Simplify3D User Forum

Hi,

I've been using Simplify3D for 6 months or so and I've finally gotten to a point where I'm very happy with my print settings, giving me reliable prints 99% of the time.

So far every time I've used a different filament I use the + button in process settings and create a new profile for that filament. The settings are usually identical (I only print in PETG these days) so I have little need for the multiple profiles, but, it does mean I can tweak a particular one if I need to (let's say a different brand.colour needs a slightly different temp etc).

A few days ago I got my first reel of TPU. I created a new profile in the normal way (select an existing profile and click + to clone it). It needed very few changes to my settings to get a decent print, however I did need to set the extrusion width to auto (I usually have it manually set to 0.5mm) and also reduced the speed to 20mm/s on the 'other' tab.

I've just switched my filament back to PETG and as such changed my filament profile back to the relevant filament profile under process settings. As it's been printing I noticed that it was going very slowly. Now looking in the profile I can see that all my profiles have their speed set to 20mm/s. It seems like changing this setting takes effect across all profiles!

Two questions:

1) Am I managing my filament settings in completely the wrong way? It seems like some setting are mirrored over all profiles. if that's the case how do I know which settings are locked to the profile and which ones persist over all profiles? How do I manage the settings which are mirrored for all profiles if I want a different setting for certain filaments?

2) As I hadn't realised this was going to happen I didn't backup my previous settings and may have tinkered with a few different ones while setting up for TPU. Would the old settings be backed up somewhere like in the header of my old G-CODE files?

I'm hoping the way of managing these settings has improved in S3D 4.0 but currently reluctant to upgrade as I have things setup so that I get very good prints at the moment.

Hope someone can explain what I've done wrong and how I should be managing these profiles for each different roll of Filament.

Read my reply on this thread for a starter: viewtopic.php?f=8&t=7878&p=33828&hilit=processes#p33828

And perhaps view this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eZ7HFPY ... Ss&index=2

I'm sure others will have suggestions as well.......

JBFUK:
You did nothing wrong. It is Simplify3D that behaves like this. And it makes me crazy too. I absolutely don't like the way it manages different filaments. The only thing that is being modified is temperature settings. Just one example: If you have a filament with a very small diameter, e.g. 1.68mm - you can't store this value separately with this filament type. The variable for the diameter is 'global' to my understanding. I still don't know how other user handle this. I don't know it.
Matterhackers Mattercontrol is much more simple in this regard when managing filament. I'm still puzzled how other user handle this - I simply don't know it.

Well I'm glad that it's not just me finding this a bit unintuitive. When I previously said that I was creating new 'profiles' I meant 'materials'. I keep the same 'profile' and I create a new 'material' for each reel of filament. As you say only a very limited subset of the settings seem to be affected by switching materials within the same profile. It's not really clear which settings those are. I think that makes it a bit confusing.

Based on what I'd read or watched when starting out with S3D, I thought the profile was specifically defining the printer, then the materials defined the filament.

Having watched the video dkightley linked to (thanks) I think that actually I'm supposed to be more liberal with the profiles, pretty much making a new profile for each configuration. I think I could get away with a profile for each type of filament and then a 'material' definition for each reel of that filament type - so a profile 'i3 PETG', 'i3 TPU', 'Makerbot PLA' and then within those profiles I may have 'RealFilament Yellow', 'TechOutlet Black' etc. If this is the way it is intended to be then it should be clearer which properties are linked to the 'material' vs 'profile'.

The question is which properties and settings are linked to a 'material' definition. Is it documented?

By the way it looks like the G-Code files actually have a dump of the settings commented in so I can ensure I get back to my previous setup. The units don't appear to be the same as the GUI so a bit of trail and error required by the looks of it.

If you want to see what settings are changed for each material, just go to File > Export FFF Profile. Then open that .fff file in a text editor and scroll to the bottom to the <autoConfigureMaterial> sections. That's shows you exactly what is changed for each material option. You can even add new settings into those sections if you want to change something new for each material choice. There are lots of threads on the forum about how to do this.

While S3D does many things really well, allowing it's users to save separate "filament profiles" isn't one of them unfortunately. In additiion to other slicers mentioned above, Slic3r does this really well, allowing you to save out separate "profiles" for "you printer hardware", "your print settings", and "filament settings". Makes swapping filament (and printers for that matter) a breeze.

Basically this means I have to record all my filament settings in a spreadsheet, and enter them manually every time I print: I save profiles for "overall quality" and filament types. Meaning, I have a set of profiles for PLA, another set for flexible, etc. But then every time I pull one up, I have to go back to my spreadsheet and enter in those numbers for that specific filament. Way clunkier than it should be, illustrated by other slicers.

I was hoping that v4 would overhaul how profiles are managed / created / used, but sadly no.

This is the greatest frustration with S3D for me. Even saving a new profile is a pain, because it doesn't even fill in the existing profile name as a default for modification, and you can't copy the existing name from the screen.

I've taken to trying to establish standard naming conventions for my profiles which can then travel through the rest of my workflow so i have some way to backtrack from a print to a profile. When saving gcode files, I add the leading prefix to the gcode file.

Basically, my profiles are filament driven with a description.

Example Profile names:

• PLA10a - Standard 0.2 Print
  PETG10d - Quality Tests
  PETG10e - Standard 0.2 Print

It is convenient that S3D dumps all the settings in the gcode file as well as the source profile name.

I've taken to frequent exports of profiles to .fff files and storing those in dated directories for recovery / reference.

In order to compare two profiles, you have to work outside of S3D, and for that, I'm using winmerge to show the differences between any two profiles in question, or even gcode files.

I've found winmerge essential because of how poorly S3D manages profiles. Slic3r is definitely way ahead of S3D in this regards, along with its more robust infill options. I'm spending most of my time in S3D for the time being, primarily because I've worked out a nice configuration for supports, but can see myself drifting more to Slic3r Prusa edition simply because profiles are handled so much better.

webdad wrote: It is convenient that S3D dumps all the settings in the gcode file as well as the source profile name.

Thanks for this little tidbit of info!

I had been making changes to my profile, thinking that the changes were only affecting the material that I had selected in "Auto-Configure For Material". To my horror, when I switched the material back, almost all of my dialed-in settings had been overwritten with my (bad) test settings. Luckily I'm able to re-create my old profile by reading through an old gcode file. Your comment saved me hours (if not days) of testing.

I wish 4.0 would have done away with the confusing "Auto-Configure" drop-downs entirely; like you say, a profile that details a single material has to be the way to go.