Simplify3D User Forum

Any news on this? I have the same problem :/
The top fill at spots like these falls down into the infill, even after 5 layers of top fill.
I'd need something like the "extra bridge length" but for top fill.

EdoHamburg wrote:Hello!

I have a issue with the software. It is hard to describe, but the pictures will show what I mean.

The failure in Simplify3D - one of the top layers is not going far enough over the infill - the result are gaps/holes:

This is something that also bothers me about S3D - it doesnt seem to take into consideration that each filament of the top infill is not ending on a piece of filament from the support below (since it is sparse) and you essentially get a piece of plastic in mid air that gets dragged back by the head is it moved back.

In my opinion there should be a perimeter first drawn in the above example and then the solid infill added, this way the perimeter would proved something for the infill to bind to. I think this is what slic3r does.

They don't really provide any means of controlling the outer surfaces in comparison with infill.

For example you can change how the infill is drawn (angle choices, or type of infill) but for outer surfaces many of these settings have no effect. Including the infill overlap setting.

It seems to me S3D needs to provide more control over the surface fill settings. At least an overlap and angle(s) control.

billyd wrote:Including the infill overlap setting.

I Just ran a few tests myself, and the infill overlap setting definitely affects the outer layers as well. So I would disagree with that comment based on my tests.

CompoundCarl wrote:

billyd wrote:Including the infill overlap setting.

I Just ran a few tests myself, and the infill overlap setting definitely affects the outer layers as well. So I would disagree with that comment based on my tests.

I was having a problem where the top surface layer was not connecting fully to an outer perimeter. It was a model where there were different height top surfaces. All the top surfaces were binding well, except the highest z surface. Altering overlap had no effect on it, even setting it to 50%. Again it was only happening on the max z height top surfaces. Lower horizontal surfaces were being printed perfectly.

I will post a factory file tonight.

Apologize for the incorrect assumption, it must be some other issue. That said I would still love to be able to control surface angles the way we can control infill

billyd wrote:Altering overlap had no effect on it, even setting it to 50%

It definitely has an affect. Just look at the gcode preview. If you change the settings from 0% to 50%, it clearly alters the overlap, exactly like you would expect. Even looking through the gcode files itself verifies that it's doing exactly what it should.

CompoundCarl wrote:

billyd wrote:Altering overlap had no effect on it, even setting it to 50%

It definitely has an affect. Just look at the gcode preview. If you change the settings from 0% to 50%, it clearly alters the overlap, exactly like you would expect. Even looking through the gcode files itself verifies that it's doing exactly what it should.

For whatever reason it is not resulting in an overlap on the last layers of this print. It could be an issue with hardware or the model. I haven't been able to figure out why. Like I said the overlap does work well in other areas, just not the very top. It may be related to gap fill on a wall, where the interior of that wall not ending up as far inboard as the software thinks. The gap is large. Large enough to where 50% of the print width as an overlap may not be enough.

Reporting this as a major issue. One of the uses we have for FFF 3D printing is to create props of big shapes that have little to no strength requirement, so we print them with low infill percentage. When slicing those prints with S3F, every time there's a partial top surface the print has holes in the top layers around the inner perimeter. This is not acceptable, so to slice those jobs we revert to free software, and i find it absurd that every one of them manage to do this correctly, while the only supposedly professional one cannot despite this thread.

This could be automatized by making the software extend the infill until it reaches something to latch on, be it either a perimeter or internal infill. In this way you'd minimize the waste of material at high infill percentages while avoiding problems at low infills. If this can't be done automatically then just add a manual "Extend top support under perimeters by x mm" setting or similar.

The following pic is my proposal to fix this issue.

For whatever it's worth I'd just like to add my +1 to get this issue fixed. It makes me sad that such a 'simple' thing is not already fixed, it makes for horrendous quality with certain models.

There is almost something already which, as a quick fix, could be enhanced to take care of the problem. Infill -> Include solid diaphragm every <nr> layers. If this was made like infil angles, ie, a list one could set freely instead of as 'every <x> layers' we could make the tops solid manually. It feels like it should be easy enough compared to makeing a new algotithm for makeing sure top layer move over an infillspar (which is how it should be).

I have this issue frequently - especially when using low infill densities and it then finishes the edge where there is no infill - meaning the plastic sags inwards, causing awful gaps. I don't have this problem on the Makerware software (but can't stand to use the software lol). In order to get around it, I make two processes (stopping and starting on that layer height) so that it creates a solid layer - but this uses up a lot more plastic and requires more time in the software (so obviously isn't a practical work-around). If it's a short object I make a solid layer every x layers (based on the layer that this happens on), but this is impractical if it's tall.

I would absolutely love for this to get fixed - it's one of my major issues when using Simplify3d.