Beginners guide to Pronterface settings?

I now have my Mendel Prusa printing again, printing quality not so good.

Time to go up the learning curve on things like extrusion rate, infill etc.

Loading up the pronterface options gives a bunch of settings, most of which I think I understand, but how about:-

preview extrusion width

e feedrate [presumably extruder rate but in what, mm/sec ??]
z feedrate [apart from filament , what else is being 'fed' ?]

xy feedrate

preview grid step1
preview grid step2


[forums.reprap.org]
suggests that bridge settings are important. Where are they set?


Generally though, is there a beginners guide to these sort of settings, inc typical examples & what happens when then are altered, which are the more significant in terms of improving print quality?

Thanks in advance.

Mike

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/14/2012 03:18PM by 3D2B.

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Prusa Mendel /Parcan Mk 2/1280 RAMPS 1.4/PC XP OS/Pronterface/Slic3r

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Edit:
I've moved on since the OP, but if it helps anyone this starting point from makergear may be of use:

Basic intro

Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 05/05/2012 05:11AM by 3D2B.

Just so you are aware. The settings in Pronterface have NOTHING to do with printing. All the settings for printing are in SF, Slic3r or SFact (which if installed correctly can be accessed through "Slicing Settings" under the settings menu). This will open either SF, Slic3r or SFact depending on which one you have set up.

As you are just starting out I would suggest only using Slic3r. It is way easier and IMHO it makes far better parts.

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Sublime Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Just so you are aware. The settings in Pronterface
> have NOTHING to do with printing. All the settings
> for printing are in SF, Slic3r or SFact (which if
> installed correctly can be accessed through
> "Slicing Settings" under the settings menu). This
> will open either SF, Slic3r or SFact depending on
> which one you have set up.
>
> As you are just starting out I would suggest only
> using Slic3r. It is way easier and IMHO it makes
> far better parts.

So anyone have some tips for a first print in terms of slicing settings? I have a Prusa V2 from Makerfarm with a J-head Mk-IVB 0.35 nozzle and 3mm filament so those settings are done but besides that I'm unsure. I have the printrun file from Makerfarm so am using Pronterface with Slic3r. Please dumb down any advice to newbie level. I really want to get decent quality soon and although I may learn a lot with trial and error it seems unnecessary with many people (I'm sure) running the same setup able to share their settings with me.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/01/2012 06:21AM by RegionX.