This is a great tutorial and I managed to work it out for the 5.1.0 version of S3D. Under the advanced tab it is slightly different to the version you were working with 6 years ago. Under advanced, there is a button down the bottom called Custom Zones and that's where the print heights are. Thank for you great videos.
This is one of my favorite tricks, hands down. It was one of the reasons I got Simplify 3D in the first place. :D I really hope that in the near future we get the ability to use intersecting geometry to specify volumetric regions for processes, not just having them be on a layer by layer or individual part basis... Meaning we can do stuff like add very selective reinforcement around screw holes and other structural bits in mechanical parts...
What a tool Simplify3d would be with a halfway decent manual. I have been digging through everything for some time but this had passed me by. Many thanks for this and your other incredibly useful stuff.
Didn't know about grouped processes, so thanks for that! They're just a patch, though, and the whole process system deserves an overhaul in my opinion. *[1]* You can store a profile under a single name, but that profile must include concrete values for _all_ settings. A better solution would be to allow you to keep some of those settings unspecified, and then to combine multiple profiles. That way you can have a profile for your _printer_, a profile for your _extruder_, a profile for your _filament_, a profile for your _model_, and then mix-and-match as appropriate. (And yes, it's still possible for profiles to conflict on specific settings, but elegant interface-solutions exist to deal with that.) *[2]* Some settings within a process (like temperature and cooling) have inherent ways to vary between layers, but for others you have to use multiple processes. If processes become more light-weight and easier to manipulate (possibly in-dialog), every setting could have a uniform method of varying between layers.
Thanks, am new to this stuff and now have the Prusa Original i3 Mk2. Quite the learning curve this 3D printing, but tons of fun. Your videos are totally educational, just what i needed. Can hardly wait to watch the rest and continue onward to the new. As for others in the community they are all wonderful, some i learn from more than others but again all contribute and am grateful how most if not all share the knowledge freely. Thanks again and peace to the world!
OMG!!! This will help me HUGE! I have an 8 part, 25 day 24/7 straight printing project I've been avoiding because of the time required and the amount of filament involved! Gonna go check this out right now! THANK YOU HUGELY!!!
Thanks for these. :) It has helped me a lot. One thing to note, is if you're printing in ABS and you have the top/bottom solid layers in between processes, I have seen that it can cause some layer separation at that point. In ABS I got better results with no top/bottom layers anywhere inside the model. But I also changed infill percentages more gradually. 25% to 15% for a few layers, 10% for a few layers, to 5% for a few layers. Then vise versa ramping to to areas that needed higher. It made for a lot of processes, but it worked really well. Couldn't have done it without your tutorials. :)
Great points, ABS does behave funny when you mess with infill or layer height changes. I think it's because the infill is like bow strings, and if you vary the 'tension' it'll do funny things to the shrinkage. More gradual changes would help massively! Good tips :) Glad they helped, but so does your experiences! Thanks.
I had no clue that you could group processes. Been using multiple processes for quite a while but that group tip was worth the time watching the video. Thanks.
Hey Angus! For a couple of weeks I’ve been watching and learning from your videos because I am venturing into the (“dark side”)3D printing haha. I really appreciate what you do, more power and keep up the great work!
Thank you very much for this. Would you consider making a 3D Printing "Tips and Tricks", "Pitfalls to avoid", etc. playlist / series? You obviously know 3D Printing and you are a good teacher.
Wow, that's pretty cool. I've used Simplify3D since it was originally available, and had no idea that the Processes section could be used to control the process within a print. Thank you
Hot damn Angus! Being somewhat new to S3D but not to printing THAT was precisely the information I needed! And you shared this 6 years ago, but it's still VERY helpful. Massive kudos to you Sir! Like our good @Robakld below I had to look around my 5.1 version to find 'Custom Zones' but now I have some much more handier tools. ALSO, appreciate the added ability to change the layer height at specific points to increase the exterior details, but for only that specific section, thereby not slowing the printing process for the entire model just for that section/portion of the model...Thanks again pard'!
Every process after the first needs (at least for me) to have the 'first layer thickness' set to 100% or I get a noticeable line. Great video, great software. thx
Cura uses 'build shapes' concept: using 3d shapes to define different printer settings. Makes for interesting intersections! The hammer could have two dense faces with a tough rod connecting them and a socket for the handle; a hollow shell simply defines the outer shape. Strength only where needed!
Awsome, awsome, awesome! I had no idea S3D would do this. I've often thought how handy it would be if i could individually change settings for each area of a print in Cura but no joy.
And since you are using Simplify3D you can use a higher layer height for infill lines and only print the infill every few passes. So if you are printing at .1mm everywhere and you use a .3 infill height but tell the slicer to lay this infill line down only every three layers you will save even more time.
That's very cool. I'm gonna try and use this technique to make a "Roly Poly" toy. I'll use a high infill % for the bottom half of the bottom sphere to keep it bottom-heavy.
