Understanding Advanced Printing Settings

Most of the time, the default print settings are more than enough to get good results for our objects. However, sometimes, for example, when printing exotic materials or when experimenting with complex parts, we may have to tune them a little.

Unfortunately, additive manufacturing is a rather complex process, and FDM printers have a lot of settings we must at least understand in order to master the technology.

In this chapter, we will dive straight into printing settings, reviewing the most important ones that every beginner should learn. The goal is to show, as much as possible, how different settings can influence the printing results.

So, in this chapter, we will cover the following topics:

• Creating a new printing preset
• Understanding general parameters
• Understanding extruder parameters
• Understanding shell parameters
• Understanding infill parameters
• Understanding print bed adhesion
• Understanding support...

Technical requirements

We are about to cover many settings related to the entire FDM printing process. Therefore, as you can guess, this is quite an advanced chapter; having read Chapters 14, 15, and 16 is a mandatory starting point.

Creating a new printing preset

All the options we are about to cover can be accessed when editing the printing profile assigned to an additive manufacturing setup. To reach the options, we just have to expand Setup1, under the design tree, and right-click on the printing profile, which in the example is called ABS 1.75mm.

Figure 17.1: Printing profile

In the menu, click on Edit to access all the printing settings contained inside Print Setting Editor:

Figure 17.2: Print Setting Editor

On the left, we can find all the printing presets for the selected material (in our case, ABS 1.75mm). At the moment, there are two built-in printing presets – Normal and Strong. The main difference between the two is the density of the material interior and other minor details, such as the number of perimeters and the number of top and bottom layers.

We can duplicate a default preset to create a custom printing profile. To do this...

Understanding general parameters

In this section, we will review the general parameters found in the General tab that you can see in Figure 17.2. The options are divided into three categories:

• Global Settings
• Nozzle Priming Settings
• Additional G-Code Settings

The most important settings are contained inside the Global Settings section, while the Nozzle Priming Settings and Additional G-Code Settings options are way too advanced for beginners.

Let’s look at the most important Global Settings options we have to learn (as a rule of thumb, we shouldn’t mess with parameters unless we are absolutely confident of their usage, as they can ruin our prints):

• Filament Diameter (mm): This is the diameter of our 3D printing filament. Most 3D printers on the market today extrude filaments with a diameter of 1.75 mm or 3 mm. If we want to be sure about the diameter, we can measure the filament using a caliper on multiple points. After measuring the...

Understanding extruder parameters

In this section, we will review all the parameters related to the extruder, its temperature, and its behavior when printing:

Figure 17.7: Extrusion panel

The options are divided into two main categories:

• Extrusion: A list of settings that control the extrusion width of every extruder
• Extruder #: A list of options to control each extruder, independently controlling parameters such as temperature and extrusion flow

Let’s take a look at these in more detail.

Extrusion options

The following parameters are mostly related to the dimension of the nozzle and are rarely changed:

• Part Extruder: When using a multi-extruder printer, this selection panel can specify which extruder shall be used to print the part geometries.
• All the options from Extrusion Width (mm) up to Bridge Extrusion Width (mm): These values are used to determine the width of the toolpath. As a best practice for most...

Understanding shell parameters

In this section, we will review all the options that let us control the outer geometries of our part. This is very important since they affect what you can actually see once the part is printed.

As we can see in the following figure, there are three different types of outer geometries to consider:

Figure 17.10: Shell surfaces

The options we are about to cover handle all these different surfaces:

Figure 17.11: Shell panel

Let’s break down the options:

• Number of Perimeters: This is the number of perimeters to be printed in the outer contour. As you can imagine, more perimeters take longer to be printed but they also help create a stronger part (this is especially true for complex shapes).

Figure 17.12: Outer perimeters

On the left of the preceding figure, we can see a rather typical print with two perimeters, while on the right, we have a pretty...

Understanding infill parameters

In this section, we will cover all the options to manage the inner areas of our part – in particular, the infill geometries and their specifications:

Figure 17.15: Infill panel

Let’s look at the options:

• Infill Density (%): This is the amount of infill material printed. A value of 100% will result in a solid part, while a value of 0% is an empty shell. Usually, this value is set around 30%, depending on the loads applied on the part.

