Unofficial guide to Simplify3D

[Jin Choi]

I have written a completely unofficial guide to Simplify3D geared towards people new to the software. It is based on my understanding of the software having used it for about a month.

http://jinschoi.github.io/simplify3d-docs/

Any suggestions or corrections will be welcome.

[Scott Booker]

Bravo!!! Thank you for endeavoring to do this!

[jimc]

great job jin. man you must have alot of spare time on your hands lol. 

[Curtis Menard]

Wow!  Really good stuff here Jin.  Thanks for taking the time to do this.

Sent from my Nexus 5

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[Toby]

Wow.  That's a great manual.

I have a couple of small suggestions.  What's the best way to submit them to you?

[Jin Choi]

If you are comfortable with git, you can fork, edit the index.md file, and submit a pull request.

As it is very understandable if you are not, you can mail me directly by using the Reply to Author on this or any of my messages under the More Message Actions drop down beside the double-arrow Post Reply button. I've never used it, but I think that sends me email.

[Toby]

Thanks.  I've been meaning to learn more about git, but maybe now is not the time.  I'll collect some suggestions and mail them to you via the forum.

[joe m]

Thanks.  Nice job.

Joe

[slipshine]

Your selfless individual effort to better the community is why I love this stuff. Well done.

On Saturday, March 15, 2014 6:24:45 PM UTC-5, Jin Choi wrote:

[Gary Schwartz]

JIn,

Outstanding; a big step toward ending my Love-Hate relationship with S3D.

Some thoughts on potential clarifications:

* I received the following info regarding macros from Clayton @ S3D.     " ... you can't have any comments in the macro commands.  They are sent straight to the printer, so you will need to trim out anything that comes after a semicolon.  Second, there is also a limit to how long the commands can be.  I don't know the exact limit off-hand, but if it is a really long script, you might want to try a shorter version just to see if that is a problem,"

This is puzzling because the following is S3D Gcode in their script tab:

M108 S155 ; turn on M2 fans

G28 ; home all axes

G1 Y50 Z0.3 F9600 ; move forward to avoid binder clips

G1 X205 Z10 ; move off platform

G1 Z0.4 ; position nozzle

G92 E0 ; zero extruder

G1 E25 F225 ; purge nozzle

G92 E0 ; zero extruder

G1 X190 Z0.1 E1.0 F1200 ; slow wipe

G1 X180 Z0.25 ; lift

* First layer height ... What actually happens when it's set to 80%?  A) Same amount of extrusion, but its squished, or B) Extrusion rate reduced by 20%?

* If Outline Underspeed is set at 60%, does that mean that:  A) Speed is reduced by 60%, or B) Speed is 60% of default printing speed?  I think I know the answer, but I've paid a price for being wrong on issues like this in S3D.

[Dale Reed]

Jin,

First blush comment:  This is what we've been asking S3D to do from the beginning, only with a bit more particular detail on exactly what each option on each tab does.

Having said that, I think it would be good to have this in the form of a couple of sections, each of which targets a different audience:

1.  Getting started guide -- pulls together the S3D quick start info and then pulls in the tutorials.

2.  Solving common problems -- pulls together what we've learned on this group and the S3D forum regarding tricky topics like eliminating blobs, etc.

3.  Dialog reference -- what I mentioned in my 2nd sentence above.  Every pull-down, checkbox, radio button, data entry, spin button, etc., and exactly what it does (and when, like: WHEN, exactly, is filament retraction - negative extruder move - done in the sequence of going to the next layer? for example), even to the point of G-code it generates.  And at the beginning, some info about the calculations that happen with filament diameter, nozzle bore, extrusion multiplier, and when and how the various percentages are applied for things like first layer height, etc.

Having #3 lets you do "a reverse lookup" --- an index of topics ("bed temperature", "layer height", "X/Y motion speed", "extrusion rate" with references back to the parameters that affect them.  Just because I hate having to type a term into a search box and hope I spelled it right or remembered the right term.

