I'm just recently up and running with Simplify3D. Great program. For the first couple months with my printer I struggled with MakerWare and ReplicatorG. I had no problem making them work, but I just didn't have the control over my machine (Duplicator 4).
So I'm happily printing along with successful prints. While my machine is churning along behind me, I thought I'd ask a couple questions instead of stopping a 6 hour print to do tests.
First is on infills. I have the current print set for 25%, for instance. I did a lot of 25% with MakerWare, where it gave me a cute honeycomb pattern. With S3D, my 25% almost seems like 80%. It is REALLY solid in the center. I think this is really adding to my print time. I printed this one part out in MakerWare in 4 hours. Is 25% overkill in S3D?
Speed. I got used to thinking in terms of mm per second. The math isn't hard to figure out. I had a lot of fine prints, at 0.10 height, at 90/150 on Makerware. Now I'm printing at the default, 3,600 speed (divided by 60 equals 60 mm per second). Is this the norm? At what speeds have you printed and still gotten good quality? I know every machine is different, I'm just wondering if I should crank things up a notch. The Duplicator 4 is pretty much a Replicator 2.
Loving the software. Being able to print 25% the speed on the first layer really allowed me to go 100% raft-less. All my prints stick now. I hate rafts.
Re: Infill and speed
Hey Don, glad you're enjoying the program! I usually use an infill percentage between 20 and 50%. I rarely go below 20 because this never seems to provide enough support for the upper layers (ceilings).
As for the printing speed, I typically just stick with the defaults. For the Rep2, I believe this is 4800 mm/min. If you are currently using 3600, you can probably go a little higher.
As for the printing speed, I typically just stick with the defaults. For the Rep2, I believe this is 4800 mm/min. If you are currently using 3600, you can probably go a little higher.
