Tests that actually determine settings?  

Re: Tests that actually determine settings?

All these tests are a great idea, except they often don't prove a lot. Why? Because there are so many variables involved with FDM printing making getting a "control" print to begin with almost impossible.

I once spent many hours over many days (and many test prints) trying to find the best retraction settings for my printer, because I was having a small issue with layer changes. Turns out the problem was nothing to do with the retraction settings at all. And while I did eventually track down the problem and (sort of) get a solution, it really wasn't worth the time and effort.

Apologies for sort of hijacking the thread and not answering your question, but if your prints look ok then is it worth it? Of course, if you aren't able to get a good print then that's a different story.

Re: Tests that actually determine settings?

Like rob.I6, I am going to go a bit off topic here, but I hope it might be helpful to you.

Slicer's have a huge number of knobs on them to change a huge number of settings. Different slicers have different algorithms, and thus different variables to set. They have these NOT BECAUSE OF THE VARIABILITY OF THE PRINTERS, BUT RATHER THEN VARIABILITY OF THE NEEDS OF SPECIFIC MODELS and FILAMENTS.

Most of us understand the big ones around filament differences (Nozzle temp, Bed Temp, cooling fan), but are less aware of the demands of different models.

To put it a different way, things like retraction, wipe, speed, and others are usually a compromise between two extremes. The slicer starts with a default value that is "good in most cases" but might need to be adjusted for a particular filament or model. For example. A model with very small features that creates a huge number of "hops" and "retractions" might be better suited to less retraction (and increased stringing) to ensure a complete layer in those small features. Or a model with long jumps between features might want to minimize stringing even more than "normal" because it will be more visible. Or a model with many 90deg sharp turns can benefit from a slower print speed. Or a model that gets really small at the top might need to slow down so the prior layer could cool before putting a new layer down. There are settings for these.

So I don't think there is an optimal value for your printer. I think there is an optimal value for your printer with your filament printing that model.

So my approach is to try to understand what those controls trade, and then I stick with the "normal" values unless my situation requires that specific difference.

Sorry for the long post that did not answer your question, but I hoped it helped anyway.

Re: Tests that actually determine settings?

I'm also not a fan of test objects. Sometimes you can test filament behavior, bridging for example. But usually it's just a waste of time. People are dialing in small special test objects and wandering why the other bigger/different shaped objects are failing, clogging, cracking .... As already mentioned, there are too many variables: Printer, Filament, size of the object, shape of the object, printing speed, environment temperature,...

My advise is the same. Try to understand the configuration options you have and what they are doing. This way you will be able to achieve good results with different objects by tweaking the options each time you're slicing. For this purpose you can use any test object.

Re: Tests that actually determine settings?

Thanks, rob.l6, aaron.s5, and nikolai.r. Sounds like a lot of wisdom from experience in each of these answers.