Simplify3D User Forum

Why are the given print times so out ?

Said 3hs ten mins actually took 4 hours 20min. All the times it says seem so far out.

s3d can only estimate given the settings you have plugged in. it does not know other factors like acceleration which is set in your firmware. this can play a big factor in time especially if its a print with alot of travel moves.

I thought the speed settings where set in the software. Makerbot Desktop seems to get the times right .

MontyFlange wrote:I thought the speed settings where set in the software. Makerbot Desktop seems to get the times right .

Yes, default print speeds are set in software. Slicing a file will then generate the different locations the toolhead should move at, accompanied with a feedrate, which tells how fast to execute the command. The firmware, however, ultimately decides how to interpret and execute the travel move. Say, for example, a command is sent to a printer to move from point a to point b at 7500 mm/min (125 mm/s). The firmware itself will have its own max feedrate, for example 3600 mm/min (60 mm/s) and even though you set the speed in software to print at 7500 mm/min, the firmware will execute the move at 3600, since it has been programmed not to travel any faster than that. There's also acceleration to take into account. For example, if you tell the printer to move at 7500 mm/min, and say it is able to move at that speed, but the move itself is only 1mm, it won't actually have made that move at 7500mm/min, but a fraction of that, depending on what the acceleration value is set in the firmware. There are also other values such as jerk, max allowed acceleration, homing feedrates, PID of your heaters (it can take 10 mins sometimes to heat my large build volume to 100 degrees) etc etc.

With all of these different variables to account for, you also have to remember, not all printers have the same values for any one of these values, it's actually more common printers will have different values than they do equal values, depending on the hardware and build. If you're using a Makerbot printer in conjunction with MakerWare, it's quite possible they take into account some of these firmware level values, as they are the makers of it and know the values and don't care if other printers have values that are off since they only really support their printers.

Ok thanks. Machine is as per my Sig..
Thanks

They should probably not bother trying to predict the time to finish, since it is so far off there is no point to it.

We can tell how much time is left based on how long it's taken so far and what lies ahead for the specific print job.

The percent complete is valuable and all we really need.

In line with what's already been said, the firmware would be able to do a decent job, if they wrote it into the code (using the hardware clock). But I doubt they have the room for the extra code. The only way S3D could do it accurately would be if you were printing via USB and then it could use real time data to predict how long the job would take, by constantly adjusting based on what's been printed so far and what has to be printed in the future.

Yer thats true about the code. I run my machine at night with an OFF timer set 1 hour after the given print time.

My printer came with Kisslicer already configured but I changed to S3D because I liked it very much. I have the data regarding firmware (feedrate, acceleration, etc). Is it possible to include it in some part of Gcode or include it at S3D software so that I can have the set up improved? My prints took much more than predicted (6hs instead of 3, I print things for clients so I need to quote exact working times!!)

Besides this, software is amazing but I need to fix this bug. Hope you can help us!

I had a few prints that went to exactly double the time until I noticed a problem on my dual extruder Powerspec. Some how had selected two profiles or two extruders for a single extruder task, and the printer was trying to print twice. e.g. it would print the layer with filament from the left extruder, then go over the identical path with the right extruder.

After checking the profiles and ensuring exactly one extruder was selected the double printing time problem went away. (although i sometimes get jobs running 5-10% longer which is acceptable, have not done any tuning of printer)

I bought S3D primarily for the slicing time - the bundled free software was very powerful/complicated but sometimes took 20-30 mins to slice a single object.

HTH