Support material interface, inter-layer spacing. Where can I find this setting?
I'm experimenting with rafts in PrusaSlicer. For the life of me I cannot find where the spacing between each of the "support material interface" layers is specified, or how it is calculated. In the screenshot below I have created a raft with (for clarity) ten layers (Raft layers = 10). The result is 5 layers of "support material" and 5 layers of "Support material interface". Now while my actual print has a layer spacing of 0.2mm, the spacing between layers of the support material is 0.3mm (you can see for example a layer at 1.1mm and the next at 1.4mm). Likewise for the support material interface the spacing between layers is 0.3mm (for example between layer 2.0mm and 2.3mm). Is this a setting somewhere in PrusaSlicer? I have looked but I cannot find it anywhere.
In the next screenshot I'm working with a completely different, non-Prusa printer with a 0.8mm nozzle. While my inter layer spacing for my print, and for the first layer is 0.3mm, the spacing between layers of the support material interface is a whopping 0.6mm. So it looks to me like the spacing is being calculated automatically. Can I override it?
Note that I am not talking about "Raft contact Z distance" which affects the spacing between the top layer of interface material and the print itself.
RE: Support material interface, inter-layer spacing. Where can I find this setting?
Support layer height is completely independent of object layer height unless you sync it. However that option is Only available if using zero contact distance, ie soluble support.
It’s height is determined by the program and you can’t specifically control it.
However it is bound for min and max by the values configured under printer settings > extruder min and max layer heights. Those same min and max are also used for things like the variable layer height tool.
You can not set a step distance either at the moment. Various changes have been requested on the PS GitHub but who know when if ever they will be available.
RE: Support material interface, inter-layer spacing. Where can I find this setting?
Support layer height is completely independent of object layer height unless you sync it. However that option is Only available if using zero contact distance, ie soluble support.
It’s height is determined by the program and you can’t specifically control it.However it is bound for min and max by the values configured under printer settings > extruder min and max layer heights. Those same min and max are also used for things like the variable layer height tool.
You can not set a step distance either at the moment. Various changes have been requested on the PS GitHub but who know when if ever they will be available.
Thanks for the reply. I had wondered about changing the min and max layer heights for the extruder, but even if I do that by changing the Printer settings->Extruder 1->Layer height limits->Max to 0.3mm (I think this is the setting you mean?) I still find the support material and support material interface spacing to be 0.6mm and not the 0.3mm I am hoping for. This is for the 0.8mm nozzle (second example/screenshot I gave, above). A quick check of a diff between the gcode before and after making the config change and we see it's having no noticeable effect:
$ diff Body1.gcode Body1-2.gcode 1c1 < ; generated by PrusaSlicer 2.7.1+linux-x64-GTK2 on 2024-03-14 at 00:28:40 UTC --- > ; generated by PrusaSlicer 2.7.1+linux-x64-GTK2 on 2024-03-14 at 00:29:14 UTC 3745c3745 < ; max_layer_height = 0.6 --- > ; max_layer_height = 0.3 $
RE: Support material interface, inter-layer spacing. Where can I find this setting?
I don't know why you aren't seeing a difference. I read your reply this morning and put together this simple project file for PS. Its just a standard add shape>Sphere and sliced with support everywhere. Once with min/Max set to 0.1/0.2 and again with iirc 0.07/0.3
There are very noticeable differences in the gcode output. For example one is 2490kb and the other is 2614kb. I asked notepadd++ to diff them but it locked up my work pc lol.
Sliced with PS2.7.2 on Windows 10.
RE: Support material interface, inter-layer spacing. Where can I find this setting?
I believe you're not seeing the issue with the raft because you don't have any raft layers enabled. 🙂
I took your project and turned on ten raft layers, set max layer height to 0.2mm and sliced. The resulting layer spacing in the area of interest (the raft) is 0.3mm, which is more than the 0.2mm maximum allowed. My conclusion is that either raft layer spacing is deliberately allowed to be more than the max layer height (seems odd - like you I expected reducing layer height to 0.2mm would limit the raft spacing to 0.2mm), or there is a bug.