The ONLY Slicer Settings Video You Will Ever Need

Before you waste your filament, these are 10 of the most crucial slicer settings that should always be adjusted or at least considered so that you are actually the one in the control of the print, not the printer itself. And with each of these, I'm going to include a bit more advanced secret tip so that anybody can actually learn from this. As the first one, I selected the preset settings because even though it's not just a single setting, it's a set of them, it's usually the only thing that people change. And presets are pretty much like a resolution for your 3D printer. So, I freed printed these benches to show you how does it change by the settings. And it's not that hard because the main thing that changes is the layer height, which means that the smaller you pick, the higher the resolution, but of course, the longer the print time. And a great tip that everybody should know is that there's something called the variable layer height. And you can turn this on in the slicer. And what it will do, it will actually change the layer height depending on how much detail does the part need in that layer height. So, if you're in a rush somewhere, the printer presets are actually great settings to use. Second one, V count. W count is the number of solid layers that the printer will make between the infill and the outer of the part. So, of course, increasing the wall count will increase the strength of the part, but at the same time, it will increase the filament that is used and the print time that it will take. But if you need a part not to break, the V count is the setting that I would definitely go for. On the other hand, if you just need a quick prototype that doesn't need that much strength, you can actually just decrease the V count to, for example, even a one. I use that quite a lot because it's so much faster and it actually gives me the part in a decent time. And one thing that I discovered when making this video about this slicer setting is that you can actually set the wall count to zero and it will print just the infill pattern which when I thought about it could be actually quite useful if you are designing your own support for the part. It will be much quicker and you will save a lot of filament. The third setting is infill. Infill has two main settings which is the density and the pattern. Density just means that how much of the part will be actually filled with filament and pattern is which shape will fill it. Now in the new slicer versions there are so many infill patterns that I feel like they are just over complicating it. So let me just give you the ones that I use the most. I don't like to over complicate density. Anything over 20% I think is an excess and usually around 15% is just about fine. And for example if you need just a prototype decreasing the density to 5% will give you the print a lot faster. Now, with pattern, I see so many people never changing it, and I think it's such a big mistake because pretty much any other pattern can give you better results than the preset one. I like to use the honeycomb or the gyroid one because they seem to be quite reliable. But if you want to adjust fast, I would recommend using the lightning infill and reducing the density to about 5%. It will give you the print super fast and without any wasted filament. Number four is brim. Brim is super important because it save most of my adhesion issues. But a brimis is pretty much a few initial layers that are surrounding your print so that it would stick to the plate better. Usually people let them generate automatically. But I think that's a big mistake because sometimes the slicer decides to put a brim on a part that definitely doesn't need a brim. And then it makes the post-processing of the part so much harder. So always after slicing just make sure that the automatic brim setting decided correctly and that you actually either want it or don't want it there. For me 99% of adhesion issues can be solved with a brim. So, if one of my prints doesn't stick, I usually just use the outer brim. And the bigger you set the brim, the more you can be sure that the part won't fill off the plate. Number five is the filament preset. Now, this is the reason for most of your nozzle clocks, because if you don't run any tests for your filament, and you just blindly go for a preset that was there, how can you know it will actually print good? And even I get this sometimes wrong, but it's good for your printer's longevity to try and keep it as safe as possible. Now, the material presets contain so many settings that I can't go over all of them, but I'm just going to say that this setting is super important. And just try to always match the brand's type of the filament with the preset that you're using. And if you can't find it, just use the generic one, but run a few tests and see how it works. And if you want your filament settings to be perfect, I would recommend running all of the calibration tests that the slicer provides. What I would highly recommend is pick a brand and stick to it. Because if you can master just one filament, trust me, you're going to be better off than somebody who's changing filaments each and every time they print. I would definitely recommend running at least once the temperature tower, the flow ratio calibration, and the max volumetric speed calibration. Just these