Jin, I'm ABSOLUTELY not suggesting you do all that!  (You've done more than expected already -- thank you!)  That's what we expected from S3D for documentation, I think, and still do.  (Sorry, it's not pleasant when you catch me in my "cleaning day" mood!!!)

I'm printing up what you've done so far so I can sit down, ignore the TV, cats, wife, crumbling house, etc., and mark it up and get back with detailed suggestions / fixes.  Get back to you later this week with that.

Clayton, are you hiring?

Dale

On Saturday, March 15, 2014 7:24:45 PM UTC-4, Jin Choi wrote:

[Jin Choi]

On Sunday, March 16, 2014 1:55:32 PM UTC-4, Gary Schwartz wrote:

JIn,

Outstanding; a big step toward ending my Love-Hate relationship with S3D.

Some thoughts on potential clarifications:

* I received the following info regarding macros from Clayton @ S3D.     " ... you can't have any comments in the macro commands.  They are sent straight to the printer, so you will need to trim out anything that comes after a semicolon.  Second, there is also a limit to how long the commands can be.  I don't know the exact limit off-hand, but if it is a really long script, you might want to try a shorter version just to see if that is a problem,"

I've added in a small note on the macros.

 

This is puzzling because the following is S3D Gcode in their script tab:

M108 S155 ; turn on M2 fans

G28 ; home all axes

G1 Y50 Z0.3 F9600 ; move forward to avoid binder clips

G1 X205 Z10 ; move off platform

G1 Z0.4 ; position nozzle

G92 E0 ; zero extruder

G1 E25 F225 ; purge nozzle

G92 E0 ; zero extruder

G1 X190 Z0.1 E1.0 F1200 ; slow wipe

G1 X180 Z0.25 ; lift

Start/end scripts are obviously being handled differently than macros.

 

* First layer height ... What actually happens when it's set to 80%?  A) Same amount of extrusion, but its squished, or B) Extrusion rate reduced by 20%?

I was just assuming B, but it turns out it's A. I've changed the text to reflect that. (I generated two gcode files at 1% first layer height and 199% first layer height. The extrusion rates in both are the same for the first layer.)

 

* If Outline Underspeed is set at 60%, does that mean that:  A) Speed is reduced by 60%, or B) Speed is 60% of default printing speed?  I think I know the answer, but I've paid a price for being wrong on issues like this in S3D.

B. Using 10% underspeed shows this clearly, and is in line with all the other speed settings which specify percentages.

[Jin Choi]

I started out with a grand plan to do some of what you suggested below, but halfway through I started flagging and decided to cut back to something more modest. Anyway, it was a good opportunity to get more familiar with github, and especially their Github Pages feature. The rest was just typing and screenshots. I can type pretty fast.

If you want a more comprehensive database of M2 or Simplify3D information, a better option would be to use a wiki. I notice that MakerGear already has one at wikidot, which is currently very sparsely populated.

[Joe Ennis]

Gary,

Wow, my late version s3d was delivered with comments! 

[Joe Ennis]

Dale,

You know how to get rid of blobs/zits? I'm all ears! :)

/joe

[Tony Shulthise]

Thanks for doing all of the Jin!  Very nicely done.

A couple of ideas to throw out in case anyone has the means to pull it off...

A picture is worth a thousand words...Pictures of prints are great and .fff files are very helpful too.  The combo of the two is the best.  If someone could link to an index of pictures of prints with each linked to the S3D .fff file and material used to make the prints, I think they would have a superstar hit on your hands.  Especially if users could vote on print quality so the best prints along with their S3D settings could be searched by rating and number of votes.

Building info as a group is a great way to address every command - The issue with manuals and even forums is that information overload kicks in very quickly so the most useful information gets lost in the noise.  I'm a little bit ADD so I have more of an issue with that than the average person.  I like the idea of showing S3D screens page by page with links connected to each command that take you to a wiki style description of that command.  A link to discussions for each command could be very helpful too.  A way for users to vote on the usefulness of comments or information would make the best info rise to the top.

When it comes to web, software and firmware I know what works but have no skills to pull them off.

Hopefully I'll have some useful mechanical and systems content to share within the next month or so.  I'll get those acceleration tests to you by this time next week.

Thanks again for being such a contributor.  A few more like the ones already contributing here and this forum will be a go-to site for more than just M2 owners sooner or later.

[Joe Ennis]

Jin,

Just finished a full read of your guide. Really very nice. I was able to take away new skills that had an immediate benefit on the quality of my prints. Turns out that my

instance of s3d running on Slackware does not support tooltips! Not sure if that is the case for all linux installations but the bottom line is your guide has made living

with s3d much easier for me.

Thank you,

/joe

On Saturday, March 15, 2014 4:24:45 PM UTC-7, Jin Choi wrote:

[Tony Shulthise]

Joe,

Which specific changes did you make and what were the improvements.

Thanks,

Tony

[Tony Shulthise]

Jin,

There may be a couple things to add from this thread...https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups#!topic/makergear/pGteCaQPGjs

1. Setting the "nozzle diameter" to a very low number but keeping it at least 1.2x layer height allows very fine prints even with very thin wall or features.  I had to do this once to print some fine lettering.  It worked so well I use it for any very small prints now.  I've successfully printed using 0.07mm nozzle diameter with 0.05 layer height (layers 2 and up).
   
2. Under "Add Ins" on the top menu bar you can convert photos to 3D images.  I'm pretty sure it only works with a couple file types.  PNG is one of them.
   

[Joe Ennis]

Tony,

I put the extruder retract back in and jacked up the speed to 5200 mm/min and dropped my nozzel temp from 215 to 210 which helped quite a bit.

I was wondering if there is a max number for retract speed that folk are having success with?

I've got the .fff pretty skewed from what shipped cuz I got knotted in the logic of save/import/export and was not careful thinking I could find a stock

.fff but, so far, I have not found one. Jin's guide really helped with the import/export stuff.  I't pretty good now and I feel more confident that I be able

to dial it in from here but do you want to see the .fff?

I was able to get the PET working really good but, switching back to PLA has been a challenge. :)

/joe

[Dale Reed]

On Sunday, March 16, 2014 4:05:26 PM UTC-4, Joe Ennis wrote:

You know how to get rid of blobs/zits? I'm all ears! :)

Joe,

Yeah.  Ask jimc.

Dale

 

[Jin Choi]

Joe, if you want to get back to the stock profile, just select MakerGear M2 in the drop down. You can't overwrite the presets. If you are already on MakerGear M2, select another profile and switch back to it and you will get the preset values. If you have exported the FFF to a file that is named MakerGear M2 and imported it, you can distinguish the stock preset profile because it does not have a .fff extension in the drop down.

[Gary Schwartz]

I'm baffled by s3d's​ failure to follow convention.

"Export" usually means to send a file to another application or location.  In the case of s3d it apparently means "save as", which should be a button adjacent to the "save" button.

I've lost a few important fff files by reacting intuitively rather than s3d's unique requirement. 

      Gary
Make Better Things
Make Things Better

 

 

 

 

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[Joe Ennis]

That worked Jin thank you. I did an upgrade to Slackware current last night, there were massive patches to qt and gtk, now I have tooltips. :)

Thanks again,

/joe

[Jin Choi]

On Monday, March 17, 2014 11:45:03 AM UTC-4, Gary Schwartz wrote:

I'm baffled by s3d's​ failure to follow convention.

"Export" usually means to send a file to another application or location.  In the case of s3d it apparently means "save as", which should be a button adjacent to the "save" button.

I've lost a few important fff files by reacting intuitively rather than s3d's unique requirement. 

I expect that the paragraph on Process file handling will turn out to be the most useful thing in that document. Everything else has tooltips, and you can find analogs in other slicers which people have written many pages about, or is fairly straightforward to figure out on your own. But I think everyone who uses Simplify3D must go through the same stages of confusion and rage at the export/import/save distinction as they run experiments to figure out what the UI is doing.

[Toby]

I've all but given up on trying to manage .fff files.  It's just too easy to make a mistake and have settings different from what you think.

Instead I use the .factory files to keep track of everything.  This behaves according to the usual open/save/save as paradigm.  If I have a print with settings I want to reuse I just open the .factory file for it and replace the model.

The disadvantage/advantage is that the .factory file contains a copy of your model.  This is good for portability and keeping track of how each model was printed, but bad for disk space if your models are large.

[DIY3D]

Hi Jin,

Thank you for this awsome guide. I left Repetier Host cause slicing takes hours on my hardware. Read a Iot good things about S3D here but couldn't find a trial. At the moment I'm using Cura.

Your guide is a nice opportunity to learn more about S3D.

Kind regards,
Marco 

[Gary Schwartz]

A couple more items:

*  "The Tools menu is not visible while the Machine Control Panel is topmost; you must go back to the main Simplify3D window to access it."  In Win7, they can be shown side-by-side by dragging the very top of one window full right & it will snap to ~ half screen.  Go left with the other.

In Win XP (or Win7) right-click on empty space in task bar will allow vertical or horizontal tiling of all open windows.  If that creates a mess, minimize all but s3d windows.

* "Outline Underspeed is used to slow down the perimeters as a percentage of the default print speed. The tooltip suggests that this only applies to the outermost perimeter, but I have found it actually applies to all perimeters.                                  Mine applies to only the outermost perimeter. 

Also, I think "as a percentage" should be "to a percentage"

Your writing efficiency in terms of      Information : Word-count   ratio   is outstanding.  I think S3D owes you big time.

[Jin Choi]

On Monday, March 17, 2014 6:05:17 PM UTC-4, Gary Schwartz wrote:

A couple more items:

*  "The Tools menu is not visible while the Machine Control Panel is topmost; you must go back to the main Simplify3D window to access it."  In Win7, they can be shown side-by-side by dragging the very top of one window full right & it will snap to ~ half screen.  Go left with the other.

In Win XP (or Win7) right-click on empty space in task bar will allow vertical or horizontal tiling of all open windows.  If that creates a mess, minimize all but s3d windows.

Gary, I've now clarified in the text that the Tools menu not appearing in the MCP is a Mac-only thing, because of the unified menu bar. Your other suggestion is useful, but a feature of Windows and not really of Simplify3D.

 

* "Outline Underspeed is used to slow down the perimeters as a percentage of the default print speed. The tooltip suggests that this only applies to the outermost perimeter, but I have found it actually applies to all perimeters.                                  Mine applies to only the outermost perimeter. 

Really? When I set the outline underspeed to 10% to really accentuate the difference and look at the gcode preview, it shows all outlines as the same (slow) color, including perimeters next to infill. What happens for you?

 

Also, I think "as a percentage" should be "to a percentage"

Fixed. 

Your writing efficiency in terms of      Information : Word-count   ratio   is outstanding.  I think S3D owes you big time.

Thanks, but that is mostly because I wanted to get it over with as quickly as possible.

I've added another section on bugs and maybe things that are not bugs but good to know: http://jinschoi.github.io/simplify3d-docs/#nits-and-bugs

Some of these are duplicative of information given above, but I thought it would be useful to collect them all in one place. I did not reiterate the perimeter underspeed one, because I am curious as to why Gary doesn't see the same thing.

Any additions welcome. 

[jimc]

the perimeter speed thing was changed in the last update. it used to slow down just the outer most perimeter but now the perimeter speed setting sets all perimeters.

[Gary Schwartz]

Yep.  Same with mine.​

      Gary
Make Better Things
Make Things Better

 

 

 

 

On Tue, Mar 18, 2014 at 11:33 AM, jimc <xtremekr...@gmail.com> wrote:

the perimeter speed thing was changed in the last update. it used to slow down just the outer most perimeter but now the perimeter speed setting sets all perimeters.

--

[Jin Choi]

Okay, I'll leave that out.

I do recommend that anyone using Simplify3D take at least a cursory glance at the bugs section at the end. I have come across the first listed bug several times now, and it is mystifying. The slicer completely wigs out on some models if some problem geometry exactly intersects a layer with your chosen layer height. Symptoms are holes filled with a single layer, surfaces that look like infill, and other craziness. This is can happen on manifold and non-manifold objects alike.

On Friday, March 21, 2014 12:17:04 PM UTC-4, Gary Schwartz wrote:

Yep.  Same with mine.​

[Tony Shulthise]

I've seen that happen several times.  Never could get it to go away.

"... The slicer completely wigs out on some models if some problem geometry exactly intersects a layer with your chosen layer height. Symptoms are holes filled with a single layer, surfaces that look like infill, and other craziness. This is can happen on manifold and non-manifold objects alike."

[Tony Shulthise]

I just gave the guide a little closer read and it has quite a bit of info that I didn't know.  You are a pretty sharp guy, Jin.  Thanks for sharing your brainpower and willpower with us mortals.  Nice work.

[jimc]

i have had that slicing bug thing happen to me once. it was just a top surface that had some crazy patterns in it. it was kinda nutty. i cant remember what i did about it.

[Jin Choi]

For me, for my problem model, jiggering the first layer height by 1% either way made it go away. Or shifting your layer height by a tiny amount would also do it.

[Tony Shulthise]

Just curious, what made you think to mess with the first layer height to try to fix it?  Never crossed my mind but I'll try it next time I see that issue.  Thanks!

[Jin Choi]

Desperation. I later emailed with Clayton, who confirmed what was happening, and suggested the layer height workaround.

[Jin Choi]

Wait, wait, aren't you the guy designing and fabricating a heated enclosure for a modified M2 with larger print volume and upgraded rails? Let me check... yes, yes you are. So it's hard to compare that to a lazy Sunday afternoon's worth of, essentially, typing.

[Toby]

I had that happen and got rid of it by checking the "Non-Manifold Segments: Discard" radio option in the "Other" tab of the Process dialog.  This was on a model that passed all manifold tests.  It seems that if the top of the model is at an exact multiple of the layer height, then S3D can get confused and add non-manifold pieces to the slicing, but then if you tell it to throw those out, it does.  At least that's what I concluded was happening.

I was reluctant to try Jin's solution because I wasn't sure what S3D would do with the top surface if it *wasn't* an exact multiple of the layer height.  I just like how neat and tidy it is to have the numbers line up perfectly.

[Toby]

I think you're being too modest.  That really was a great piece of writing.  People are commenting on it for a reason!

If you ever decide to change careers, I'd say you have a bright future in technical writing!

[Dale Reed]

Toby,

I think part of the problem may relate to calculating all this stuff in digital floating-point math, which is inexact (but consistently so, if you know what you're doing).  Remember, there is no binary floating point number exactly equal to 0.1  (a common dimension or layer height).  It's a repeating decimal in binary, like 1/7 in decimal --- 0.142857142857142857... .  So the comparisons against layer height (which might be inexact) of numbers that are inexactly calculated and subject to rounding rules (see IEEE-754 latest version) may result in places in the layer comparing "less than" and other places in the layer comparing "not less than".  Bumping the layer height for that top layer in your model may force everything to "round and compare the same way" and give a smooth top.

Sorry, just wild speculation.  I work with single-precision IEEE float in industrial controllers on a day-to-day basis -- an a lot of the people I work with TOTALLY do not understand the limitations.  In 32-bit IEEE float, 20 million plus 1 is still 20 million.  The mantissa is only 23 bits (8 meg), and when you shift to add, the number 1 shifts right off the end.  I would guess slicers use double-precision --- but still, comparing floating point numbers for "equality" is frought with peril.  "Approximately equal" is all you can really expect, and designers working in 10ths of millimeters are expecting exact.

[Toby]

Ah, I see your point.  My perception of exactness was only a comforting illusion.  But I'm still not gonna put in a layer height of .200001!

[Curtis Menard]

Thought I'd share something I tried tonight for the first time. I have a box to print that needed to done open side down and with all the support would have been a 6+ hour job. There's needed detail on the outside. All I had was an STL file so I measured the sides in Netfab which yielded 18.49mm depth to the inside of the box (the top as oriented on the printer). In S3D I set the print process to stop at 18.49mm and in less than 2 hours I had the walls. I then sliced the box again this time telling the print process to start at 18.49mm. This will give you an error stating it will start above the bed. To solve that I used the gcode offsets to set the bed height to -18.49mm. Once again in under two hours I have the flat surface of the box to attach to the walls.

While not an ideal situation, it does illustrate the flexibility of the software.

[jimc]

s3d has alot of nice features. many of them are not spelled right out for you. some are downright hidden and you have to think of how you can really make some of them work for you. once you do though its really great. 

[Jin Choi]

If you need to print a model in parts, an easy way to do slice it in S3D is the following:

Drop the model below the bed by using the object properties dialog. Anything below the bed will not print. To get the matching half, rotate the object 180 degrees on the X or Y axis. Do not use the drop or auto arrange button.

If there is sufficient space on the bed, you can duplicate your object and print out both halves at once. To make sure you get a matched split, drop both of them the same amount, then rotate one of them by 180 degrees.

[Joe Ennis]

Wow, very kewl! thanks Jin

[Gary Schwartz]

Amen!

I nominate Jin as our group's Most Valuable Poster ... MVP​

      Gary
Make Better Things
Make Things Better

 

 

 

 

--

[Tony Shulthise]

Great idea!  Love it.

[Dale Reed]

Sounds like an opportunity for an S3D Tutorial --- there are ones there for using multiple processes in obvious cases --- but show people a couple not-so-obvious cases and help them learn to look for novel solutions.  Really, people!  Learn to look for non-trivial solutions!  Don't expect the software to do it!   Jin, I hope your enthusiasm for looking in non-obvious places for answers rubs off on your kids, students, co-workers, or just about anybody!  THANKS!

[david b]

Thank you that is an awesome idea!!!!

[Bret Allen]

Outstanding! I've been wanting to make or find something like this for a while, thanks for taking the time to do this Jin!

On Saturday, March 15, 2014 5:24:45 PM UTC-6, Jin Choi wrote:

I have written a completely unofficial guide to Simplify3D geared towards people new to the software. It is based on my understanding of the software having used it for about a month.

http://jinschoi.github.io/simplify3d-docs/

Any suggestions or corrections will be welcome.

[Jin Choi]

I can't post to the Simplify3D forums as I never get the confirmation email. If someone here is on those forums as well, could you drop a link over there? It would be more easily found by the people it would be most useful for.

[Toby]

I don't spend much time there but I happen to have a login, so I just cross-posted your original post there.  Only thing is since I never post it says my submission has to be approved by the moderator first.  Interesting to see what they do with it lol

[Gary Schwartz]

RE: Support Tab - Infill angle.

The default on mine was +45 and -45 degrees.  Works fine for prints oriented North-South or East-West.

It's important to know that these angles are relative to the print bed, not the print.

With these settings, a long print that needs to be positioned diagonally will have infill parallel to, and at right angles to, the longitudinal axis of the model.  Probably not best for strength.

"Adding" angles 0 and 90 degrees will provide the stronger cross-hatch infill pattern. 

[Jin Choi]

Do you mind if I add your remarks verbatim?

[Gary Schwartz]

I'd consider it a compliment.​

      Gary
Make Better Things
Make Things Better

 

 

 

 

[Jin Choi]

I added a section on infill angles, slightly edited from the below.

Also added a note that you probably want support generation to start at 46 degrees, because many models assume that 45 degree angles are okay without support.

On Wednesday, March 26, 2014 2:16:40 AM UTC-4, Gary Schwartz wrote:

[Toby]

Jin, A link to your guide is posted on the Simplify3D forum now.  I was going to say I expect you'll be getting a lot more feedback, only I just realized there's no contact information for you there.  Do you want me to add something or just wait and see what people do in response to the post?

Toby

[Jin Choi]

They can use github, and I will check that forum from time to time.

[Jin Choi]

Sadly, it turns out not to be entirely as simple as what I imagined below. The issue is that rotations happen before translations, so if you did as I describe, you would end up with the second model sticking up the same height as the first, not a mirror image. You can still use the trick of using the bed to slice a model, but you will have to drop the copy by the model height minus the amount you drop the original by, and not just the same amount.

[Toby]

I thought I had a work-around for this problem, but instead I seem to have found a problem in S3D.

The idea was to drop the model below the bed to the point where you want to slice the top half.  Then save the whole set up in a .factory file.  If you reload that .factory file you'll see that S3D has zeroed all the translations and rotations, which suggests that it has "frozen" the model in that position.  If it did, then you could do your original trick and rotate in y (or x) by 180 and have the mirror half to slice and print.

But it doesn't work- the same problem occurs with the top half being the same height as the bottom half.  So S3D is apparently keeping the translation and rotation values in the ,factory file but not updating the screen values.  I guess it must be saving your transformation with the model in the .factory file, then if you reload it and do some more transformations, it's adding your new ones to the old ones.

That's too confusing.  It means your old transformation is there, but hidden and you have no access to it. It should either freeze the model and zero the dialog, or else keep the transform and the dialog in sync.

Or even better, give an option in the dialog to freeze the transform.

[Tony Shulthise]

The best option would be for S3D to give the option for the user to apply planes to a part then break it into pieces for you.  That probably wouldn't be that big of a development effort for them but it would give them a huge advantage in the market.

If they gave options to create features to stitch the pieces that would be even better.  That probably would be a large development effort.

[Toby]

+1 for this idea.  That capability belongs in the slicer rather than having to use CAD to do it.  

Stitching would be hard to do automatically but I think there could be a set of tools to add stitching patterns to the pieces that would work in many cases.  The slicer knows how the pieces are supposed to align, so it can create the positive/negative patterns for stitching if it just has a little help as to where to put them.

[Toby]

I have a vague memory now that I never got a confirmation email from S3D either.  Have you tried logging in on the forum anyway?

[Toby]

Not to beat a dead horse or anything, but S3D is doing some funny things with those translations and rotations.  Attached is a model designed so that the bottom surface is at z = -10 mm.  If you load it into S3D it appears flat on the bed and the translation is correctly shown as z = +10.  If you zero that translation then you get the model at 10 mm below the bed as expected.

Now if you rotate 180 degrees around x you'd expect to get the thing perfectly mirrored with 10 mm above the bed and the rest below it, right?  Wrong.  It rotates all right, but you still get the thing with 10 mm below the bed.  

Diabolical.  I don't even want to guess what our good friends at S3D are doing to make this happen.

On Thursday, March 27, 2014 12:16:51 AM UTC-5, Jin Choi wrote:

[Colby Parsons]

I want to weigh in on the "underspeed" issue, because I found that to be a confusing setting and went looking for an answer. I hadn't thought of just running a preview and looking at the speed colors. Now that I have done that I have to disagree that underspeed means the percentage by which speed is lowered. When I set outline underspeed to 10%, I get a model preview covered in blue, showing that the outlines are slow. If I set it to 90%, I get a model covered in green, showing much faster speeds. It is behaving as a percentage of the full speed, not a percentage below it. I did this twice with each setting to double check.

