Trying PrusaSlicer

Question

Being new to 3D printing, I started using Cura (which came with my Ender 3v2) to slice models I found on Thingiverse. I know that there are other slicers and have heard positive things about PrusaSlicer.

I know that settings will have different names, but I am asking more about the setup. What things, settings, etc. should I be aware of when using PrusaSlicer? Will I need to re-calibrate anything in PrusaSlicer?

Answer 1

Basically all slicers work very similarly, it is a matter of preference, being accustomed, or wanting to use a certain (set of) features. Their job is to prepare the object to be sliced in layers to be executed by the printer you use. For every slicer to work properly, you need to configure the printer settings correctly.

Basically, all slicers have the following basic settings:

• Printer settings,
  these contain information on the printer like build volume, origin, heated bed, nr. of extruders (and what filament diameter is used), scripts, etc.
• filament settings,
  these contain e.g. information on the print and bed temperature
• print settings
  these contain all parameters you use in your normally used slicer, these can be hundreds of options like speeds, accelerations, layer height, nr. of walls, etc.
  • some of the movement profile settings (like acceleration, jerk, max-speed) might be handled as a printer setting by some slicers and as a print one by different slicers. In the end, some of these are dependant on the printer's construction.

Printer dimensions and layout, filament diameter, and start and end G-code scripts are the things to look for. The rest is straightforward, you need to specify material and object slice settings as you would normally do.

Answer 2

PrusaSlicer already has pre-tuned profiles for the Ender 3 v2 in the Configuration Assistant. It also has tuned print settings from SUPERDETAIL (0.08 mm layer height) to SUPERDRAFT (0.28 mm layer height) so it shouldn't be too hard to set up.