2012 Slicer vs 2022 Slicer! 3D Print test

[@Hoggs]

Now we need an episode on if a 10 year old printer can handle gcode from a modern slicer :)

[@warrenhen-boisen4340]

If you could get the right settings to compare with on a wanhao 3 dual extruder then I would be amazed😎

[@PrecisionPrintworks]

I have a ten year old solidoodle 2 sitting in my basement

[@rwkerstetter]

Funny enough, as I type this I'm printing some parts on my Makergear M2 which I purchased in 2012. Used PrusaSlicer 2.5.0 Alpha3. Had been using Slic3r 1.3.0 up until a few months ago, the upgrade to PrusaSlicer was a giant leap in options.

[@user2C47]

Maybe something with DC motors.

[@fragmen52_47]

I'm still using a printer I've had since 2014

[@benjaminheindl1069]

I honestly had no idea how spoiled I was unboxing a 200€ pre-built printer and producing great parts out of the box with conveniant slicer software. This video is also a fantastic resource on 3D printig history. Great job!

[@John_Ridley]

Yup I paid $1000 for my first printer, a MakerGear Mendel kit I bought at MakerFaire in 2011. It took days to put together. We had to make the hotends out of basically plumbing parts, nichrome wire and thermal cement. With a modern slicer program it probably might make pretty decent prints but would be very slow and temperamental. I just put a Creality K1C in my shop for $500. Crazy improvements.

[@clashtwo5066]

The Internet Rule of 2016 - Things that are useful wont exist on the internet forever, and things that hurt you will never be taken off the internet unless you have enough power to do it yourself.

[@KoenKooi]

When I worked as an FAE, I advised customers to make an image of the drive they used to build their software and ensure it worked in a virtual machine. As you showed, having to work on something from 10 years ago benefits a lot from foresight :)

[@OnceShy_TwiceBitten]

interesting, can you elaborate a bit on how that helps? aside from a back up.

[@KoenKooi]

@@OnceShy_TwiceBitten it has all the software you need already included, and the virtual machine will emulate the correct processor. If you put the disk image on an external drive, you have a handy way of revisiting the project quickly. The problem nowadays is that everything is a subscription that requires calling home over the internet :(

[@georgec637]

I've had the same experience as an embedded software developer. When you get asked to fix a bug found in a 20 year old product it's a lot easier if you have access to a virtual machine with the original environment.

[@ProtesttheAntagonist]

10:00 "top/bottom concentric" Concentric can give really nice top surface finishes on shallow curves, or flat surfaces. Since top and bottom are essentially 100% infill concentric is the same as dialing your walls up to infinite, which is pretty commonly accepted to be the strongest method of making solid prints, so structurally it is sound too.

[@alexanderthomas2660]

Concentric or spiral infill can also give very nice results with silky PLA filaments. I have printed some coins this way, that ended up having a bit of an appearance as if they were turned on a lathe.

[@MichaelWatersJ]

I like that in Cura you can use a mix of concentric and lines for beauty and strength!

[@amicloud_yt]

And if the top layers need overhangs, concentric can get great overhangs

[@802Garage]

I was wondering why he said that. For anything circular or fairly round especially, concentric infill is going to be most pleasing to the eye.

[@RegularOldDan]

Watching this process sparked some memories of my first printer in early 2016. It was a plywood kit. No heated bed, no part cooling. No display - I had to stream Gcode via Repetier Host. It wasn't until later I added a display (with SD card - gamechanger!), my own design for part cooling, and community designs for belt driven X/Y (to replace the fishing line drive) and lead screws for Z (to replace the threaded rod) that I really started to get decent prints. Oof. I'm so glad I have my Prusa with a Pi 3 running OctoPrint now.

[@truegret7778]

Ha, same here. I started with the PrintrBot 1405 Simple, laser-cut plywood kit. Reasonably decent prints. I, too, used Repetier Host and Slic3r. Ah, the good ol' days. I'm now using a Creality-10S with various upgrades.

