5 Slicer defaults I ALWAYS change  

I got a job at a facility where we prototype and manufacture medical products using FDM and SLA 3d printers. I can honestly say I wouldn't know the slightest bit of what I'm doing at my job if it wasn't for your channel. my very first day on the job, I was tasked with repairing 5 broken ender 3's. I repaired 2 the first day. I literally play with 3d printers for a living now and am in love with my work.

In Cura: The Cubic support can be done in a similar way with essentially any infill using the infill subdivision feature. A separate setting also works on supports that get denser at the top (not roof, the support structure itself). Starting with a version several months back (I think 4.11), seam placement is (finally!) also nicely visible. Seams: nothing like the aligned that I know of, but sharpest corner+smart hiding works quite well most of the time. In some cases, I set my own seam coordinates. Still, seam painting in PS is clearly superior. Settings I changed in Cura: (Ender 3, but most apply anywhere) Infill - grid is fine for visual parts, cubic or gyroid anywhere else. Connect infill lines (for prints that I want strong), sometimes I drop in infill line multiplier too (IMO works better than high infills >30%). Initial layer line width to 150% for materials where adgesion is notoriously poor. Combing - on, but with max comb range 10mm and "not in skin" setting. Regular fan speed from 3. layer (2. is then 50% of set fan speed), minimum layer time 6s. Low jerk on first layer (10, with some materials even 5). Helps prevent ripping of at sharp corners etc. Acceleration tuned down a bit too. Increased travel to 200mm/s, including on first layer. Support density 15% (but depends on project), support roof 100% density concentric, 1mm thick. Z gap 1-2 layers depending on model needs (1 is fine under flat surfaces but can be hard to remove on complex shapes). Support brim on. Support overhang angle 50-60° (but can go to 70° in some cases). Support skin fan speed 100% (cools stuff above support so it can be easier removed, useful when your base speed is not 100%, like PETG etc). Often Conical supports or even tree supports can work wonders, reaching over structures to support stuff above, without building supports on top of parts of the model. Unless brim needed, skirt with just 2 lines. Huh, that was quite a lot :-D

Really helpful video! Quick suggestion: it would have been very interesting for you to show the cube printed once with the default settings, and once with the improved settings at the end.

Another one to save your bacon in case you use variable layer height is minimum shell thickness. If you reduce the layer height of the top of a dome for example, you might only have 3 top layers at 0.1mm which is very thin, but the rest of the print is at 0.2mm so 3 layers is plenty. setting minimum shell thickness to 0.5mm will ensure that if you reduce the layer height anywhere you don't accidentally create holes. Otherwise it changes absolutely nothing, so no hurt in enabling it just in case.

Miss these tips and tricks videos, Thank You, always learning new helpful concepts and approaches here!

Instead of a third perimeter I like to use Cura's "Connect Infill Lines" feature (probably available in other slicers). This greatly strengthens infill by linking sections together where they connect to walls, reduces the number of retractions you need to make, and provides a modest improvement to wall strength without printing a full third perimeter. For a similar reason I also use the zig-zag top/bottom pattern instead of lines; I don't have the equipment to measure improved mechanical strength, but logically it should be more robust to have a single undivided line of extrusion rather than many separate ones. Another option is Cura's "Alternate Extra Wall" feature, which adds an extra wall every second layer. I don't imagine this is very useful on its own, but combined with "Connect Infill Lines" it uniquely sandwiches infill and perimeters together, noticeably improving strength. On some occasions I've used these two features together and only used a single regular external perimeter. For my parts at least, this is obviously stronger in the hand than just having regular unconnected infill with 2 perimeters, while printing much faster and using less filament. Cosmetically it won't be as attractive though since the infill will show through. To both make my seams less noticeable and improve print speed, I print external walls narrower (and a bit more slowly), say 0.44mm for a 0.4mm nozzle, and internal ones wider depending on desired strength. 0.8mm or even 1mm is fine for a 0.4mm nozzle. This technique doesn't harm external appearance in any way I've been able to notice. Printing wider than your nozzle opening (but no wider than the nozzle tip) is a good way to improve layer adhesion and strength, as it sandwiches the plastic together across a wider surface and forms a *much* stronger bond to the previous layer. Wider infill can also a good idea for reducing print time without sacrificing strength but it's not always practical, it depends on the structure of the part you're printing. Sometimes you want lots of small supports in thin spots, while other times you have a big space to fill and printing wide infill has no downside. If you use a low infill percentage this may not be beneficial as it greatly increases the gap between infill lines. Before using wider extrusion you should check to see how fast your hotend is capable of melting filament or else you could have hidden underextrusion in your internal walls. Also when using wider top/bottom lines, I recommend specifying a custom top skin line width and selecting 2 "top surface skin layers". In Cura this is an experimental feature and I use 0.4mm. It greatly improves surface finish, ensuring the top of prints are as flat as possible with virtually no blobbing. I don't use it very often since it leads to an inconsistent and unattractive surface finish with glossy filament, but if that doesn't matter I like to use Adaptive Layers. I normally use 0.24mm base height with 0.08mm variation in both directions, so when I'm printing an angle or a curve it's smoother (0.16 layer height), but if I'm printing a flat section it's much faster (0.32 layer height).

