What is a slicer?
A slicer is the program that split your 3D model on layers. As you surely know one 3D printer builds the model by putting one layer on antoher one.
There are free slicer?
Of course, I started to used a couple of them and in the beginning I was very happy using them, in the lines below I am going to talk a little bit about them.
- Repetier Host with Slic3r: This is the first one that I used, it has a lot of options but is terribly slow. In addition to that I never achieve good prints with this sofware.
- Repetier Host with CuraEngine: Is one the best that I ever tried, and is quicker than Slic3r. With some jobs the printing time was reduced to the half comparing with Slic3r.
These two slicers work ok, the with complex models the slicing process take a lot of time.
You can find Repetier host on the following link.
Do you try any paid one?
For me, the winner of this comparative is Simplify 3D, you must pay for get it, and the price is 150 $, but for me is the best by far.
It has the best features of free slicers, and in addition to that it process the models much quicker than the other competitors.
With this program I achieve the best quality on muy prints.
Ok, but what about the comparative?
Below this lines I will put on common model with similar parameters, so you can see how much time requires printing it with all the slicers:
- Slic3r: It takes about one minute and a half on processing the model. The estimate printing time is 2 hours and 45 minutes and it will use about 9,5 meters of filament:
- Cura Engine: It takes about 30 seconds on processing the model. Estimate printing time is 1 hour and 56 minutes it will use about 12 meters of filament.
- Simplify 3D: It takes about 20 seconds on processing the model. Estimate printing time is 1 hour and 38 minutes using about 7 meters of filament.