[@bzqp2]

My first MDF wooden frame printer from 2016 (Prusa-Mendel i3 clone) is still my only printer! :D With how good the modern slicers got it's printing better than it ever has!

[@user2C47]

It's 2022 and my trash picked plastic framed printer is not going to be replaced any time soon. Being poor sucks.

[@the48thronin97]

I started with a printrbot simple in 2014 and used all of those tools, just recently dug it out of the box it was in and once I reset the strings (lol) it worked again! Definitely getting a new printer once I get the time and money for it. Repetier host with slicer on my mom's macbook was quite an adventure to get working right, especially when printing over USB like I did.

[@jeradw7420]

Concentric infill is still useful today. Some models with thin lobes will have very short straight line infills that is a lot of jumping around. You can then use concentric to make smooth movements around.

[@weirdmaninshirt]

A man of culture - has a AoE2 shortcut on the desktop.

[@MakersMuse]

good game !

[@slendi9623]

@@MakersMuse Really good game*

[@MaYbYl8eR]

Lifetime favorite

[@LeftJoystick]

14 14 14 14 14

[@OkuriLucy]

Area of Effect?

[@FranklyPeetoons]

It's odd how visually similar some of the interfaces of that old slicer software is to Amiga software I used in the early 90s. That style actually appeals to me. Buttons - with text! No need to remember which function is activated by a small, random color smear of one of a hundred on-screen icons (07:55 in the video shows what I mean)

[@67restomodder]

I started with Skeinforge. I was soooooo happy when the original Slic3r came out! It was like moving from the stone age straight into the modern age (maybe this is an exaggeration.)

[@andysutils]

I miss Skeinforge. It was timeless!!

[@AmaroqStarwind]

Get excited!

[@oliverjenks]

I did as well. Remember how long it would take to slice a complex model!

[@John_Ridley]

Skeinforge, that's the name I've been searching for. Holy hell was THAT a nightmare or what? Slic3r was a DREAM when it came out. You are NOT exaggerating. If nothing else, slicing time went from 10 minutes to 30 seconds.

[@67restomodder]

@@John_Ridley 100%!!! Slic3r was so fast and so good that I could barely believe it.

[@beauslim]

You are a young guy but for most of us you are a 3d-printing grandpa. "When I started printing I did it up-hill, both ways! In the snow because it smelled so bad my mom wouldn't let me print inside!"

[@MakersMuse]

Hahah! It really did feel like that some days.

[@LazerLord10]

You're taking me back to my start of 3D printing, which was also ten years ago. I remember when Repetier Host was the new thing! Oh Mendel 2, you will be missed. Later on when I moved to Cura for slicing after being away from printing for about a year, I was amazed at the new pathfinding! It felt like an entirely new printer.

[@the48thronin97]

I just had the same experience! Started in the summer of 2014, then life happened in the intervening years and comparing my latest stuff to the few remaining prints I've got hanging around from then is wild.

[@tammyhollandaise]

I love using a concentric bottom layer for filaments that have trouble with unsticking. Instead of anchoring to the perimeters (like rectilinear), it continues adding loops; it seems it better manages the thermal contraction, but you'll have to give it a test for yourself to confirm.

[@jordananderson1594]

I'm also a big fan of concentric, I typically use it for both top and bottom fill mostly because I like the way it looks.

[@mysticmarble94]

Do the artifacts maybe have to do with the numerical precision ? I know that in recent Prusaslicer versions they had added various resolution / precision settings. So maybe you got more artificats if older software intentionally made compromises in numerical precision ?

[@trance_trousers]

This was fascinating to watch. I only got into 3D printing in June 2020, so by then slicers and 3D printers were pretty much sorted. Amazing to see how far the hobby has come in 10 years!

[@TechGorilla1987]

@24:50 Careful application of a scalpel is the best solution that I have found for supports...