Vertical shell thickness! I’ve been wanting those purple lines to go away. Thanks again Angus.

The seam in cura recently is really cool. Its called smart hiding and it aligned for the sphere like in your example but instead of protruding outward in goes in like a nice zipper and I find it a step better and smoother. Thanks again for your tips.

The "ensure vertical thickness" algorithm has changed recently in PrusaSlicer (I think in either 2.6.0 or 2.6.1). Instead of all of the short moves perpendicular to the perimeters, they are now generated parallel to the perimeters. Much less print-induced vibrations.

Really great tips! I love how the advice on this channel is always so practical. The seam in particular is one things I've tried to adjust a few times and was never happy with. Interestingly I've actually never considered setting to "aligned", thinking it would show up and I could just hide it by using random. It's not hidden… now it's much harder to clean up since there are bits sticking out everywhere.

This is EXACTLY what i am looking for. A to the point explaination of each setthing to take notes for myself. Thx!

notes for myself 😊 number of walls :4 cubic infil 20% elephant's foor compensation 0.2 alligned seams ensure vertical thickness : disable it

Thanks for these videos. I purchased a Bambu Lab P1S last week and your content is incredibly educational. The printer itself just worked out of the box, but learning about print settings has been so helpful. In one of your previous videos you discussed overhang angle vs layer height and it has saved me so much time and material already. Thanks!

Im REALLY surprised. I finally bought feeler gauges (after blindly using whatever is preset from facrory in sparkplug world

WOW!!! What valuable resource for beginners. I recently got a Prusa and have been printing a week now and this is exactly the material I needed to take it to the next level of my fast track crash (and i mean CRASH!) course through the basics. Can't wait to see the difference! I especially love the explanations as to "why". Great job and thank you VERY much!

It's stuff like this that makes this channel the gold standard for 3dprinting videos for me. Keep it up.

Thank you for this, and all your videos. I've been printing for about a year now, and have learned everything I know only from RU-vid since I'm not part of a local community of print enthusiasts. Thanks a ton!

Love it!! I agree with so many of these, including the vertical shell thickness, HOWEVER there are times where the vertical shell thickness is worth it. Models that are more anatomical tend to benefit to leave it enabled so you do not lose detail near the head. Great vid with helpful tips!

I can't adequately express how helpful your videos have been! I've been trying to figure out what the white dots are, and how to get rid of them, since I began printing.

I really appreciate you explaining why you choose your settings, it helps understand why and when these settings are better

Just an fyi for those who may not know, support cubic is now adaptive cubic.

Personally I have found that each different print may require some tweaking of the settings, one setting never does it all. I do agree the "3 wall parameter" setting is a great over all setting, that I don't mess with much. And on a side note, I'm really impressed how many options and how great that Prusa slicer works. I've been a hardcore Simplify 3d user, but slowly starting to switch over now

Great tips for general printing. I generally use 3-4 perimeters, and I always find myself adjusting the default speeds! Some of this info will likely need updating when the new public version of PrusaSlicer comes out. I think it will be a game-changer. Thanks for always producing useful content!

This has been the single most useful 3D printing video I’ve ever seen. Seriously! Thank you so much!

