carl_m1968 wrote:I have never had much luck with slic3r or cura slowing down enough. Maybe I was just not clear on how to set those settings..
I am simply trying out Simplify3d as I got my hands on a liberated copy that functions but can not update for obvious reasons. If I like it I might consider buying it. So far it has done things I was unable to do before but even it still fails me on a certain print.
I've had Simplify 3D installed on my system for a couple of months, but never really gave it a serious look, but considering some of the interest and recommendations coming from this forum, I spent some time yesterday trying to give it a run.
Let me start by saying that Simplify 3D is one of those programs that doesn't let you try before you buy. They have no shareware version, no trial version, nothing. If the price tag would have been more reasonable <$50, I might have put my money down on it, but at $150 sight unseen, it's a stretch.
This is not going to be a review of the program, just an advisory of the roblems I encountered while using it. The program does a very nice job with generating supports, and the fact that it lets you freely add and delete supports is great. I didn't try the STL repair on it, since the model I tried was fine. But what I tried worked well.
However, the built in printer controls are somehow strangely disconnected from the model manipulation. While it has an option to send the print job over USB, the software really expects you to save the code, open the printer control window, load the saved GCode there and print it. To me that feels pretty disconnected.
Now to the real problem I had.
When I clicked on home all axis, the printer homed correctly. Then I moved the bed down 10mm and performed a few back and forth movements to make sure the print head responds correctly. After that I double clicked the Z- to move the head up. This should have moved the head up until it hit the end stop and stop there. It didn't, it actually tried to move it past the end stop, another 10mm. Needless to say, that crashed the print bed into the print head and threw everything out of whack, it took me an hour to readjust everything.
So this is a really big problem. While the software responds correctly to a homing command, it seems to ignore the end stops when operating the axis manually or from a GCode command. It tried it with the X and Y axis as well and it does the same thing.
That is NOT a good thing. So I for one, I'm going to continue using Repetier + Cura or Slic3r. I may consider Simplify 3D if a particular model gives me problems, but I'm not going to use it to control the printer. Rather I'll save the GCode and open it in Repetier for printing.
To print or, 3D print, that is the question...
SD3 printer w/too many mods, Printrbot Simple Maker Ed., FormLabs Form 1+
AnyCubic Photon, Shining 3D EinScan-S & Atlas 3D scanners...
...and too much time on my hands.