Simplify3D is a software improvement

i have been having issues with slic3r and pronterface. i found the whole process cumbersome and slow, so i just purchased Simplify3D for $140 last night. it was somewhat of a leap of faith since they do not offer a trial version and the price is a bit more than i wanted to pay. however, it was totally worth it. within 20 minutes i bought the software, downloaded it, installed it and was printing. the interface is superior, the settings are better organized and in general the software is really nice. i was concerned there would be compatibility issues since software settings only list the taz3, but it worked like a champ last night. i started a 7 hour build with 8 individual parts and the parts are better quality than i was getting with previous software and i did not get any lifting like i was.

so far i am really happy with the purchase. so far i have only used ABS. i hope to start printing with other materials like laywood, t-glase, and ninja flex. however, i think the real test will be printing with a dual extruder.

I have had good luck with S3D as well. I have been able to produce much higher quality part with it that with Slic3r or Cura.

I have ran into a problem with it and how it handles thin vertical walls. If you have a thin wall and have the S3D set to do more than one perimeter, it most often will not infil the wall so you just end up with two really thin verticals that have a gap between them. S3D does not see this as a bug and recommends setting perimeters to 1 and infill overlap to 25% from 15%. It works but I like having two or three perimeters on most parts.

Purchased this software a few day ago, it is a great piece of software. I love being able to pick and choose my support structure placement and being able to drop an uneven leveled model below the build plate and have the program slice it properly.

I’m still learning the software but I think it was money well spent.

Does this software have a print interface that will connect to a Taz? I’ve been using Slic3r and Repetier host for a while now, and I wish slicer did a bit better on a few things, but I also like being able to open one program, drop in a part, hit slice, then hit print without having to export gcode, etc.

Yes. It is pretty darn nice. Just a little pricey. I have not regretted spending the money on it.

The main driver for me was better support options. The supports it generates are editable and / or you can manually place the supports where you need them. Aaaaand, the supports are easily removed, unlike the last time I tried support structure in Slic3r.

It is not perfect but it is a vast improvement over the others I have tried. (Slic3r, cura, Repetier host)

They have a support email that has been helpful with the couple of questions I have had.

IMO they would sell many more copies of it if they would get a trial set up.

I have to say thank you for the review Rynmiller & nopick. Software is worth every penny.
More control and my output is instantly better with initial settings. Tweaking now and they are getting even better.

:smiley:

I printed my first PLA part ever last night. I used the default S3D settings for PLA and it turned out pretty good. The retraction was a little hyperactive so I turn the distance before retraction up from 1mm to 3mm.

Here is my current ABS factory file if you want to play with it. Remove the .txt to import it into S3D.
absMed101114.factory.txt (1.36 KB)

Id love to see more reviews of this software. I am by no means a pro printer. But I find pronterface and slicr to be a PITA currently and would like to simplify down to 1 program and a powerful program at that.

More reviews would be great. Thanks everyone!

Chris,

Honestly, if you enjoy using the printer but get aggravated futzing with Slic3r, this is well worth the money. S3D is crazy for not offering a trial.

Agreed. I bought it about a month ago and haven’t regretted it for a second. Manual support is great, default settings are pretty good out of the box. What I would love to see in this thread is people’s tried and true .FFF files for different materials. I’m too tired to do mine now, but I’ll try to remember to upload tomorrow.

What I would love to see in this thread is people’s tried and true .FFF files for different materials

I purchased it a while back. Tried to use it but gave up. Need some ABS and PLA profiles for the TAZ. Trial and Error is too frustrating.

I will post mine tonight. The defaults worked pretty darn well but a few tweaks help. What problems were you having?

The killer feature of that software is, honestly, the support editing. It is fantastic.

I bought and tried it when I first got my TAZ a few months ago.

Everything was new to me so I had no idea what to use for layer heights, widths, perimeters, speeds, etc. So I just selected some default setting and the results were terrible.

I’ve since pretty much have Slic3r wired for ABS prints and am now working with PLA and figuring out the best settings for that.

But, I’ve heard nothing but good things about Simplify3D (the reason I bought it) and would love to use it. Slic3r does some things that don’t make sense and can sometimes be irritating.

Would love to try out your Simplify3D profiles.

I do have to say, however, that switching to PEI for ABS, and PRINTinZ for PLA has solved all of my Bed adhesion problems. No more ABS Juice, Hairspray, Glue, or other hacks to get parts to stick.

Kenny

Yeah, I wish my PEI had worked out. I had a terrible time with it.

I will post up my S3D factory tonight.

Here is my factory file.
102814.factory.txt (4.03 KB)

Well it turns out that I don’t have much to share. I barely modify the default TAZ 3 settings. If I don’t mention a tab in advanced settings, it means I leave it at the default. I get PLA prints that I’m very happy with with these settings, but I would be happy to hear that someone has improved them.

