Why Does my Ancient Copy of Simplify 3D Work So Much Better Than PrusaSlicer's Latest & Greatest?
Sorry, I need to vent...
I just spent many hours trying to figure out how to get a decent print out of PS on a pretty simple (but tiny) part. I tried it in my Version 4.1 of Simplify 3D, and the first attempt was WAY better than ANY of the results I got out of PrusaSlicer.
This is far from an isolated incident. I have posted on the forum and GitHub on multiple occasions about print defects (especially the "buldge") that I have in PrusaSlicer prints that vanish (or at least get acceptably small) when I switch to Simplify3D. I can spend hours tweaking speeds, temperatures, cooling, retraction, etc. making incremental progress. I finally give up and plop the design into S3d with whatever profile I used last, and I instantly get far better results.
I really LIKE PrusaSlicer and the user interface, but there's something missing. Most of my prints come out fine, but when I have an issue, I can almost always fix it by going back to S3D.
Todays' example is a very small (4.5 mm diameter) cylindrical part. I started out with the Arachne slicer, and I was hoping the new scarf joint feature would help to make the outside relatively smooth & round. Instead, the lower section (which is hollow, with thin walls) was like Swiss cheese, despite the preview looking fine:
I tried a bunch of things, including the Classic slicer. I discovered that it goes bonkers if I have "Detect thin walls" selected. The prints were actually better, but here's what the preview showed:
Instead of actual holes, I got periodic dimples all around the perimeter of the base. I could fix the mess in the preview by turning off "Detect thin walls", but the prints weren't much better. I finally gave up and tried Simplify 3D. Right off the bat, I got this:
The seam isn't too bad, and it's actually vaguely cylindrical from top to bottom, with NO HOLES.
I have spent many days in the past with stuff like this doing dozens of test prints, trying to help track down what is going on to help other users and the developers. I have tried all sort of user suggestions, and generally got no where. The usual response is that my MakerGear M2E printer is clearly at fault, because it couldn't POSSIBLY be a problem with PrusaSlicer.
I don't know what is going on, but I'm tired of wasting hours, if not days, chasing stuff like this. The next time I get garbage out of PrusaSlicer, I'm going straight to Simplify3D and save myself a ton of time & aggravation. It's bad enough that I may even finally install S3d Version 5, which completely trashed the user interface I am used to with Version 4. In theory, they will be coming out with Version 6 someday, and that may even have scarf joints, which I think could be a real game changer.
Rant off. Good luck to you all...