By the way, thanks for the great documentation. That is much needed. I'm teaching a college 3D printing class for the first time, and as much as I like Simplify3D, I have been surprised that the documentation for beginners is not better. This fills a gap.

--Colby

On Tuesday, March 18, 2014 at 1:05:59 PM UTC-5, Jin Choi wrote:

On Monday, March 17, 2014 6:05:17 PM UTC-4, Gary Schwartz wrote:

A couple more items:

*  "The Tools menu is not visible while the Machine Control Panel is topmost; you must go back to the main Simplify3D window to access it."  In Win7, they can be shown side-by-side by dragging the very top of one window full right & it will snap to ~ half screen.  Go left with the other.

In Win XP (or Win7) right-click on empty space in task bar will allow vertical or horizontal tiling of all open windows.  If that creates a mess, minimize all but s3d windows.

Gary, I've now clarified in the text that the Tools menu not appearing in the MCP is a Mac-only thing, because of the unified menu bar. Your other suggestion is useful, but a feature of Windows and not really of Simplify3D.

 

* "Outline Underspeed is used to slow down the perimeters as a percentage of the default print speed. The tooltip suggests that this only applies to the outermost perimeter, but I have found it actually applies to all perimeters.                                  Mine applies to only the outermost perimeter. 

Really? When I set the outline underspeed to 10% to really accentuate the difference and look at the gcode preview, it shows all outlines as the same (slow) color, including perimeters next to infill. What happens for you?

 

Also, I think "as a percentage" should be "to a percentage"

Fixed. 

Your writing efficiency in terms of      Information : Word-count   ratio   is outstanding.  I think S3D owes you big time.

Thanks, but that is mostly because I wanted to get it over with as quickly as possible.

I've added another section on bugs and maybe things that are not bugs but good to know: http://jinschoi.github.io/simplify3d-docs/#nits-and-bugs

Some of these are duplicative of information given above, but I thought it would be useful to collect them all in one place. I did not reiterate the perimeter underspeed one, because I am curious as to why Gary doesn't see the same thing.

Any additions welcome. 

[Jin Choi]

On Wednesday, September 9, 2015 at 4:24:07 PM UTC-4, Colby Parsons wrote:

I want to weigh in on the "underspeed" issue, because I found that to be a confusing setting and went looking for an answer. I hadn't thought of just running a preview and looking at the speed colors. Now that I have done that I have to disagree that underspeed means the percentage by which speed is lowered. When I set outline underspeed to 10%, I get a model preview covered in blue, showing that the outlines are slow. If I set it to 90%, I get a model covered in green, showing much faster speeds. It is behaving as a percentage of the full speed, not a percentage below it. I did this twice with each setting to double check.

By the way, thanks for the great documentation. That is much needed. I'm teaching a college 3D printing class for the first time, and as much as I like Simplify3D, I have been surprised that the documentation for beginners is not better. This fills a gap.

I think that was addressed by Gary's suggested wording change of "to a percentage". 10% means 10% of the nominal speed.

Please join us at forum.makergear.com, this Google Group is rarely used. 

[Jim]

Jin,

Glad someone has taken the time to do this. I have a couple of queries concerning S3d.

First, how is the "Cost" modified?

Second, is there a method in the interface to "pause" on specific layer(s) so that either fasteners can be inserted or for filament color changes?

James

[Jin Choi]

Filament cost is deep in some menu. Try machine settings or preferences, I don't remember right now and I'm not in front of a computer.

For the other question, try this: http://forum.makergear.com/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=2132
Join us there :-) as I said, this Google Group is moribund.