PLA
LAYER
4 top solid layer - I added another because I was getting some holes on parts with low (15%) infill, and the extra layer helped a lot.
use random start points - to make the outside look as clean as possible
INFILL
Minimum infill length 3mm - I have no idea if this helps at all, but I just feel better with 3mm
TEMPERATURE
Extruder 210

I pretty much solely use S3D - I tried using Slic3r and others briefly (MatterControl wasn’t bad, but was missing a bunch of features I was used to in S3D – and it kept crashing on me).

I generally really like S3D. It’s got some major annoyances though, and those are easier for me to remember so I figure I’ll list 'em:

There’s no really detailed overview of what each and every setting does, and how it will affect the GCode output/printer output. For example, there’s about 4 (maybe more) settings that will all effect the amount extruded from the nozzle: Nozzle size, extrusion multiplier, extrusion width, and filament size. Took a lot of trial and error to figure out how each of those actually affect things.

It likes to crash when duplicating objects, which is annoying as hell.

It’s really easy to accidentally delete a ‘process’ (printer settings) with no undo or warning.

Dual extrusion settings leave some things to be desired - I’ve been using PVA paired with Soft PLA, and the PVA oozes like nothing else I’ve ever used. There’s no way to set an auto-ooze setting per extruder, and more importantly, you can only print a skirt with the ‘primary’ extruder. I’ve been printing a skirt as tall as the model with the soft PLA (which is a massive waste) so that as the PVA extruder moves into position, the skirt wipes the ooze off. Downside is, with long prints too much oozes out, and there’s no way to force some extra extrusion to make up for it.

Setting up different processes based on height is kind of a pain - you have to make completely new processes, and set them to start and end at different heights in mm - can’t just make one process that changes the layer height at layer 12 or something. And… say your first process has a layer height of .3mm, and you tell it to stop at 2mm. Your next process is .1mm layer height, starting at 2.2mm. There’ll be a gap of .2mm between the two processes! You’d have to make your changeover height be 2.4mm.

The manual support structures are great, but very difficult to remove only parts of the support structures - if you don’t want support in holes, but need it elsewhere, you have to click every single little pillar you want to remove. It’s also not smart enough that if you have support starting halfway up the model, and have a support ‘inflation’ (supports go outside the model a bit), it won’t drop that inflation down to the bed - you’ll end up with strings hanging off your model.

Doesn’t seem to have support for two extruder fans at all, not sure how to add that (the TAZ firmware doesn’t support that yet, though someone elsewhere on the forums said they were working on it).

There’s nowhere to set up X/Y offsets for the second extruder - have to do it in firmware. Works OK but a pain in the ass to tweak.

And… not a huge deal, but they seem to release updates very erratically. Lots of posts on their feature request forum are met with ‘you can already do this! here’s a 16 step method to do that one thing you want.’ It seems that their updates don’t really add many/any of the requested features at all.

Would be great if it were open source, as we could just add the features we want. It does seem to have some sort of plugin structure (evidenced by an ‘Add-ins’ menu) but I can’t find anything about how to WRITE an add-in for it, and the only one that exists is to convert an image into a 3d-model relief.

So, this is long - I don’t want to look like I’m completely badmouthing this software. It’s still basically the only program I use. The bed layout functions are great, the support system is better than anything else I’ve found, and I don’t think anything out there really does a better job than S3D. But I think S3D could be doing a better job than they are.

I’ve been using Simplify3D to print Lithophanes in HIPS, with pretty good results - it slices things that Slic3r crashes on, and handles the 100% infill with concentric fill pattern gracefully. The only thing that I’ve found is that the printing time estimates can be off by 25% for those (always much longer than estimated). The mm/min instead of mm/sec is a bit of an annoyance, but that’s just math. Definitely agreed on deleting processes being annoying.

I bounce between Slic3r, Cura and Simplify3D for different things - haven’t settled on a ‘best’ option yet.

I havent finished my KITTAZ build, but I also have a license for Simplify 3D. When I get my printer up and running I hope to get the seetings tweaked and share my profile as well.

Simplify3D is a nice all in one package. The biggest problem I have is that most guides for print quality talk in terms of Slic3r settings (or maybe even SkeinForge settings). Simplify3D has different settings or at least different names for those settings. If I cant translate what I need directly to a S3D setting, then I just email the support team and they usually point me in the right direction within 2 days.

Here is a really good unofficial documention of S3D that is based on a older version. http://jinschoi.github.io/simplify3d-docs/
There is also a youtube video I have found that goes through the S3D settings, but I lost the link and need to find it again.

I hope we can all work together to fine tune S3D for the TAZ 4/ KITTAZ. I will do my part. :smiley: