So, I'm looking for a new way to print...

3D Printing
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So, I’m looking for a new way to print… Right now, I design in sketchup (and export STL), slice with slic3r and print with pronterface. Everything is currently on Mac. I have raspberry pi’s and a linux server at my disposal. I’d like to design in sketchup and do everything else in (new software). My printer is custom built and powered by a smoothie board. I am just tired of the file management and going between multiple pieces of software. Not to mention, I am getting tired of pronterface and would like something different.

Any suggestion is welcomed. Thanks in advance.

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Simplify3D is what you want then.

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@Daniel_Stauffer Thanks, I’ll be checking it out tonight. Appreciate the help.

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Since you got raspberry pis at hand you could try OctoPi. It would take over both slicing and printing. And, other than Simplify3D, is free.

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@Ronald_Griehsler ​ I dont know what the last few updates brought, but the last time I used octoprint, you couldnt define print settings. Nonetheless octopi is a great approach of doing this also.

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if you don’t use too complex models, try mattercontrol.

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My vote is octopi :wink:
Brook

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I prefer Fusion 360 myself.

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Octopi

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@Daniel_Stauffer I believe you can have multiple slicing profiles and select from them per file. So as long as you’ve got your basic settings dialed in you can just choose which one you want.

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Depending on your exact hardware Cura could work as a all in 1 solution. However, some smoothie firmware based boards are causing some problems with the direct printing.

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Since I don’t know exactly what would work for you I will just describe my workflow.

Model in Fusion 360, slice in S3D, send to printer through web interface over wifi (Duet wifi) or send over web interface through ethernet (Duet 0.8.5). Through my router I can manage the printer with whatever wifi enabled device, tablet or phone. I find a phone not functional due to interface size, really prefer the PC monitor and mouse and use that 99.9%.

Not sure if smoothy has web interface and address for each printer, but it’s pretty nice if it does. Each printer is just a web page on the local network, and it is comfortable to have each in its own tab in a window of printers in a web browser, easy to manage.

Not perfect, but it’s pretty functional. It’s all on PC as well but S3D runs on IOS 10.7 or later.

edit:If you like slic3r and it’s all set up for your printer, I would stick with it over the $150 USD for S3D. But S3D is good software if $150 is not a huge burden. I am no expert on slic3r so I cannot compare.

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Wow, thanks to all. I didn’t expect to get this much feedback. As we speak, I am trying out OctoPi. I really like what Simplify3D has to offer, but I am a bit weary on spending $150 for something when there are plenty of free solutions. (and since I already have the Sketchup Pro, that is just more I have to spend when not absolutely needed). Thanks everyone, I’ll let you know how the OctoPi goes. So far, I like the idea of “cloud” printing.

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My Workflow:

Design in Fusion360
Export directly to Simplify3D (saves exporting the file as it opens the design directly)
Set
Print

You can also have a script which tells S3D to push the gcode directly to octopi, so there are two saved steps. Mainly it is about drag and drop, but I think it is quite handy because it is semi automated.

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What stl exporter are you using in Sketchup? I’ve had terrible trouble slicing Sketchup models due to the non-closed topology and overlapping geometry. I was using a ruby add on script. It’s been a while, Sketchup may generate better models now and export STL directly for all I know.

I do 99% of my modeling in OpenSCAD (free), use Slic3r (Prusa edition)(free) for all my printers (I prefer it to Cura (free) and Makerware (free)). If I need to pull vertices by hand I either use Autodesk Meshmixer (free) or 3D Studio Max.