[@NHFNNC]

The reason Soildoodle gave for the low ABS temp was that where they placed the thermistor resulted in the reading being about 25 - 30 C lower than it actually was. They also did have heated beds if you went with the pro models and could get up to 100 C.

[@MakersMuse]

Oft now that you mention it I seem to remember hearing about the thermistor issue, but thought it was the opposite! Such a kludge fix

[@thebigasschief55]

I still print on my Solidoodle 3 and can confirm the thermistor was capton taped to the nozzle so it read 30 deg lower then the heater block

[@crazybird199]

This was very fascinating! I really liked learning about early 3D printing. Imagine how far 3D printing will come in another 10 years!

[@anon_y_mousse]

Have you seen the SLS printers they've got now? These big tower printers with hoppers filled with powdered material. It's actually pretty amazing. No support material at all, and the powder can be reused a bunch and you can take a failure and powder it to reuse.

[@crazybird199]

@@anon_y_mousse Really? that's really cool!

[@Ragnar8504]

@@anon_y_mousse Interesting to hear that the powder is used over! In 2019 I toured a massive industry-sponsored maker space in Europe and they told us about the EUR 1.5 bn SLS printer they'd just gotten in. A 300x300x300 mm powder fill cost 12k and they said they'd discard all leftovers after each print run to avoid any contamination. The whole place oozed money and we felt a bit out of place there. I work at a small, somewhat underfunded maker space and we've always prided ourselves in trying to salvage, improvise and make do, in order to save costs, protect the environment and because we simply enjoy it. Picking the electronic waste can be a massive rush of happy chemicals in your brain! Over there they were literally: "We don't tinker. We produce!". It was all about efficiency and professional, marketable results.

[@loganpedersen9906]

19:58 that’s where I have learned that using concentric top layer helps a lot in the quality even in modern slicers because there is more for the next layer to stick to, it is never going in the same direction as the infill and it leaves a more finished look 😀 Love your videos too😀

[@mistaecco]

I've been wondering this for ages now!!! I've got that same make magazine issue, and I've wanted a comparison between modern printer with old slicer vs a MakerBot cupcake printing with modern PrusaSlicer. It'd take some searching to find a still working unit, but I'd be really curious to see the results! (If this gets covered in the video, I apologize for not waiting to comment, haha)

[@MakersMuse]

I will have to try track down an old makerbot or mendel! It's the reverse of the test in this video haha

[@mistaecco]

@@MakersMuse Fantastic :) In a similar vein, I've also had deep on my back burner the idea to see how close to the original suggested BOM you could get while trying to build something like the cupcake CNC. I imagine you'd have to fabricate some of the parts yourself, or substitute with modern components. Somehow I doubt there's still a wealth of MK6 Stepstruder parts out there, but maybe I'm wrong!

[@lasskinn474]

With which electronics, extruder and fw on the cupcake? Dc motor struder or stepper? Acceleration or not etc?

[@hetistijmen]

That struggle with the supports brought back some memories of impaled fingertips and sliced knuckles. It also didn't help that back then printers were doing giant macrosteps on wiggly frames. Even with modern settings they would not have printed as clean as modern printers do.

[@DanielRhoades4122]

I just got back into 3d printing. I played around with it for a couple of years about 7 years ago and man oh man have things changed. I used Slic3r on a Geeetech i3 POS that failed more than it got right. But now on an Ender 3 S1 Pro using the latest Cura, bridging is a breeze and support just snaps off. And now that retraction and z hop work so well, I can print things that the old printer just couldn't handle. Thanks for the flashback, Angus. This hobby is soooo much more practical now than it used to be.

[@John_Ridley]

I started in 2011, but I stopped paying attention 4 years ago because things were "mature and boring" - not so much now I have a lot to catch up on. The landscape has VASTLY changed. I was forced to because my one remaining printer, a Sapphire Pro, developed an electronics fault. I got it going with an old RAMPS/Arduino setup from my junk box, enough to get the order I had to fulfill done, then bought a Creality K1C and started looking in to using the old printer as a test bed. It's now running Klipper on an old laptop, and I have a new electronics package and a DD hotend coming for it, and plan to build an ERCF multi material feeder next.

