3D Printing - Slicers

A slicer is a program that convert a graphic file (typically in a STL extension) in a G-code file, capable to drive the 3D Printer.


It is a very important and critical part of the 3D printing process.



Of course there are many kind of slicers out there.
Creality, the company who built my printer, the Ender 3 Pro, has its own slicer but is running only under Windows.
Of course that is totally unacceptable for me, so I did choose two other slicers.
The main characteristic for the slicer is that has to run also on Linux.

Ultimaker Cura

Ultimaker Cura is a nice program, available under Windows, MacOs and Linux.
It was the first slicer I did try to use and it worked just fine.

However my final goal is to use OctoPrint also to slice the graphic file rather than prepare the G-code externally (still feasible anyway) and at the date, OctoPrint plugin for Cura does not support the latest versions of Cura profiles, needed by OctoPrint.

Because is not working in OctoPrint (for now) I installed it on my main Linux machine and tried also on a Mac.
Initially I used the latest version (at the time 4.4.1) but I had bad experiences on both platforms.
Then I had some tips in a 3D workshop and did try the Cura 3.6.0.
Well, I like it and it works nice.
The only problem is on my Linux platform where some graphic capabilities are not working, probably because the graphic card used.
My Linux machine is quite Old, I guess one of these days I will have to update my HW :)

Slic3r

Like Cura, also Slic3r is available for Windows, MacOs and Linux and it is open source.
The main reason why I did choose this slicer is because it is supported directly by OctoPrint.
However is not really great as slicer.
Did try some projects with Cura and Slic3r and the results with Cure were definitively great !
It is true I didn't play deeper with Slic3r, for this reason is still on the game.