Slicer sequence order

[laird]

I'm slicing complex, recurdive snowflakes (https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/la ... burst-2014) and fairly often the generated paths look quite inefficient, with the extruder head jumping around like crazy laying down tiny bits of plastic all over, which gradually form into the final shape. In theory this might be fine, but it results in hundreds of tiny stand-alone bits of plastic, so it's frequent that some get knocked loose by all the moves, requiring frequent re-printing.

For simpler shapes the slicing paths are what you'd expect, following the outline and then filling it. It seems to have something to do with complexity.

It would be good if the segments laid down could be contiguous, or at least that they be near each other so that the overall travel distance would be minimized. This would speed printing, and also reduce the print failures due to all the travel moves knocking pieces loose.

Any suggestions? Should I post some gcode?

[KeyboardWarrior]

I'm slicing complex, recurdive snowflakes (https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/la ... burst-2014) and fairly often the generated paths look quite inefficient, with the extruder head jumping around like crazy laying down tiny bits of plastic all over, which gradually form into the final shape. In theory this might be fine, but it results in hundreds of tiny stand-alone bits of plastic, so it's frequent that some get knocked loose by all the moves, requiring frequent re-printing.

For simpler shapes the slicing paths are what you'd expect, following the outline and then filling it. It seems to have something to do with complexity.

It would be good if the segments laid down could be contiguous, or at least that they be near each other so that the overall travel distance would be minimized. This would speed printing, and also reduce the print failures due to all the travel moves knocking pieces loose.

Any suggestions? Should I post some gcode?

How many shells are you doing? I would recommend 1 to 2 shells with high infill for a part that complex.

[laird]

I use 2 shells (sides, and top/bottom) and 100% infill. The snowflakes are tiny, so making them less than 100% infill doesn't save much plastic, but it causes the tops of wide areas to bridge a bit, so 100% infill looks nicer.