I always come back to your videos, well explained, easy to follow and most importantly actually useful. Great job

These “Tips” videos are sooo appreciated and extremely under rated. Thank you so much for all your help

good tips. Thanks. Its good to know your preferences as we know they come from experience

Being fairly new in the 3d printing world, this was absolutely amazing. Cheers.

I've been printing for about 1 year and it's amazing (insane) the amount of i fo I get to pick up on on a daily basis. This was very helpful! 🎉❤😊

Great video as always 👍 Great tips. I often used adaptive infill. Thanks for sharing your experience with all of us 👍🙂

I really enjoy your videos and your enthusiasm. Very informative and engaging. Well done! Thanks

Dear Angus, you are so kind regarding empowering us with technology. Thank you. Also I am a 3 perimeter person.

Angus, as ever your videos are fun and informative - I use Cura, but I completely agree with your observations about seam positioning, I do a lot of repeat printing of the same parts, as I make 3D prints commercially, putting the seam in the same place every time removes those seemingly random blobs from surfaces that should be smooth, walls too - many of my parts are handled by customers, one part in particular was breaking until I increased the wall count to five and the top and bottom thickness to 1.6mm - its a handle for a lever arm, and people turn it, so we had a few breakages in the early days, not any more. No amount of infill solved the problem, I hardly ever use infill at greater than 30% - and gyroid is my go-to. As for elephants foot, everything I print has a 45 degree or steeper chamfer at the bottom, and if its a cuboid, every edge has a chamfer, same with cylinders and holes. The finished parts look way better and take a lot less finishing. As I use OpenSCAD its just been a question of building / finding the right code to do the heavy lifting.. Great job.

Your videos are very helpful. It has made my introduction to 3d printing much less painful. Thank you.

Thank you, your fine details are explained very clearly. You're including the why with the what & how which makes it make more sense.

Very educational. That's pretty much my settings on Cura apart from the 3 walls. I've only ever used 2, but after seeing this video I will definitely be changing to 3 walls especially to hide infills.

This was really helpful. I've been 3D modeling and printing for years, but I've never really focused much on the slicer itself. Thanks for making the video

Great video! I'll try out disabling that vertical thickness setting! Thanks for the tips as always Angus 👍

I'm considering buying my first printer and this type of video is invaluable. Thanks for taking the time!

Oh! Thank you for this, I'm still learning and this has addressed multiple issues I've not known how to even research, lol. Excited to give these changes a try!

Thank you for sharing your experience with all of us! this video is really helpful!!

I use the CHEP super fast profile in Cura which is fantastic. And I've always used triangle infill as CNC kitchen found this to be very good for strength

Great video many many thanks for the seam tip !! A lot of your parameters tips are corrected by default in the fork SuperSlicer ! But your video allowed me to learn a lot about all these parameters and will allow me to improve the quality of my prints so thank you very much !

Great tips and great video, now all I have to do is try to remember them and see what happens. I like using 3 parameters and 25 percent infill. It works for me. Thanks for everything 👍

Great video with very clear explanations. I look forward to seeing the differences on my prints. Thanks for sharing.

@2:00 had to rewind because it was too epic to miss. Good one. Thanks for the laughs!

Thanks! Just after a few testprints i am convinced to switch from Cura to Prusa Slicer. It just works so much better for my Printer

Dude, this video was insanly helpful. I struggled for months with elephant foots and didn't even know there where a setting to prevent it. Thank you so much for the Other Tipps as well.

These are really good tips. I'm going to have to try disabling "ensure vertical thickness". I usually pull infill down to 15%, and change the bottom layer to 5 for strength and stability. Some adjustments I make in CAD, though. I normally put a shallow radius on the bottom to eliminate elephant's foot and give a consistent finish, at least with PLA. To make the sides stronger, I'll print the sides at a 3mm or so width. That makes for a hollow exterior wall with the infill, and it's quite a bit slower, but it's very light and strong. A bit like making the side walls of a print with balsa core plywood.

Amazingly helpful video! Thank you!

Such a helpful video! I just got a 3D Printer, and didn't know about any of these settings. It is very helpful. I am glad that I clicked on it!! 🙂

This video is top quality content, awesome job Angus!!

Excellent video, so much useful information for someone like me that is just learning 3D printing and setup. Thank you!

yet another clear, understandable video. Great job and keep it up!

Everything is well explained. Thanks for sharing such effective video👍👍

Thank you for pointing out Seam Placement. I always wondered about these pock marks on my prints.

