There are a few settings that have a significant impact on the parts you're printing. This is a brief intro to some of them, and by no means a comprehensive guide.
In general, more is stronger but also slower.
Perimeters define the wall thickness of a part on the vertical shell. The perimeter count x extrusion width is the wall thickness. The more walls, the stronger the part will be across the vertical shell;
We do not recommend going Over 8 walls on parts; in most cases, stress is transmitted across the surface of a geometry, and increasing wall count has diminishing returns; if maximum strength and stiffness is desired, increasing infill to 100% will result in better part quality.
Floors and Ceilings define the wall thickness of a part on the horizontal shell. The Floors and Ceilings x extrusion height is the horizontal shell thickness. The more floors and ceilings, the stronger the part will be across the horizontal shell; this table below gives some general guidelines (for a 0.4mm nozzle)
Infill Percentage also greatly impacts part strength and print time in particular. We generally recommend infill ranges between 10 and 40%; less than 10%, and it can affect the integrity of top surfaces much more than the 40% becomes diminishing returns.
In the case of maximum strength and rigidity, or when trying to match FEA behavior of the part, we recommend 100% infill.
We tend to increase and decrease these settings together; below is a table with our guidelines.
Usecase | Example | Perimeters | Floors and Ceilings | Infill | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
fast and lightweight parts or where flexibility is desired | Fitment prototypes, UAV wing structures, compliant mechanisms | 2-3 | 3-5 | 10-20% | |
General prototyping and manufacturing. | This is the default settings that work for most industrial applications
| 4-6 | 6-8 | 20-40% | |
High Strength and stiffness | tooling and jigging, high dynamic load structures, Auto parts | 7-8 | 9-12 | 50-100% |