[@kelvin1316]

I use concentric top/bottom sometimes for the look it gives for some designs. Especially if it is a circular shape :)

[@BlindingWulf]

I love how we can see how slicers have gotten better over time, and how the ease of 3d print has gotten!

[@TheRattleSnake3145]

Concentric doesn't just make a spiral, it follows the contour of anything on the layer. It can give some interesting results when used with silk filaments.

[@KingOfRedPlays]

the old Slic3r cat model looks almost like it was printed from voxels and it's actually a really cool style if you find somebody wants that kind of look (or you find a model that'll look great with it)

[@kcbrandao3802]

I love this. Great to see how far the tech has come and the steps of improvement we took to get here. Thank you for your time.

[@professionalelectronics3158]

7:37 THANK YOU i was puzzled back then why Skeinforge didn't work on my Printrboard with Marlin! It would move but never extrude! That explains a lot!!!

[@RinoaL]

I remember using Replicator G and having to wait 45 minutes for a model slice. I'm so glad we have come so far.

[@MakersMuse]

haha yeah ! you'd hit slice then go do something else

[@jhsevs]

I have a colleague who absolutely loves the Stratasys we have at work and its 2007 slicer. There are two layer height settings. 0.254mm and 0.324mm. You can also choose between «sparse» and «smart» infill. That’s your only two settings. It does NOT handle any kind of unmanifoldness. Ypu have to sit there for hours to let the printer warm up, and if you leave and don’t come back in time, it goes into standby and STOPS PREHEATING so you have to wait again.

[@3DPrintingNerd]

0:54 - you mean SLICK THREE R yes???

[@PotatoClips]

oh man im getting flashbacks to freshman year of college, looking up solidoodle and kickstarter campaigns for early makerbot knockoffs. i swear i can smell the lab i sat in while doing all the temp and print volume comparisons. almost no heated beds, no standards, and a lot of companies thought they could get away with ABS prints if they stuck the whole thing in a flimsy plastic box for a "controlled environment". i was lucky enough to go to a nerd school where we had a makerspace with guys who put the hours in over time to fix all those settings as least. Id like to see the mess the default settings would cause but maybe it would hit too close to home lol.

[@BlitzenDesignLab]

The first printer we bought was a Solidoodle 3, and it was a pain to get printing reliably most of the time. We still have it, and it turns out at this point you literally cant even give them away. I have an Anycubic 4max pro now, and it has been a great experience!

[@3rdavenue555]

15:10 that‘s so relatable. I still have the butchered calibration cube in a drawer under my printing desk to this day.😂

[@lordofhyphens]

Something to remember is that Slic3r was pure Perl up to 1.1.7. From 1.2.0 onwards more and more got rewritten in C++ (libslic3r).

[@Splarkszter]

The fact that these software are free thanks to OpenSource mindset is so underappreciated.

[@TheTechAdmin]

1:28 But... you *DID* find it, _right_ ? So it's not exactly a lie.

[@twentylush]

you went absolutely nuts with the CAD on your icing 3d printer good lord

[@JosepsGSX]

Being on the presence of so much wisdom and expertise, always make me forgot how young most of you content creators are. I don´t mean it in a bad way, quite the opposite! I point that cause when you get older, 10 years become just a blink, and 2012 actually feels like yesterday to me. In fact, the Windows 7 situation almost made me laught as I still use a Win7 desktop as my second main computer half the time, and if feels like "just a couple years ago" when I retired to the shelf my XP one when it ran out of long term support.