Adaptive infil would have been a great feature for s3d. I now use ideamaker because its what s3d should be. However. Since the focus of your video is to show multiple processes, you did excellent
Well dang, that'll come in handy. Our Fablab has a printer with a 0.5 m^3 build area, so we do some bigass prints occasionally. My boss is going to love me.
Should've added in some bottom layers to that second process, you have a outer over hang there that will not be capped off. Was bothering me the entire video :P
Yeah, at 8:49 that left side is going to fail quite bad with this long overhang, very possibly so bad that it fails the whole print. At the very least it leaves a big hole there.
You can a lot of the same things with Slic3r, it has a variable layer height setting. Now many people know about this, you can find out about it here on youtube. BUT! What I would say even the people who run the Slic3r website do not even know, is that along with the variable height settings, there is a list of 95% of the other settings that can be set up per layer set. From speed, to temp, to infill, or perimeter settings. I have been racking my brain to find out if this exists, and just as I was watching this video I discovered it on the Slic3r I have installed on my computer. When I have it all figured out I will do a video on it, because I could not even find instructions on this on the Slic3r website! If you have Slic3r, you need to pick the object you want to print and select settings, a pop up will appear, on the pop up you will have two tabs, "PARTS" and "layers". On the layers you put in the layer numbers starting with Zero, up to the end layer you want to change, and from what I can see the only limit on layer changes is how many layers is needed to make the part. NEXT you pick the layer setting you want to make the changes to and then got to the PARTS TAB, on the "PARTS TABb", you will find when you look down close to the middle to the bottom, you will see a small GREEN PLUS SIGN. Click on it, and a long menu will apear with all the settings for that layer section. So far that is all I have figured out, but at least now you can try and see if you want to use FREE Slic3r or $150 Simplyfy3d
Is it possible to make the infill varies per level? For you need a strong surrounding, but not so much at the core. Dense along the side and nearly none in the middle, would for this model a bullet shaped less infilled "hollow" space inside. As long as you .limit the grade of closure inside it should make a strong shell all the way.. (I can see it in my head, but explaining it eludes me) Or maybe a inner outer shell would be the solution, where the inner shell gradually narrow and close before the outer shell, leaving little to no hang. Maybe with a support material column in the middle. Do note that I do not have a 3D printer, but really want one (and can not afford one), so I am very very curious. And there are loads of things I'd like to try. Variable infill is one of them, one area with dense infill and one less and done by shape rather than layer. I'm guessing that this is not a printer issue, but rather a slicer thing.
Can you tell S3D they need to fix the ooze shield or wall to work with multi process prints? I submitted a bug report and they said it isn't supposed to work with multi process prints. Kind of a pain in the ass imo, it will also crash the program if you try to do it.
Here's a related topic/idea for a video for you: a lot of people use printing for cosplay and want to print large curved objects like helmets. I've seen a lot of photos of helmets in progress where there' sa huge amount of support inside the helmet (because the outside shell needs to be smooth and is best printed facing up). You can use multiple processes by putting a hollow or near-hollow object inside the helmet and using a plastic-saving process on it (thin shells except at the top and sparse infill). Simplify3D is smart enough to build supports on top of the sacrificial object inside the helmet. Material & time savings are potentially huge. 30% density supports are like printing with 30% infill...nobody does that for infil (when strength doesn't matter)l, so why do that for large supports?
Nice trick but if I designed the model I would put a half hollow egg shape inside the model to that the infill would be generated between the hammer and egg shape. It would provide enough support as it tapers in the higher layers. It would cut hours off the print time and before the two halves are assembled the egg shaped gap could be filled with expanding foam.
Thanks for the video. I'm going to start evaluating my prints more closely and start using this technique. Kinda wish I would have watched this video before I started my current print. lol
Hey Angus, I really like your videos and this one was particularly very good! Can you really do the print and show us the time lapse? I am super excited to see if the thing really works. I am also slightly skeptical on how the section with low density to high density infill works out (2:30)
In Slic3r you can achieve the layer height thing by going to the properties of your object and then under layers you can adjust the layer height there for any layers For using different infill etc you're gonna have to split the object into multiple parts though
I think for this model you needed the bottom layers in the second process 31-79. Because the bottom surface after the "shelf" that you talked about, was not printed with solid infill in the preview. Great video though. I have used processes in simplify 3d this way and I did not know about the group function, so thanks for the info.
I did notice some pretty wonky stresses when altering infils- and the quality of the filament you use can have an effect on this. (This can result in some warping if your environment isnt monitored) Case point, for prototyping I use alot of the ESun Pro, which I havent managed to get a single warp from. Using some others (say regular PLA) Ive seen this effect rear its head. This is of course dependent on the print and other factors. Its a novel idea and can work, but its not 100%. Just throwing some of that food for thought out there. Varying layer height, great, I like how we are seeing innovation across the slicers.