Yet another slicing software thread?

I have been using cura lately in expert mode and tweaking as I print. The quality has certainly come way up on my prints.

I used slic3r before = results were passable for what I needed but not exactly user friendly to me.
I used kisslic3r as well = almost the same results as slicer but wraped in a nicer package. Slightly better prints, and one head crash as I set the print speed way to high.

I downloaded and installed cura, and I have to say at least for my mechanical parts its been great, I am using sketchup 8 and stl plugin to design my stuff.

What are your thoughts guys? Is there any other slicing software worth looking into? I am about 80% where I want to be in regards to quality right now.

The only annoying part of cura has been generating the gcode takes a very long time, granted my design pc belongs more in 2005 than now. Dual core atom desktop with 4gb of ram. (don't ask), however they do say that cura is slow on a core i7 as well. Its not too bad, but not great.

give me your .02c

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Modicum V1 sold on e-bay user jaguarking11

That's strange. I've found Cura to be lightning fast generating gcode. I use a Dell E5500 laptop. It slices one of my Cherry Pi bottom stepper mounts in about 10 seconds. Slic3r takes nearly 4 minutes. Same machine same part! The new version of Repetier Host allows you to use Cura as your slicer. Perfect.

The only complaints that I have ever heard about Cura are that it slices so fast that people do not even realize that it finished when moving over from Slic3r.

FWIW, MatterControl has its own built-in slicer, or will call out to Slic3r or Cura's slicing engine if you have them installed. I have not tried it, since Cura does everything that I have ever asked of it perfectly and in the blink of an eye.....

Hmmm. Must be my machine being underpowered then. Takes about 2 min to slice my extruder.

I do like cura tbh. Figured I would ask.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/09/2014 02:28AM by jaguarking11.

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Modicum V1 sold on e-bay user jaguarking11

Love Cura. I went back to Slic3r for a trial print, and it killed me how long the slicing was (I waited almost 10 minutes before I just bailed). Same design sliced in Cura in < 10 seconds.

Repetier Host now supports Cura and offers printing profiles to be saved/selected. Perfect. Love it. And I agree, the print quality is much better from the Cura gcode. The only thing I miss is hex infill. Not sure why, but I just do..

Cura seems to produce less stringing for me.

Slic3r has better features such as overhang detection.

Slic3r is a bit slower (although allocating more threads helps, if you've got the memory).

I'm sticking with cura right now. It's working nicely with my atom box for slicing. I am getting better and better results with each print. However I have to slow my printer down a bit.

The only thing I wish cura gave was an option on infill type.

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Modicum V1 sold on e-bay user jaguarking11