It does work.
Slic3r does have more advanced settings in the stand alone version where you can set things like different layer heights for a single model, and use modifiers to set different infill rates for certain areas of a single model, but those are for another day. ~~~~ Time to go melt some plastic!
Mark Ingle
1/28/2016 05:57:52 pm
great blob! Thank you!!
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Andrew
4/9/2017 10:00:04 am
Thank very much great info
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Arpad
5/31/2018 03:12:12 pm
Very good information. Could you send me some information how to calculate these widths with my 0.3 mm nozzle? And where is the layer height in the calculations? Has it no influence?
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AuthorA "Jack of all trades, master of none", I have dabbled in a lot of different things, but none have held my interest like these darn 3d printers do. Archives
May 2016
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