three will be enough for 99% of your prints. Six is bet and nozzle temperature. Now, these two are the only ones that I would highly recommend adjusting for yourself and not just using the preset because these can depend a lot depending on your environment. Now, I don't think I need to explain that bed temperature is just the temperature that the plate will be and nozzle temperature is just the temperature that the nozzle will be. But a great thing to know is that if your prints are falling off the bed, increasing the bed temperature will never do you any bad because what the bed temperature can do is it keeps the first layer of the print still in a bit of a liquid state and that makes the print adhere a lot better. And with the nozzle temperature, it's really important to run the temperature tower test. Because if you heat up the nozzle to wrong temperature for the filament, you will spend a lot of time fixing your 3D printer. And even though I have gotten pretty good at unclogging my nozzles, a bad nozzle temperature can sometimes have permanent effects. And spending 50 bucks on a new nozzle is definitely not fun. Seven is print orientation. This is something so important that many people miss because they usually just print the part however it came into the slicer and never worry about how it will be oriented. And because FDM printing is literally laying lines on lines on lines, the orientation matters a lot. And because of these lines, it actually creates break points for your prints. So as well as it can make your part stronger, it can make it break more and be weaker. And when considering support, printing something at a 45° angle is definitely not a bad idea. And this will also completely change the way your supports are generated. So if you need something flat like I needed for this shelf that I was 3D printing, it would have to have this whole surface covered. If I if I just laid it flat on there, but if you print it at a 45° angle, the supports are actually needed just in a few parts of the shelf. And that's why print orientation is super important and I think everybody should consider it when starting a print. Number eight is speed. Now, under the speed section in Slicer, there are so many settings that I won't go over all of them, but the ones that I would definitely recommend adjusting is the outer wall speed because if you have a bit more detailed part, the outer wall will really determine how it will look in the end. Then, it's also good to mention that if you need a better bed adhesion, slowing down the first layer is an amazing tool to use. And as well as you can differentiate the layer height that is used when printing the part, you can also differentiate the speed. It's usually located under the same button and it will adjust the speed of the layer depending on how much detail is in that layer and how much it will need to slow down, which I would highly recommend if you have a part that is more simple on the bottom and for example more complicated or detailed on the top. Number nine, supports. If you aren't printing just calibration cubes and benches, you will probably have to use supports sometimes. Supports is something that really advances 3D printing because it allows us to print pretty much anything just by adding a part that isn't part of the model but will be removed later. There are two main types of supports which are the normal ones and the tree ones. Now, there's a lot to unpack about supports, but I don't want to go too much in detail. So to simplify it, the normal supports are much better for simpler shapes, but the tree ones can actually support even more detailed parts better because it can literally get its branches to the exact parts of the print that you need. What I would recommend is if you need to support larger flat surfaces to use the normal but snug supports and increasing the interference layers to free on top and bottom. This will make it so much easier to remove and even decrease the filament that is used for the supports. And something that just came out recently is if you go into orient, you can actually orient the part to have the minimal supports needed. So the slicer will automatically calculate in which orientation will the part will need the least amount of support, which makes the whole process a lot easier. Number 10, V generation. Two main types, classical and Arachnne. Now, Arachnne is the setting that most people go for, but they usually don't even know why, and I was the same. Now the main difference and the possible advantage of Ericne wall generation classical is that it has a set width of the layer that it will print and if you have for example a bit smaller parameter in the print it won't print it anyh how different and what the arch does is it pretty much adjusts on the go and the slicer decides that it's going to act a bit differently over here because it's a bit smaller which makes so much sense you know it's smaller so print it a bit smaller so the archnneal generation pretty much makes the printer think about what it's doing so I would highly recommend using the INY as standard because it gives the printing a bit more intelligence. Now, if you take into consideration all of these 10 settings, I think 99% of your prints will never fail. And I hope that this video was somehow useful and my explanations were actually decent. And if you want, you can watch more of my