This may be the start of a new series of “quick coffee break tips” – random tips to help in your 3D printing journey.
Preview of 3d stl files in Windows File Explorer
If your preview pane in File explorer is not already showing .stl or .3ml file previews in Windows (on Macs the preview is usually there by default) then you can very quickly fix this …
Right click any .stl or .3mf file, to properties, alongside Opens with: you will see a Change button … click that, in the pop up window find 3D Viewer and click OK.
Now when you click on an .stl oir .3mf file in Windows File Explorer, and have the preview pane active, you should see and use your mouse to rotate and zoom in and out on your 3d files.
Drying Filament in a Normal Oven
Why? Most filaments are hygroscopic (absorbs water from the air). If you hear cracking and popping whilst you print and you are getting poor or rough quality results it may just be that your filament is damp, even if it arrived in a sealed plastic bag with silica gel, this can happen before you get it for whatever reason.
To dry it you can buy expensive equipment, use a food dehydrator, or if your oven is modern and does not temperature cycle massively, the cheapest option is to bang it in the middle or lower half of an oven for a few hours on a low temperature.
One thing to ensure is that you wait till the oven is up to temperature before you put the filament in, as the elements in your oven may initially surge up to a much higher than you have selected in order to bring your oven up to temperature quickly.
There are a lot of other guides online how to do this, rough temperatures for different filaments are:
PETG 60-65ºC
TPU 40-50ºC
PLA 50-60ºC
Dry it for 3-4 hours …if you think the filament is still damp and is still crackling and popping, then try this again for another 3-4 hours.
Print head travel, reducing stringing in Prusa Slicer
Once you have sliced an object in prusa slicer, you can click on the Options selection box at the bottom of the preview screen and select Travel. This will put blue lines on your preview pane which shows the print head moves between printing. Handy to see where you might expect more stringing.
Two simple ways to reduce stringing are to enable avoid crossing perimeters, and amend the seam position to nearest in prusa’s print settings. Getting the temperature and your retraction distance and speeds dialled in will also help a lot with this (you should also be aware that some filaments like PETG have a tendency to string a lot more than others such as PLA).
Temperature towers, changing temperatures or adding custom G-Code mid-print
If you wish to change the temp when printing temperature towers, or add custom g-code for other purposes in the middle of a print, then you can do this from the the preview pane in prusa slicer.
Right click the plus in the “layer slider” and you will get a pop up window where you have several options including adding custom G-Code.
Send G-Code directly to your printer using Octoprint
If you are running octoprint, then you can send g-code directly to your 3D printer from using terminal tab …obviously use this with care, if you are not sure what you are doing, don’t and whatever commands you send become take effect immediately.
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