Basic Slicer Tuning

Basic Tuning of print profiles

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.

The red boxes highlight items of interest
1 The print settings tab in the slicer
2 Layers and perimeters sub-panel
3 Number of perimeters
4 Number of top and bottom Layers

Perimeters (Vertical shells)

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 (Horizontal shells)

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

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.

Tying Perimeters, Floors, Ceilings, and Infill Together

We tend to increase and decrease these settings together; below is a table with our guidelines.

Usecase

Example

Perimeters

Floors and Ceilings

Infill

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

The printed parts on the HS3 are all printed with 6 walls, 8 floors/ceilings and 40% infill

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%

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