Introduction

Pantheon Slicer is how we convert our 3D models into g-code the HS3 can use to make parts. Slicing software is equivalent to CAM or programming in the CNC world. The slicer takes parts and “slices” them into layers that the printer prints. The slicer generates the exact path the nozzle follows. Things like wall thicknesses, top and bottom thicknesses, speeds, support structures etc. are all configured in the slicer.

Download Pantheon Slicer

Windows

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MacOS (Apple Chipset not Intel)

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Installation Guide

Download the Latest Release Here

Windows

1. Download and run the .msi installer above.

MacOS

1. Download the .dmg file from the link above. Open the DMG and drag the PantheonSlicer.app file into your Applications folder.

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Once installation finishes you can launch the application. The config wizard can be skipped with the “x” button as the HS3 is the only option for configuration.

Importing a Part

Pantheon Slicer 3 is compatible with the following file formats: [STL, OBJ, 3MF, AMF, STEP, STP]

You can drag and drop files directly into the Pantheon Slicer window or use the add button or File→Import→Import 3MF… highlighted below.

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Part File Quality

The 3D printed part will never be more detailed than the model you import. Take care to print only high-quality files.

STEP Files - Best Quality

.STEP files are loss-less and preferred whenever available. Most parametric CAD tools can export part files as .STEP.

STL Files - Adjust your settings

.STL files are the most commonly-used format for 3D printing. Unfortunately most CAD tools export at relatively low STL quality by default, meaning you will almost always have to change your settings to get a high-quality part.

Part Orientation

Lay on Face

The part orientation tool, also called “lay on face” (Hotkey F) lets you select a face of the part to be on the print surface. It will highlight all the available faces, one you click the desired face, it will orientate that face to the bed.

Auto Orient

There exists an Auto Orient tool, which typically places the largest face on the part on the bed (not always optimal). This tool can help speed things up when you have many parts.

Free-Form Orientation

In some cases, you may want to orient the part in free space to align the layers with where the part is being stressed or align faces that are visually sensitive for good detail. In this case you can use the rotate tool to align a part to its ideal print geometry.

Part Clone and New Instance

When creating copies of part it is important to distinguish between a clone/copy and a new instance of the part.

Clone/copy - changes to the parent part are not transferred to the clone/copy

Instance - changes to the parent part are transferred to other instances

We tend to use new instance instead of a clone or copy as the modifications to the parent part are transferred to each instance.

In the Process tab, if set to “Objects”, you can see which are clones or copies, and which are new instances. In the picture below, the bed has three parts, two instances and one copy. Any modifications you make to Instance 1 will be replicated on Instance 2 but not on the clone/copy, and vise versa.

We highly recommend using new instances of parts rather than clones/copies.

Split Object

A model can sometimes be comprised of an assembly of multiple parts, using the split to objects tool by right-clicking on the part and navigating to split → to objects.

Split to parts is used when the positional alignment of the model needs to be preserved. This is useful when using sub-parts, as modifiers to the main part. This will be covered in a tutorial at a later date.

Bed Layout

In general, parts should be clustered together to minimize the distance the print head needs to move between parts, but not so close that their support structures interfere with each other.

Arrange all objects tool

The arrange all objects tool works 90% of the time as is always a good starting point. This tool will cluster parts towards the centre of the bed, making sure there is no overlap between parts.

Spacing

The default of 5mm is very safe distance, this can be reduced to fit more parts onto a bed. We have gone as low as 0.8mm in production to maximize efficiency. Always check that support structures do not interfere with neighbouring parts when using reduced spacing.

Auto Rotate for Arrangement

Automatically rotates the parts for the smallest overall footprint. This can take a long time for large numbers of parts.

Align to Y Axis

Serves no function for the HS3, but can be useful on “bed slingers” where the acceleration of the axes are not uniform.

Printing Small Objects

Nylon parts require high temperatures for the deposited material to bond adequately to form strong prints. When printing many small objects, the low thermal mass combined with long layer times means that the material may cool down too much before the new material is deposited resulting in weak Z layer bonding.

If strength is critical, it is ideal to run smaller batches of small objects.

Multi-Bed Slicing

It can often be helpful to slice multiple beds at a time; this helps with keeping track of larger print projects or when an assembly you import needs a different process/material for each subcomponent.

By default, when you click Arrange all objects, it will automatically create new beds until all the parts fit.

You can also manually create new beds by clicking the new bed icon below.

Supports

Support can be generated in several ways; the support settings can be found under the Support tab under the Process settings.

Support Recommendations

We generally recommend manual or automatic tree supports; normal (grid) supports can sometimes reduce print time on low aspect ratio parts, but tree supports are easier to remove and are more structurally sound when reaching tall supported areas.

Automatic tree supports work in most applications, but manual tree supports can be the right solution for parts you are trying to optimize for production or parts with small overhangs (embossed/debossed text) that you want the slicer to ignore.

Support Settings

In the support tab, settings we often use are the type of support, and to have the supports restricted to be on the build-plate only.

Manual means you have to pick the faces to support, while auto will attempt to support any face over the default (30° in this case).

Snug and grid support structures are favorable when print time is a concern. Snug supports are useful as they do not protrude past the extent of the part.

Tree or organic supports use less filament but take longer to print.

Forcing the supports to be restricted to the build-plate means it will not try to generate support structures beginning on the part which can lead to blemishes.

How to use the Manual Supports Tool

The Support Painting (Hotkey L) tool lets you highlight areas of the part that you want to support. You can add support enforcers or support blockers using this tool.

