Simplify3D - new version and worthy upgrade
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Lol probably got more expensive…. most of these improvements were resolutions to issues posted in their forums and open bugs going back years, but I could see them charging for the new features lol
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Some of them are quite nice, ill give them that, read over it.
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Yeah I tried out v3 a few times in frustration at slic3r crashing, but never really got that familiar, then Prusa Slic3r came out and I've not looked back.
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I never have checked out Slic3r, i will have to give it a try one of these days. S3D is frustrating that a paid product takes years to fix bugs though the new edition solves my complaints (they finally fixed bridging woot woot.)
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That's where Prusa Slic3r is great, some nice additions, highly tweakable like the original (and S3D) and its in very active development. I reported a bug on github, the developer replied and it got fixed within a day or so. Almost as good as RRF. Plus it almost never crashes on windows, the original slic3r crashed more than a Windows 95 PC.
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I like the new features! Specially dynamic width of walls and dynamic thin wall fill.
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Feature wise it's great. They could make thinks like sequential printing a little easier to figure out.
They added a visual interface to control selecting different slicing settings based on model height. That's a nice feature I will use at some point. I have an angled model I'll probably print the very last few layers at a much lower layer height so my angles come out nice and smooth.
They also made using a second extruder for dissolvable filament not utilize the filament until the supports get very close to the model, so you can save your more expensive filament and not use as much.
I originally got Simplify3D for the support structures (which are great imo) - so if you end up on a difficult print that needs better support structures than other slicers can generate, that's the main reason to upgrade to it.
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It seems to be a free upgrade as well so happy days
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I saw that now bridging seems to work much better, doing what cura/slic3r do instead of trying to bridge at 45 degrees… which resulted in crappy bridges xD. I've downloaded it, I will try it soon, after reviewing all stuff and importing my settings...
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They didn't sign the Windows Installer file for version 4. I'm not impressed.
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I wonder if they fixed the purge logic. When I tried it, they seemed to think that it was good idea to purge the filament after a tool was finished with, rather than before. So when you switched filament, it would purge some of the filament you had just finished with, then change to the new filament and start printing. I couldn't convince them that you need to purge the new filament through before you start using it, which is one of the (many) reasons I gave up and got a refund.
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I wonder if they fixed the purge logic. When I tried it, they seemed to think that it was good idea to purge the filament after a tool was finished with, rather than before. So when you switched filament, it would purge some of the filament you had just finished with, then change to the new filament and start printing. I couldn't convince them that you need to purge the new filament through before you start using it, which is one of the (many) reasons I gave up and got a refund.
Do you remember which version of S3D you were using? I hadn't tried switching tools until 3.1.1, but didn't have the problem you described. In fact all I had S3D do when it changed tools was send a change tool command to the firmware. All the purging, retraction, etc. behavior was done by the Duet's tfreeX.g and tpostX.g scripts.
Public Service Announcement regarding 4.0: I posted on the S3D forum that while it looks like you can use 3.1 and 4.0 independently (they are installed in separate folders), they share the same mysterious "database", so if you reset (delete) all the profiles 4.0 "imported" from 3.1 (which according to some is a good idea), you'll find all your 3.1 profiles deleted as well. And I still haven't been able to get them back - apparently they are not stored in the factory files as I thought they were.
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No can't remember which version it was. It must have been about year ago I'd guess. The other biggy for me was that I had to jump through all sorts of hoops to try and get it to cope with 3 extruders - never did get it sorted and gave up in the end.
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I wonder if they fixed the purge logic. When I tried it, they seemed to think that it was good idea to purge the filament after a tool was finished with, rather than before. So when you switched filament, it would purge some of the filament you had just finished with, then change to the new filament and start printing. I couldn't convince them that you need to purge the new filament through before you start using it, which is one of the (many) reasons I gave up and got a refund.
Do you remember which version of S3D you were using? I hadn't tried switching tools until 3.1.1, but didn't have the problem you described. In fact all I had S3D do when it changed tools was send a change tool command to the firmware. All the purging, retraction, etc. behavior was done by the Duet's tfreeX.g and tpostX.g scripts.
Public Service Announcement regarding 4.0: I posted on the S3D forum that while it looks like you can use 3.1 and 4.0 independently (they are installed in separate folders), they share the same mysterious "database", so if you reset (delete) all the profiles 4.0 "imported" from 3.1 (which according to some is a good idea), you'll find all your 3.1 profiles deleted as well. And I still haven't been able to get them back - apparently they are not stored in the factory files as I thought they were.
Pretty sure all of that sits in the registry, and only exists as a FF / FFF when exported. So there's no undelete.
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No can't remember which version it was. It must have been about year ago I'd guess. The other biggy for me was that I had to jump through all sorts of hoops to try and get it to cope with 3 extruders - never did get it sorted and gave up in the end.
That is one of their strengths… you should give it another look. Especially the new multi tool control... you could have one extruder printing with completely different slicer settings or even have one tool print different parts of the print with different slicer settings... it is really flexible now.
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No can't remember which version it was. It must have been about year ago I'd guess. The other biggy for me was that I had to jump through all sorts of hoops to try and get it to cope with 3 extruders - never did get it sorted and gave up in the end.
That is one of their strengths… you should give it another look. Especially the new multi tool control... you could have one extruder printing with completely different slicer settings or even have one tool print different parts of the print with different slicer settings... it is really flexible now.
Sorry, got my fingers burnt once so reluctant to try again. Prusa Slic3r works well for me ad does everything I want so I'll stick with what I'm familiar with.
Edit. Dual colour worked reasonably well but 3 or more colours used to be a nightmare even though their marketing blurb said how good it was. Have you actually tried printing a 3, 4 or 5 colour object?
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I do not have a multi color printer, and I have not yet had a chance to play around with their new ability to slice different areas of the part differently. The new version is a free upgrade you should log into your account and let us know how it handles it.
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I do not have a multi color printer, and I have not yet had a chance to play around with their new ability to slice different areas of the part differently. The new version is a free upgrade you should log into your account and let us know how it handles it.
I don't have an account - I cancelled the order and got a refund. Without wishing to cause any offence, it does rather seem that you've been sucked in by S3D's marketing blurb. In my experience what they claim to be possible/good and what the software is actually capable of are two different things - at least when it comes to multi colour/multi part printing. I'll wait until I see some positive feedback from someone who is using it with a mixing 5 colour hot end but I don't have time to go through that process myself.
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I wasnt saying that its great, thats why i was saying you should let us know but if you dont have an account dont waste the money… obviously from the posts in this thread ive never been pleased with S3D as a company many frusterations with complete lack of support or bug fixes for a paid product. Though i do like the product worlds better than Cura.
When i made the switch to S3D a couple years ago i never looked back because i had much better results but it is far from perfect and good luck getting them to fix any of those imperfections with their canned answers and non support... they are almost as bad as XYZ support.
This is why i will be checking out Prusa Slicer for me personally as per DJs recommendation but i wont be cancelling S3d because people in our makerspace use it and its easier when working with someone from there to use the same slicer.
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Also the new KissSlicer is meant to be brilliant and well worth a look (It is still in Beta but can be got by going to http://www.kisslicertalk.com/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=1902
Micheal Hackney of Sublime Layers is raving about it attm and I totally respect the work he does.
Doug
