What Slicer do you use for Personal use?

[TBJK]

Inspired by this thread

What 3D printer would you buy for home use?

I’m considering getting a filament (not resin) 3D printer. I keep getting Facebook ads for Makerbot. There are much cheaper versions on Amazon without cases, and there’s even a Dremel version. Ideally, it would be large enough to help with PPE creation efforts, such as what @HankCowdog described in the other thread. If you were going to buy a 3D printer, which one would you buy and why?

What slicer do you personally use? Good luck, Bad luck etc…

Currently I’m using Creality 1.2.3., It’s based off CURA. I used CURA the other day with bad results. It did not put the proper offsets in the G-code so it went to one of my corners & then rammed into the bed before I could stop it.
The CURA is set up right, I did not see anywhere to put offsets in.

The Creality slicer is very generic & I think it leaves a lot to be desired. It works OK, but I would like other options, such as changing the infill type.

[Jeeves]

I have really liked Cura for my Ender 3 pro. Sometimes it puts weird lines in the slice that show up in the print. But you can see it in the preview and reslice and it tends to correct itself.

I started with Creality but was not impressed with its capabilities.

[Kentamanos]

Just the Prusa version of Slic3r here. They basically forked and contribute back changes (in theory at least, I haven’t verified etc.).

It does what I need so far without issue, but I haven’t tried to do lithopanes or “vase mode” objects yet. I’m not sure if it does everything I might eventually need, but I’m not super advanced on this stuff.

[bpamplin]

The only one i’ve used is PrusaSlicer 2.2.0. It exceeds my needs.

They recently made a number of updates. These may sound small but have been great for me. I change color often and that feature has been enhanced to do a pause without unloading filament. It makes it easy to drop in an embedded object like a magnet. Also the export gcode button has an addition to write the gcode to an SD card without having to select it. After you export, another button shows up to safely eject the SD card.

[Sk8nmike]

Simplify3D for my Marlin based printer…

[HankCowdog]

I use a hodgepodge of slicers, based on printer:

• KissSlicer for the Polyprinters (and as a general model viewer)
• Cura for my Monoprice Mini Delta
• PrusaSlicer for my Prusa

I always slice and save, then print the GCode separately. I keep separate SD cards based on filament (PLA, ABS) so I don’t accidentally try to print ABS with PLA settings.

I hacked the settings on the PolyPrinter Pronterface controller to act as a print-spooler for my MPMD as well.

[michaelb]

My main requirements for a slicer are speed and control for single extruder, non-supported prints. That’s most of what I do nowdays.

I use PrusaSlicer for my Prusa and my Voron. A big plus is that my Prusa is a ‘just work’ printer that I don’t tinker with and I assume it works better with their slicer. I actually started using Slic3r on a Rostock Max before I had the Prusa, so that wasn’t the driving decision.

I found Slic3r (where PrusaSlicer came from) was much lighter and faster than my other free option, Cura. I strongly dislike KissSlicer for the interface, call it personal preference. I used to use Cura for some Ultimakers and while it worked well it tended to be slower than Slic3r and that really turned me off of it.

Back in school we used Simplify3D from about the time it was released until I graduated, it was really nice, fast, had a ton of features, and at the time of its release about the best support generation you could get. I’ve looked back recently but I don’t think it’s worth the money any more over Slic3r, at least not for me.

I miss some of the ‘place surface on bed’ and easy fine control you get with Simplify3D, like easy variable infill or temp towers, but Slic3r has good enough options for everything I’ve needed so far.

[CaryF300]

I’ve been really happy with the latest version of Cura for my CR-10. I like options that it gives me, and the interface with my OctoPi doesn’t hurt either.

[SteveDC]

@TBJK

It did not put the proper offsets in the G-code so it went to one of my corners & then rammed into the bed before I could stop it.

This is most certainly an incorrect printer setup than an issue with Cura.

For years I used to have to have an offset in the slicer to compensate for an incorrectly set z-height, until I eventually fully comprehended the differences and implications of “offset”, “level”, “flat”, “mesh leveling” etc…

Your printer should NEVER push the nozzle into the bed, regardless of what GCode is sent to it if the z-offsets are set correctly.

If you send “G28” what does your LCD say your Z height is (or use M114 to read the current positions at a terminal)? It should match the actual distance between the nozzle and the bed. Note, the actual distance will probably NOT be zero unless you (unnecessarily) spent a lot of time physically adjusting your Z end stop.

I used to adjust my z-offset in the slicer to correct for my z-home position being wrong.

If the actual z gap is different to what M114 says then you should really correct this with M851.

Don’t forget to a) save (M500) then b) re-home. If you have enabled mesh leveling then I recommend M420 S1 followed by G28 then re-measure the real distance and check against M114 result.

Once these are correct you can then dis-regard any z- offset corrections in the slicer, and trust that the first layer will actually be what you ask for. “G1 Z0” will put the nozzle just onto the bed, “G1 Z1” will give a gap of 1mm etc…

If you have calipers you can adjust with M851 until a piece of paper is JUST held after moving up “G1 Z1”, place paper under nozzle then “G1 Zmeasuredpaperthickness” where ‘measuredpaperthickness’ is… well… the thickness of the paper as measured with your calipers. I have gotten really good at visually guestimating 0.1mm instead of using paper

As I say, in the past I tried to correct for bad z-offset by either changing the z-offset in the slicer (bad) or changing the initial layer height (REALLY bad, since this also affects the flow rate and not just the height, so is basically completely wrong)

[paul00]

I use Simplify3D for my Prusa i3 Mk2. I like it pretty well, although I don’t like the way that modifying the settings seems to modify the original default settings, so getting back is not trivial.I guess I just need to make the original files read only. I like the trigonal pyramid infill option of the Prusa slicer, but I tend to think of the Czech Republic as being near the area where malware is created.

As far as I am aware, automatic support generation is in a very primitive state of development, but I admit it is a very challenging programming problem. I do wish the manual support placement tools were a lot better, giving you a few parameterized shapes and much more control over orientation. If it is important for a given project, you can do much better by making the supporting structures part of the design. If you know what you’re doing you can achieve superior results with minimal cosmetic harm.

[TBJK]

So I have been using Cura here recently. I have been tweaking settings. I just did a retraction test with pretty good results. Very little stringing, Maybe 3 or 4 strings total. I’m printing my overhang test now to see what I can get away with in supports or lack there of.

[jottwell]

I’m pretty well entrenched with the Hobart 2812 series slicer. Been very happy with it’s output, so I don’t think I’ll be changing soon. No strings, no problems with overhang. It will slice anything you throw at it.