Topic: Simplify3D | All-In-One 3D Printing Software
Doesn't seem to be many topics about this software on the forum. Simplify3D is a $140USD STL Repair, Slicer, and Printer control all-in-one. It claims to be the best slicer out there. I wanted to try it out. I broke down and acquired it yesterday.
Initial thoughts:
Interface is pretty, but not as quick to navigate as Repetier Host.
Slicing of any file on my computer seems to be instant, which is cool. It's very fast at that.
The 3D animated preview of the printing before is neat.
It definitely prints things faster using comparable settings to Slic3r, I'm not sure why that is, maybe different infill algorithm?
Overall print quality out of the box on simple objects is on par with my finely tuned Slic3r settings. I was hoping for better quality though, not similar quality considering this wasn't free.
On complex models with overhangs and weird things, it seems to do a better job at slicing than Slic3r and does paths that make more sense.
The STL repair functions are useless. They don't fix my files that well. NetFabb free is still better.
There is an "Intelligent support structure" feature where you can selectively add support matierial and remove it where you wish before printing onto any file. This seems to be the biggest benefit of the software and may make the software worth the price, however I haven't printed anything that requires support yet so that remains to be seen.
Overall the software is less buggy than RH/Slic3r, however there is one major bug I encountered where the "print to USB" gives me an error about "location not found" so I have to save the slice to gcode file manually and reload it into the print controls to print
All speed settings are in MM/Min not MM/sec which is kind of annoying, so I have to divide by 60 or multiply to get my settings I am familiar with
There is a feature to use different settings like different infill and different layer heights at different parts of the print. I haven't used this feature yet and am not sure in which scenarios I might, but it looks interesting.
If anyone else has questions feel free to ask. If anyone wants me to print an STL for comparison I can do that as long as it's not a really long print.