Back in the printing game, what's new?!

[Jerry G]

Hey all.  Due to priorities and frustrations, my Mendelmax 1.0 has been idle for almost 2 years.  It's a really original one, among the first, built before Maxbots was even shipping kits.

Getting back into it finally, and I'm looking for a little advice.

First, what is the latest in slicing technology?  Are people mostly using slic3r (my latest version is 0.9.8 and it's up to 1.7.7 or some such now)?  Or is there something newer and better?  Cura?

Second, what are people using for extruders?  I have a Wade's modified that I printed, with a makergear 0.35 hot end, which works ok.  I'm printing 3mm PLA, in part because I have a lot of it, and also because I've never attempted any other materials.  Is there some new "standard" extruder?  Anything that's taken over the market due to some improved performance or something?

My printer is running, and gives decent prints.  It used to frustrate me because of dimensional issues trying to get printed things to fit together.  Interior dimensions were always the hardest.

Thanks in advance for any

[Misha]

I gave up on Slic3r, was giving me really bad surface finish.  Using Cura now.

The current of exturders is all metal, I have an e3d and its fantastic.  For a geared extruder printing 3mm filament Wades or Wades modifications are still the standard.  If you are printing with 1.75 filament there are a lot of great direct drive designs now.

[Alex]

Is there an e3d mount for the PCB linear rails or does it drop into any j-head mount?

[Misha]

e3d has the same groove mount as j-heads

[Dean]

Actually, 

e3d does NOT have the same groove mount as a j head, it just looks like it, that's it, even e3d v5 and v6 have different groove mount