Learning about the Prusa slicer with one spool of filament.  

Question

Alex,

I read through your post.  What do you want to become available?  

It's an online class within a roll of filament

@cwbullet

It would be great if there was a resource from an experience printer that was included as the price of a roll of filament. For that price, there would be several lessons on the various print settings that are available in the PrusaSlicer. The goal is to use a spool of filament to print objects that showcase settings that are available. example, Seam Position? what is it? why is it a setting?  Infill? is there a better pattern to use if you are not going to see it anyways? Why is there a top fill and a bottom fill? Minimal filament extrusion length? this must have been necessary for it to be in the settings. and then there is this whole list of speed settings. It would be great to print objects as part of a learning course that experiments with these settings and shows results of when these might need to be tweaked for those of us who enjoy printing but have not been able to bury our heads into the tutorials for hours on end.  Possibly come out with a completed chess set of pieces once done. (That would be a bonus)

Thanks,

Alex

forum

You can get all of that from the forum.  You just have to ask.  

Posted by: @lazybear214

@cwbullet

It would be great if there was a resource from an experience printer that was included as the price of a roll of filament. For that price, there would be several lessons on the various print settings that are available in the PrusaSlicer. The goal is to use a spool of filament to print objects that showcase settings that are available. example, Seam Position? what is it? why is it a setting?  Infill? is there a better pattern to use if you are not going to see it anyways? Why is there a top fill and a bottom fill? Minimal filament extrusion length? this must have been necessary for it to be in the settings. and then there is this whole list of speed settings. It would be great to print objects as part of a learning course that experiments with these settings and shows results of when these might need to be tweaked for those of us who enjoy printing but have not been able to bury our heads into the tutorials for hours on end.  Possibly come out with a completed chess set of pieces once done. (That would be a bonus)

Thanks,

Alex

Prusa knowledgebase

Posted by: @lazybear214

[...] With the hopes that it comes with printing exercises that help be learn about the different setting that could be made inside the PrusaSlicer.

Are you familiar with the Prusa knowledgebase? It's not complete and likely will never be 100% up to date given the pace of development, but it covers a lot of the fundamentals. I've got a lot of notes at the link in my signature that you're welcome to look through. 

Academy and book

There is also the Prusa Academy and the book.

If you just want to get your feet wet and start climbing the learning curve (baptism by fire?) 😉 with PrusaSlicer, specifically, I might suggest loading some of the common test and demonstration object .stl files (tree frog, Boaty McBoatface, calibration cube) and playing around with the various slicer parameters and getting a feel on what effects things such as layer heights, speeds, even temperatures and flow rates have on the prints.

Learn such things as how layer height affects print time and print quality.

I might suggest trying different types of filament as well (PLA, ABS/ASA, PETg) and get a feel as to how each one looks and behaves.

If you want some more practical models, there are thousands upon thousands of submitted models in the Prints section, and those which appear on this site tend to be of better quality and better-behaved than many of those on some of the 'usual suspect' 3d print sites.

If you really want some 'nuts and bolts' experience, open some of your sliced .gcode files in your favorite text editor and walk through the startup and the beginning of the print and get a feel on what the slicer is telling the printer to do.  Then change some parameters and compare,

RE: One last suggestion:

I have to pile one more time.  There is one more thing you can go for quick expert advice.  I have always found the help I needed when I type it into Google and search for the time I am looking for:  

https://bfy.tw/RhG1

Google

RE: Learning about the Prusa slicer with one spool of filament.

As bobstro mentioned, reading trough "PS knowledge base" is a good idea -so you get an overall impression. But other than that, it's a step-by-step process: knowledge comes over the time.
Prusa slicer delivers good prints even at default settings and one should only change parameters when there's a reason. Hotend temperature for example... if you're happy with result, why change? But when you change filament brand, it might be necessary to print some small (test) object to get the best result. And even then, that might depend on shape & size of printed object. That's why filament manufacturers don't specify fixed print temperature.. they recommend printing temperature range.
Infill.. is meant to save filament, print time and still keep object strong enough. What is strong enough? Again, depends on what for object will be used -sometimes 10% is enough and sometimes more than 50% will be needed. How to know how much infill is needed? Well, is mostly guessing that comes with experience -slice you object and inspect layers (by sliding vertical bar in slicer).

As said, it's  a step-by-step process, where knowledge comes over the time as you gather experience.

RE: Learning about the Prusa slicer with one spool of filament.

These are all really good suggestions. I was not aware that there was a knowledge database just for the PrusaSlicer. I'll be spending some time with that. To date, I've done the few models that came with the kit, the Mini base with the filament spool below in PETG, and soon looking at printing with some TPU. I appreciate all the great links.

Alex

Goodle

Alex,

When in doubt, try google.  If you search with prusa or prusaslicer and you search terms, you will find lots of helpful links.  

Posted by: @lazybear214

These are all really good suggestions. I was not aware that there was a knowledge database just for the PrusaSlicer. I'll be spending some time with that. To date, I've done the few models that came with the kit, the Mini base with the filament spool below in PETG, and soon looking at printing with some TPU. I appreciate all the great links.

Alex

Great links

Posted by: @lichtjaeger

There is also the Prusa Academy and the book.

Great links to point beginners to, thanks.