Great information! Thank you. I enjoy this style of video.

Amazing video! Wish I'd learned these tricks earlier. Will definitely use them from now on.

Future 101 idea, “Detect Thin Walls” , fight with this detail when building my own supports or small details frequently, if done correctly it allows some overhangs that waste far less plastic and time. I wish the logic inside prusa slicer could handle overhangs better for circle based geometry, struggle with single orientation layers when it could bridge easily by a “spoke style” layer, it requires overprinting edges to get enough support on DIY scaffolding like referencing the above.

Would have been great if you had printed both and shown the differences in quality between the default printer settings and your custom defaults.

What I used to be changing the most was the build plate adhesion setting. Maybe just to compensate my bad bed leveling, but there were also some designs that just had a small surface on the build plate. For some time I even printed everything on a raft because I found that was the only setting that would work reliably. I would only recommend that to desperate starters in the field who can't get any print going.

Wow. Just got my printer 2 days ago. Did my first big-ish print (8 hours). Basically just hit print. And after I went back to my slicer and everything you just covered I saw in this print. Huge learning experience here. If I knew any of this I wouldn't have run out of material on it.

I change support pattern space length values to reduce support amount. Sometimes giving some bridge that your machine can handle will reduce the time significantly...

Been printing for about 1.5 months and only now brave enough to escape the presets. This was a great video, thank you

This was super useful thanks! Would love to see a part 2 someday!

Thanks for the little detailes. Very helpful.

Appreciate your video as I'm still in the 'try it and see how it prints' camp using prusaslicer.

Im late to the 3D printer scene but there is SO much information in this one video. You sir, get a sub.

Great Video, will definitely be using some of these on my prints. Also to note about the Seam Placement: PrusaSlicer has a paint on seams setting where you can literally tell it exactly where it should place the seam. That way you can place it on the back of models or in internal corners to hide them much better.

Thanks for this info. I am new to 3d printing and this video was helpful and informative.

As usual thanks for sharing this video and information.

Just go my first printer. So much useful info. Thanks!

Thanks Angus, this is great. I like Prusa slicer and appreciate you explaining what the features do. This is great list. I haven't used it enough to recommend any setting tweaks.

You hit the exact ones that I change to, right down to the maintain vertical shell thickness.

Wish I had seen this video a year ago! :) I eventually arrived at everything you mention (including the Cubic infill, which is also my favorite!), but it took me quite a while to figure out what exactly the settings do (or that they even exist). Some things I change in addition are: - "Avoid crossing perimeters" as I now print on a Bowden extruder Prusa Mini most of the time, and it really helps with reducing stringing. - "First Layer Speed" - I slow it down a bit from the defaults, I can take the extra couple of minutes in exchange for a more reliable first layer. - First layer filament temperature - I don't know when it changed, but it used to be that the (Prusa Slicer) filament profiles had a temperature couple degrees higher for the first layer (whereas now it's LOWER for PETG?) and now they don't, but I find that worked slightly better for first layer adhesion, so I usually change that too. - "Ironing" SOMETIMES - the print time hit is huge and not all prints benefit, but man, is it magic! It ends up with a top layer that's smoother than the bottom one!

Excellent tutorial on PrusaSlicer.

Just getting into 3d printing and I love your videos! Keep up the great work. 🇦🇺 👍👌👏👏👏👏

You have become my favorite 3-D mentor.

Hey Angus, thank you for the videos. I purchased you Castle Test STLs last night. Brilliant! 👍

Missed this tutorial. Great channel

Moved from Cura to Prusaslicer tnx to you, and I think it has a lot more settings availible

Really nice video, you sold me on the Prusa Slicer, I used the default my Ender 3 came with, and I fould that by rotating a model 45 degrees from the top down view usually cut a lot of time for the prints

On Cura, I'm always trying to improve movements and retraction to avoid stringing. I use materials that are quite subject to stringing and it's super hard to remove it. For instance, the Zelda Ocarina you showcase in this video, I tried 3 different PLAs from eSun to make it, and it had stringing all the time. So to reduce stringing, I try my best to "diagnose" the movements in Cura to see if it might induce stringing, and compare filament retraction with Z-axis moves on every finished line, and it always depends on the shape, so it's quite hard. I learnt a LOT with your videos before even having a 3D printer, and I experimented a lot of different shapes to have "perfect" config for each print, and I noticed both vertical thickness and perimeters impact, so I'm super glad that you're talking about them because they seem quite critical to me! However, thanks a lot for your "seam placement" recommendation, because I didn't knew this one, it's gonna be SO helpful!