[@aubatious7233]

1am and I'm still watching your vids haha! Too addictive man 😅 watching from nsw

[@user-ro1cc8tz6d]

32:33 acheles heel of opensource software. Very common

[@geode8556]

Love your retro revisit and explanation of where we are today. Always learn a lot from your videos. Thanks! Your microcenter deal is only available to just handful of your viewers because it's in store only. Here in the entire state of California, there's only 1 and it's too far away. And they are not in most states. 😢

[@markmatthews1802]

Love that you're an Industrial Designer. Worked with Craig Andrews, (long ago in Boston MA) Principal of "Design Momentum" in Sydney. From him I learned that Australia has a great manufacturing based focus on ID. Great to see your hands on and maker inspired degree project.

[@VuLamDang]

Damn this bring back memory. The year was 2013, I had access to my first ever 3d printer, an i3 clone made out of wood. It kickstarted an university fablab that is still operation to this day. The slicer was slic3r, and tom channel had like… 10k subscriber lol

[@jellyfish1433]

Repetier was the first slicer I used and it was one I stuck with for years! Bringing back memories with that one.

[@fluffycritter]

When I first started with 3D printing in 2012 on a Makerbot Replicator, I lived through the horrors of Skeinforge and seeing the title of this video gave me flashbacks. I was almost disappointed to see you were going with slic3r, which was a huge, huge improvement. Although I never got slic3r to work with my Replicator for some reason (probably the same gcode flavor issue that prevented you from using Skeinforge) and so I went with Makerbot Desktop, which was also pretty nice to work with (if extremely limited).

[@mattelder1971]

If you look at your Benchy model at 18:56 you can tell it has errors, since it has a red box around it. I've never understood WHY file authors release their files into the world with errors in them. 3D Builder in Windows will repair just about any kind of error pretty quickly.

[@joshuamns1]

i love the "no stop" as it flung the bed off lol

[@MrGTAmodsgerman]

I think going back to such software is a good way to understand why there are so many settings now. And just to apperciate them.

[@justinallen4903]

This brings me back to my reprap days. I very seldom got a functional print out of it, but I loved tinkering with it.

[@BluntyTV]

Fascinating video mate. I have only one question... Which slicer did you use to 3D print your hair back in those cake icing days 😏

[@KoenKooi]

I also started with skeinforge and replicatorG, the biggest downside of skeinforge was that every section ran after the previous one. You couldn’t really look forward and say ‘Comb is enabled, so I shouldn’t cross this perimeter’, you could only fix up the gcode the previous section provided you.

[@bzqp2]

Tom totally had a point calling it "Slic Three R". I remember first time getting into 3D printing and hearing from people that I need to get "the slicer". I googled that and downloaded the first, most popular result, which was a totally wrong software. Then I spent 2 days being totally confused trying to make sense of it. I think whatever I found wasn't even 3D-printing-related.

[@taeganh]

When you got that error withthe Benchy print it blew my mind! I vividly remember having that exact issue when printing Benchy for the first time with Slic3r back in the day, I was so confused lol. Crazy that you reproduced that error all these years later.

[@davydatwood3158]

While I certainly feel that anyone who buys a printer simply on the strength of a single KZbin advert deserves any unhappiness that results - I also feel that things have reached the point where any recommendation of "a great starting printer" needs to clarify which half of the hobby it's aimed at. Is it a "mostly works and will be a good platform for learning to do mods on" type printer, aimed at the tinkerer? Or is it a "not great for fiddling with but will reliably and repeatably work whenever you need" aimed at the CAD artist who just wants a tool for making their projects exist? The 3d printing community definitely includes both of these neighbourhoods and the two groups do have divergent needs and interests. Also - I use concentric bottom infill a lot! I find it gives slightly better adhesion and looks more interesting.

[@TechGorilla1987]

In my case, I got an original Ender 3 back in the day. It's been wonderful for both aspects. Printing was amazing to a noob like me and printing upgrade pieces was fun. Now, it's a fire and forget printer. I haven't observed a first layer go down in over a year. That experience with the Ender lead me to a Hictop Prusa clone that has the potential to blow the Ender away. It's also really tweakable too. Maybe I'm out of place with my comment, but this is what your comment brought to my mind. Stay well, Internet person!

[@TechGorilla1987]

I guess I meant to add that, for $99, that Ender deal cannot be beat.

[@davydatwood3158]

@@TechGorilla1987 An honest relaying of your personal experience, with no agenda attached, surely is never "out of place" ! I agree that the Ender price is a very good deal. However, your own comments make it clear that for you, tinkering with the printer was part of the fun. I hate it. I absolutely hate it. I've had an Ender 5 for two years; I'd been saving for a Prusa Mk3 and decided that I had enough electronics and other skills to deal with the probable issues on the Ender and that saving several hundred dollars was a good thing. For the last year I've been devoutely wishing I'd saved for that Prusa instead. When it works, the Ender is a useful tool for me to create parts for my actual hobbies. But when something goes sideways - which I usually discover when I get home from work - instead of being able to indulge in a nice relaxing hobby, I instead have to spend time and energy figuring out why the f my printer isn't working this time. Has that helped me build troubleshooting skills? Yes. Would some of those issues have occured on the Prusa? Probably. But now I have a Bambu X1C and the difference is night and day. I *like* using the X1C. I'm reluctantly still using the Ender-5 because it handles silk PLA better, and because there's a few things I can do in PrusaSlicer that I can't do in BambuSlicer. But overall - having to deal with that gorram Ender-5 almost pushed me out of 3d printing. The only reason I stick with it was because I'd sunk too much money into the printer to just walk away. If I'd only spent 100$ on the thing, I guaruntee I'd have just given it away to be done with it. And then I'd never have gotten into learning CAD and making my own unique things, which is awesome. To be fair, I don't know if the printer Angus is advertising would be nearly as frustrating an experience. But I do think it's very, very important that as a community we recognise that there are two different sorts of hobbyists using 3d printing, and shape our suggestions of "this is a good starting printer" to match what the user actually wants to do. For someone like you, who wants to tinker and mod and upgrade, a 99$ Ender-3 is hands-down perfect. For someone like me? I'd rather spend 1,000$ on a printer than *just works* than 100$ on one I have to constantly fight with.

[@trentbauman8483]

i just took advantage of the $99 ender 3 from the last video and i can confirm it still works and i now have a second ender 3 for half the price of the first one

[@edwinirizarry9277]

Such a great vid to let us that didn’t start at the beginning of this wonderful art that is 3d printing see a glimpse of what that was. Thanks again for your work good sir ! ❤️🙏🏻 we are all one

[@tylerfishingonthewater773]

i got a solidoodel 3 from school back in 2019 when i was 16 and it prints very good without changing the motherboard. I've added a few things and to answer your question angus yes solidoodle 3dprinters did have a heated bed

[@coffee_gaming]

Thank you for another fun video Angus! No disrespect but i loved when everyone used the backward facing "e" as a 3 slic3r i just get a huge smile when Tom mentioned slic 3 r "sorry Tom and others" but you frequently made my day.

[@rpavlik1]

I will say, that the main print quality improvements I've seen in my old MakerBot Rep2x are from slicer updates, and from filament improvements. The old MakerBot slicer (and the Arduino/processing ide style one whose name i forget) was blown away by Cura 3.x, and then it got even better when I upgraded to PrusaSlicer, partially leveraging some configs for a Flash Forge Creator Pro (basically a Rep2 clone). ABS was a pain to print, PETG isn't quite as bad but had a learning curve, and amazingly for an abs-focused machine, PLA Plus/pro, which I tried "on accident" as I was gifted glow filament in that polymer instead of ABS, has been the most consistently lovely results: it just works. I did end up adding a part cooling fan, of course, and often run with the lid off and or door open. I still desperately avoid support material. I guess I am still stuck in the past? Maybe haven't figured out how to configure it right...

[@electriccomics]

Since I live near a Microcenter I use inland filament almost exclusively. It really is fantastic stuff.

[@mileszd]

Now I need an entire series on making the icing printer fully operational.

[@kohlWinters]

i use concentric, but only if it is uninterrupted. i will even use support blocks to give rounds areas concentric because it is better for print time.

[@kennytheamazing]

"Ancient windows 10 laptop" made me feel really old.

[@lasskinn474]

you can use skeinforge pretty easily on windows 11 and get it printing pretty well if you know it. it has some features like bridging internal floors from wall to wall that newer slicers still don't seem to do as an option and it prints pretty similar to modern slicers and you have pressure advance etc in firmware now so you don't need that from the slicer. I still have it as working. with skeinforge if you use with repetier host right now it does not automatically import the produced gcode properly so you have to drag it to it after slicing but it's not like the software itself didn't work in 10/11.

[@markmatthews1802]

Solidoodle was the first printer I used and printed ABS. It did have a heated bed. Sliced with Skeinforge.

[@codemakeshare]

anyone remember Skeinforge? 20 tabs full of dozens of parameters each, many hours of configuration to even get the first print. And slicing a small model took 20 minutes... but hey, I managed to print a whistle that worked, was amazing at the time ;)

[@TechGorilla1987]

IT does amaze me how much a slicer can really tweak a machine for the better.

[@alekseimarianov3388]

Dude, your final year project is just nuts! Wow!

[@ralfw7463]

Up until last month when a servo of my MiniFab broke I worked with Repetier Host and used Slic3r.. never realised it was that outdated until I tried finding a replacement servo or even documentation for it.

[@zackmarkham4240]

That stepping pattern that you pointed out on the cat is always prominent on resin printers. I've only ever seen resin prints in person as my friend has one. I didn't even think FDM prints don't usually have those. That's very interesting to me.

[@bungsbodulus]

Yeah that would make sense, as the ‘stepping’ would just be because of the LCD pixels

[@l.c.8475]

My first experience with 3d printing was 2014 when we did a class project together with the local university, we designed our files to print without support, unfortunately the person who sliced them put them in the wrong orientation so they were printed with maximum support material and with the layer lines perpendicular to the direction of force, which was especially bad since layer adhesion was terrible, we put our drone together, but taking off the support material was a pain and the arms did eventually break.

[@adamcrum99]

I would love to see a series of you recreating this project with the resources and technology of today!

[@PureRushXevus]

13:55 I find my support setting in cura to be either sticking too well or not really supporting much.. I should *really* dial it in, but uh.. I'll just keep orienting and modelling in such a way there's minimal overhang haha

[@chriskeddy1975]

Something I have noticed is print temps are getting higher because newer extruders come with cooling fans for the extruder. I have my old Printrbot that I run occasionally which has the old Jhead style. I tend to bump hotend temps down 20-30C from what I run on my Ender 3.

[@yash1152]

> _"bump hotend temps down"_ hey you, come away!

[@SoloGamingZA]

at 18:56 when you showed the files you were going to use I noticed that you used 3D builder to showcase them and there is a red square around the benchy meaning the model has errors also at the bottom right corner you should notice the error message from 3D Builder So i was wondering how it was going r=to come out in older slicers and yeah I was not surprised it came out as it did unrepaired lol

[@Mitch3D]

Skeinforge slicer made 3D printing way more difficult than current slicers. It was also really slow because it was written in early python. When it was new, the parameters weren't explained well so you had to guess what the ratios did. It also didn't help that the makerbot Cupcake was not as accurate as current printers.

[@MakersMuse]

There wasn't many options around at the time, but Slic3r was a blessing that's for sure!

[@Mitch3D]

@@MakersMuse Kisslicer had a lot of features before a lot of the others but it never got as popular. Not sure why it never gets mentioned.

[@MakersMuse]

@@Mitch3D Yeah, I recall it being powerful but clunky, and the full version was paid so that might have been a turn off for a lot of people. I was deep in makerbot land at that time...

[@brandonacree4605]

@3:41, that's that look you have on your face when you are just waiting for something to break lol

[@TechAmbr]

I used Skeinforge earlier this year as part of my "Windows 98 for a Week" challenge. The interface is a little confusing versus even Cura, but once tweaked a bit, it does actually still work!