As we can see in the following figure, changing the infill density can drastically change the part weight and strength as well as the printing time:

Figure 17.16: Infill percentage

The part on the right features infill geometries with a density of 10%, while the part on the left has an infill density of just 20%. This means that the inner structures of the part on the left are twice as strong, but also twice as heavy and take twice as...

Understanding print bed adhesion

I was unsure whether to include this section or not, as it is a bit advanced for a beginner who wants to jump straight into printing, but on the other hand, it can be a lifesaver for many real-world scenarios.

The core of this section is how to improve the bond between the print bed and our part. As you may expect, if the printed part partially or fully detaches from the build platform while being printed, it becomes garbage in no time.

You may be wondering what may cause part detachments. The reason is pretty simple: thermal expansion (or shrinkage)! That’s why we have to understand the temperature distributions inside a printed part a bit better.

Thermal expansion and shrinkage

There is a key concept behind all the options we are about to discuss: every material on the planet shrinks and expands when cooling or heating occurs.

When printing a part, we never have a constant temperature on our part:

Figure...

Understanding support material parameters

In this section, we are going to study the most important parameters related to support material and its shape:

Figure 17.22: Support panel

Let’s look at the options:

• Support Extruder: Using this option, we can specify which extruder shall print the support structures. This only applies if our printer has more than one extruder.
• Support Infill Density: The name is self-explanatory – this parameter is the density of the generated support structures. A higher density means a larger contact area with the part and stronger support.

Figure 17.23: Support density

In the preceding figure, we can see a rather complex part being printed with support structures: on the left, we can see a support density of 15%, while on the right, the density is 50%. As we can guess, the part on the right will greatly benefit from the higher support density for all overhang geometries...

Understanding speed parameters

In this section, we will cover the most important parameters that control printing movements. This set of parameters is really important to understand and manage since wrong values can lead to vibrations and motor overheating, to name just a couple of typical issues.

As we can see in the following figure, there are many values we can set inside the Speed panel:

Figure 17.24: Speed panel

Please note that I cannot give you a startup value for all these parameters, since they are highly dependent on the machine’s performance; sturdier and more powerful machines can print much faster than entry-level ones. My suggestion is to check the default speed values supplied by your machine brand and stick to them.

The key idea behind this set of parameters is to set movement limitations on our machine, a bit like the speed limits we find on the roads every day. Even if our machine can move much faster, these parameters are...

Understanding tessellation parameters

First of all, what is tessellation? Tessellation is a process where 3D CAD models are converted into 3D mesh models. This conversion is needed for 3D printing in order to calculate toolpaths.

In the following figure, on the left, we have a solid CAD model where the circle profiles are perfectly rounded, and on the right, we converted the model into a mesh via tessellation:

Figure 17.25: CAD geometry versus mesh geometry

The main difference between these two types of 3D geometries is how they are defined; CAD models are based on rigorous math equations and they can describe every shape without losing details. Mesh models, on the other hand, are based on a finite number of vertices and faces connected by edges.

Long story short, tessellation always loses details in the conversion process; that’s why it is important to understand how to set it properly. If the tessellation is too rough, we may end up with...

Summary

That was the end of the chapter! We covered a lot of information, so let’s recap what we learned.

First of all, we discovered how to create a custom printing preset by duplicating a default preset. Then, we went through all the most important options to pay attention to when customizing a printing profile.

We discovered how to set the printing temperature for our material, controlling both the extruder and the heated bed, then we found out how to set the layer height, the filament diameter, and an extrusion multiplier to adjust the extrusion width.

After these general settings, we analyzed in detail how to control the shell geometries and the infill geometries, reviewing most of the available settings.

We also looked at advanced adhesion techniques to avoid issues related to thermal shrinkage and temperature differential.

Following this, we went through support material creation and speed and acceleration parameters.

Lastly, we covered the tessellation...