Slicer Options - Cura, Prusaslider, Orcaslicer, Creality Print

3d Printing / Slicers / Setup / Problems
1

I have been comparing slicer options to use with my Ender 5 S1. I am interested in any comments of others experience with the various slicers available, particularly when used with the Ender 5 S1.

I had been using Cura found found the sliced files were acting strangely on the printer. I noticed that there would compe a point where the extruder would stop, raise up, pause then continue. I abandoned those prints and did not know where to start since i had not seen that behavior below. This sent me on a search for an alternatives

Prusaslicer became my next choice and worked quite well. The predicted print times were pretty accurate. I then learned of Orcaslicer and tried that out. Again, that was pretty easy to learn, or adapt to, and i then discovered the calibaration features. I wanted to tune the pressure advance, so began using that, but have yet to get it tuned correctly. I am still working on that.

Then i realized that Creality developed Creality Print. I tried the Creatliy slicer and was not impressed. However, tryind out Print was a different experience, but not without problems that i haven’t solved yet. First, i noticed that the Ender profile set speeds at 200 mms. I assumed this meant that they have tuned the profiles for their printers - which makes sense. When i printed the Pressure Advance tower, it was significantly better than the Orca tower. I am again assuming that they have tuned up those settings for the printer. When i did a print, however, i noted that the top layer was incomplete and the print seemed brittle. On the latter point, i wonder if my air is so dry (it has been super cold her in KC), it has effected the filament.

I am still trying to figure out the settings that effect pressure advance in the various slicers. More to follow as i continue to go deeper in this rabbit hole. I haven’t seen any discussion on this topic in the forum, but thought it would be interesting to see what others have experienced.

2

Hi,

This is the minimal layer time enabled and therefor it only happens on very small layers. It allows the material on the previous layer to cool down.

When e.g. printing a pole the printer would basically print continuously resulting in laying hot plastic on top of hot plastic. Causing the entire print to compress downwards. When using minimal layer time the printer is printing a layer, raises and waits a few seconds until the layer cooled and continues printing.

So this waiting makes sense. I usually enable the “move away” checkbox, as I noticed that the hot hovering heater block is radiating heat into the layers, which is counter productive.

3

Depending on what I’m doing I either use Prusa Slicer or Bambu Studio (fork of Prusa Slicer as is OrcaSlicer. If I’m printing on my Ender 3 S1 Plus I use Prusa slicer as that is where I have all my profiles created for that printer. If I’m using the X1 Carbon then I use Bambu Studio for the same reason that is where the profiles are created. Even though Bambu Studio is a fork of Prusa Slicer you can not import the profiles from Prusa, the ones in Bambu are a totally different format. They can be converted but it’s more work than I want to do so I just use 2 slicers. As for as Cura is concerned I was never able to get my head around the interface so I never used it much. Have tried it several times as newer versions came out with the same results. Creality Slicer never used it and probably never would consider it, not a fan of Creality software, including their firmware which I don’t use on my Creality machine.