In the tool window, we typically use the fill tool with “On overhangs only” selected and the smart fill angle set to 40. This lets you quickly highlight faces to support that are over 40° that may be prone to drooping.

When smart fill angle and highlighting overhang areas are set to equal values, it becomes easy to select the faces you want to support.

In the example below, the green highlighted faces are selected to receive supports, the red faces will not be supported, and the off-blue face is the face on the bed. Make sure you select Tree(manual) Process → Support → type → Tree(manual) before slicing.

After Slicing we can confirm the support structure looks adequate.

Supporting Tightly Packed Parts

When parts are tightly packed on the bed, supports extending outside the footprint of one part can interfere with a neighboring part. This is especially true with auto-arranged beds with spacing under 5mm. In most cases, manually moving parts around can fix this issue. In extremely packed beds snug grid supports can avoid the issue entirely at the expense of longer print time and more filament usage.

Slicer Settings

Printer, Filament and Process settings can be found on the left panel.

Printer Settings

Pantheon HS3 0.4 Nozzle

• That's our only system, so hopefully, that's why you are here

Process / Filament Settings

Select the profile according to the material you are printing with. We have tuned these defaults to be effective for most applications. If changes are required to fit your needs, these defaults will be an effective starting point.

Process Setting Modifications

The print process is what defines the result of the slicer. This is where you fine-tune the slicer to maximize the performance of your parts. We have tuned the default settings to be effectively for most applications. If changes are required to fit your needs, the defaults will be an effective starting point.

It is also important to understand that changes to the process can be performed on a part-to-part basis if you toggle to “Objects” from “Global”

Quality Settings

There are not many settings in the Quality Tab that we change from the default.

Strength Settings

Perimeters (Vertical shells)

Perimeters define the wall thickness of a part on the vertical walls. The perimeter count x extrusion width is the wall thickness. The more walls, the stronger the part will be across vertical vertical surfaces;

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. We generally recommend infill ranges between 10 and 40%; less than 10%, and it can affect the integrity of top surfaces. There are diminishing returns for part strength with infill above 40%.

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.

Speed Settings

There are not many settings in the Speed Tab that we change from the default without impacting quality.

Other Settings

In the “Others” tab, generally, the only setting we use is the Brim for tall parts with low contact with the bed. The mouse ear brim type is typically the most useful.

Material Settings Modifications

The default material settings we have pre-configured are optimized to balance strength, accuracy and reliability, with a large emphasis on reliability.

CF-PETG

CF-PETG settings are the most mature; nothing you can play with here will yield meaningful gains.

CF-Nylon and GF-Nylon

Part Cooling

The print profiles are designed to handle overhangs of 45° with very high thermal mass (thick walls/infill) without warping and good surface finish. This requires a generous amount of cooling that limits the strength potential of the parts. For models that have few or non demanding overhangs, cooling can be reduced to 10% for both PA-CF and PA-GF to maximize part strength.

Summary:

• High thermal mass means stronger parts

• Low layer time means stronger parts

• Low thermal mass requires less cooling

• Shallow overhangs requires less cooling

• Less cooling creates stronger parts

Print temperature

Increasing the print temperature can also increase part strength but at the expense of increasing the likelihood of nozzle clogging. At elevated temperatures, the nozzle can clog after as short as 10hrs, we do not recommend playing with this to much, but bumping the first layer and print temp from [300,305] to [305,310] can make parts stronger at the expense of reliability. Please have some spare nozzles on hand if you’re going to play with this.

Our new hot end has a longer effective melt zone and offers better nylon bonding with no clogging at the same hot end temps.

Slicing and Exporting

Once you have imported a model, orientated it, and selected your process settings you can slice and export the file (.gcode).

Click the Slice plate button, then the Export G-code Button, and save the file.

You are now ready to upload and print on the HS3.

Application Update

Updates come in 2 types:

1. Software update

On software start up, you may see a pop-up notifying a new version of the Slicer is available. Clicking Download will lead you to the Download page mentioned above. Follow the same instruction to install the newer version.

2. Profile update

Profile updates will show up as a notification on the right bottom corner. Click Detail->OK, and the profile updates should be applied automatically.

Troubleshooting

Profiles Failed to Load

If any of the 3 sections (shown below) are set to Default, then it means the slicer failed to load the corresponding profile:

You should try a clean installation:

On Windows system

1. Delete the configuration folder and re-run the set-up wizard.

   1. Go to Setttings→Help→Show Configuration Folder (Shown below). It will open a PantheonSlicer-3 folder

   2. Close the application.

   3. Delete the PantheonSlicer-3 folder. (*If you have made any custom changes/profiles, you need to move the user folder to somewhere else, and put it back later)

   4. Open the application, and re-run the setup wizard.

2. Re-install the application.

   1. Follow the instructions above to remove the configuration folder.

   2. Uninstall the application, and re-install the application.

On macOS

1. Delete the configuration folder and re-run the set-up wizard.

   1. Go to Help→Show Configuration Folder (Shown below). It will open a PantheonSlicer-3 folder

   2. Close the application.

   3. Delete the PantheonSlicer-3 folder. (*If you have made any custom changes/profiles, you need to move the user folder to somewhere else, and put it back later)

   4. Open the application and re-run the setup wizard.

2. Re-install the application.

   1. Follow the instructions above to remove the configuration folder.

   2. Remove the application, and re-install the application.

Source Code

Source code for PantheonSlicer-3 can be viewed and downloaded here: