Sailfish woes.

Sailfish firmware for Makerbot printers is absolutely amazing. I upgraded a squeaky old neglected Thing-O-Matic to Sailfish yesterday and was absolutely blown away. I'm embarrassed by the print quality of my MendelMax and Prusa now. The layer precision coming off the TOM is so good and even at high speeds, yet it sounds like it's going to rattle apart when it's running. My MendelMax is a beautiful, quiet machine that can print very nicely and reliably. But that TOM just kills it now in the quality department. See attached squirrel, printed at .25mm at 90mm/sec on an MK7 TOM.

So here's my question: How did they do this? I am not a software developer or mechanical engineer, just a jack of all trades artist that stumbled into 3D printing last year. So I guess I just wonder how is it, on my mechanically superior printer, that there isn't a comparable software/firmware solution? Or is there in Marlin/Slic3r and I just don't have it tuned well enough? Or is Skeinforge, slow as it is, just that much better?

I find with each Slic3r version that my prints get worse and worse and none of the tuning I've done in Marlin makes a significant difference. Am I alone here?

Hats off and many thanks to everyone sharing their hard work and moving this community forward.

Well... Slic3r has been getting worse with each release.

Version 0.9.1 -> Pressing the delete STL button crasheres Slic3r or your computer

Version 0.9.2 -> Does not lift nozzel for first layer, instead letting it drag through your print bed

Version 0.9.3 -> Hexagon infill overlaps perimeters making ugly prints.

I used to love slic3r and have donated a few times now. But now... I am very disappointed.

I have reverted to 0.9.1 and avoid clicking the delete STL button.

I agree, Slic3r has been on the decline. They add useful features with each new release but those features have produced so many bugs that I use older versions also.

But what's out alternative? Seriously, has anyone else out there seen what Sailfish is capable of and suffered the same depression I'm stuck in? I've recalibrated everything on my MendelMax and just cannot touch the quality coming off a squeaky, clunky old TOM. Sigh.

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I've recalibrated everything on my MendelMax and just cannot touch the quality coming off a squeaky, clunky old TOM. Sigh.

Huh. Thought MendelMax was supposed to be the new bad-boy on the block. Never heard a report of low quality prints off them before. RichRap swears by them doesn't he?

Then again I've never heard of anyone printing .25mm layer height at 90mm/sec before. Impressive!

How great would your MendelMax be if one was capable of running it with Sailfish? sigh.

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-Tom

Funny thing is that I'm not knocking the MendelMax or its output. It's a very good, extremely reliable printer. But look at the examples on the Sailfish Thingiverse page [www.thingiverse.com]

It could be so much better. Just wish I had the software engineering chops to make it happen.

Woah! Had no idea that the software made that much of a difference.

Why cant Sailfish work for other repraps then? I assumed that all repraps, short of Delta bots like the Rostock, are pretty much the same and the software is only responsible for controlling XYZE motors. It seems like any reprap could fit those parameters.

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-Tom

I've been using KISSlicer to slice prints and that's working really well. Smart acceleration and great support material generation too, you should try it.

Just checked it out. Loving the preview window and raft support, but I don't see settings for nozzle size or anything like that. I'll try it and see what happens though. thanks!

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-Tom