I usually reduce the number of solid layers to 4 (top, default was 5) and 3 (bottom, default was 4). I use to always drop the skirt height to just a single layer, but leave it at 3 when printing extra thin layers, especially on a textured print bed surface. I also change the Start G-code script to wait until the bed is warm before setting the nozzle temp. I find that the nozzle heats up so much faster than the bed, and will end up oozing filament if left hot too long. Also in the Start G-code, as I use Octoprint to host the files for my Prusa MK3, I add the "@BEDLEVELVISUALIZER" line to have it watch for the mesh values - the visualizer makes it so easy to adjust the screws for leveling the bed... Thanks for your tips!

I'll definitely keep a look for the vertical shell one, always interested in saving some time, and since i usually increase perimeters too might be a good idea. It would have been really nice to print both the before and after to show the differences on the actual print other than in the slicer, it would have been interesting to see some measures to show the accuracy isn't really that affected.

Based on my experience in the 3D printing world, here are some key takeaways for material selection and part strengthening: * Material Selection: * PLA: Ideal for prototyping due to its ease of use and printability. * ABS: Suitable for final products due to its durability. * PETG CF: Offers enhanced strength, making it a good choice for functional parts like car components. * ASA: Known for its UV resistance and strength, similar to ABS but with improved outdoor performance. * Part Strengthening: * Acetone Smoothing with Bondo: This technique can be used to strengthen and smoothen ABS or PETG CF parts before painting. Acetone dissolves the plastic surface slightly, creating a smoother finish after sanding and filling with bondo. * Infill Tips: * Use a strong infill pattern like a triangula grid (similar to the Star of David) for maximum strength. * Consider the breathability of plastics when choosing infill density. Similar to pores in skin, some infill is necessary to allow for slight flexing and prevent warping. * For small or big projects, I always use 4 up to 5 lines ABS and PETG CF, PLA whatever ASA whatever

Awesome vid. Thx for sharing 👌🙌

I feel just a little bit clever now, since having just started this hobby a month ago, I use these same settings for the same reasoning. Didn't know about vertical thickness, but it seems it's off by default for me. Love the efficiency of your videos.

I just recently did a print that took 12 hours on my old settings. Out of curiosity I re-sliced the model using these new setting tweaks and it would have taken 7 hours!! I'll definitely be using these from now on.

super handy video. thanks for sharing. this helps a ton

3D noob here - and I appreciate this video. Thanks!

Thank you for tip #5. I've been curious how to disable those for years!

Great and well described tips and tricks 👍!

i love your tech videos. i'd like to share it with my friends who can not access youtube. Thanks.

This is now required viewing for the Engineering Design course I teach which utilizes the 3D printer lab I’ve built up. Thanks!!!!

Thanks for converting me from Ultimaker to Prusa.. i just love the UI for this slicer.

"Back in the dark ages of 3D printing..." And then Angus shows a clip of my printers! I still love these old Wanhao Di3's - Modded and refined, tweaked and tinkered over the last decade, they produce some amazing results. One thing is for sure, I need to look at these new slicers. I'm still using S3D. Thanks for all the hints and advice over the years!

¡Gracias! Muy buenos vídeos.

Excellent suggestions…thanks so much

I'm printing footplates for an electric unicycle in carbon fiber nylon. I changed a lot. A 0.6 ruby nozzle with a stainless steel insert replacing what would otherwise be XS PTFE, 0.3 layer height, 5 perimeter wall count, 8 top layers, 6 bottom layers, 50% infill, triangle pattern, I slowed the print speed right down, 20 mm/s & walls top and bottom 10mm/s. 250C (I even tried 260C but that was too hot), the bed up to 100C and I left it on until the chamber got to 40C. No part cooling fan. Changed out the bed plate for borosilicate glass and glue stick (6 layers). Each footplate took 35hrs to print on my Qidi X-Plus printer, but speed wasn't the concern, strength was. Very happy with the result.