[@MetalheadAndNerd]

Real men do the Windows 3.11 for a week challenge.

[@nwimpney]

Regarding the temperature, I wonder if there were just some differences in the filament back then. My first printer was a rostock delta. (I don't remember the exact timeframe, but the kossel was just being released) I used a .35mm nozzle original j-head, with 3mm filament and a "greg's wade extruder" with an M8 bolt I hobbed myself using jig that I rigged up to force an m5 tap against it and cut sideways. I have some video of it printing at decent-ish speeds, and I always printed at around 190 back then, or 185 at slightly lower speed if I was trying for best print quality. I still have some prints kicking around from back then, and they actually look pretty good, so maybe the materials have just changed.

[@RSCuber]

Seeing this is such a wild trip. I remember playing with 3d printers in like...2012-2013, and it was so fun, but I put it down because I just didn't have the time to commit to the DIY nature of it all. 3d printing parts to improve it, wiring new power supplies and I remember what a big deal it was to add a raspberry pi based solution to have an SD card! There was so much to do, but the print quality wasn't ever that great for me. I put it down for awhile. Cut to 2024 where I found an Ender 3 pro at a good price, and what a difference the decade made. I still get to have my DIY fun, upgrading parts, etc, but god it's so amazing how out of the box, I was now able to just...print files off an SD card with Cura slicer. and the quality is nothing like I could have gotten 10+ years ago without a LOT of work.

[@Foxhood]

My explanation for the odd artifact. The slicer has to convert the geometry of the 3D Model before it can start slicing, I would assume that some minor optimization/simplification is done in order for the software to NOT go up in flames when working with high polycount models. My theory is that there is a disrepency in how the Slicers handle that. Especially since you mentioned the old slicer took ages to get things done. That or could be just a case of the old having lesser precision.

[@TakoFoodtruck]

i remember setting up my old ender3 with slic3r and having to change the movement settings for the motors. The steppers used on the ender3 models match up best in .04mm steps. I don't exactly remember what all i changed, but it involved changing the degrees/step and getting it to match up correctly. it also solved some of the artifacting issues. For layer heights, i've had the best success at .08mm, .12mm, .16mm, etc. It removes some of the odd gapping that 0.1mm and .15mm layer heights caused. I'm not sure how true this still is, or if it's still how things work best, I've moved on to the ender3 S1 pro, and it still seems to print best in multiples of .04mm layer heights.

[@Venaloid]

20:00 - Yep, that's what my prints used to look like from my Solidoodle.

[@3rdavenue555]

So much nostalgia in one video😍

[@GeneralPurposeVehicl]

4:34 And that is why you put your E-Stop where you can reach it.

[@chemicalvamp]

I mean it has only been 4 years since I fired up my prusa clone, But this is pretty inspiring to get back into it.

[@ellisgl]

You noted that even new slicer detected errors in the Benchy STL, which make me wonder if it needs to redone. 🤔 Could the corrections to these errors possibly be the cause of the dreaded hull lines?

[@WeeabooShipPoster]

I remember using Repetier on my first 3D printer, which was a Folger Tech i3 back in 2014? Man that brings me back

[@brianpercival1829]

I wish I saw this 5 years ago. SLIC3R settings. I was using ReRap that came ith my printer and no settings instructions. I watched other people on YT and their settings and tried many configurations. I tried other slicers, you had videos about Cura so I tried that too. I did stumble on Slic3r and gave it a go and most of my prints were succesful. If I had watched this video back then would have not wasted so much filament with failed prints. I still prefer Slic3r over Prusia as I know it and Prusia is a bit too complicated.

[@tylerprince9494]

Nice to know benchy doesn't just benchmark your printer/setting it also benchmarks your slicer.

[@savejeff15]

Very interesting. It's amazing how stuff that happened since I finished highschool has already become part of history

[@philevans4021]

I remember using Skeinforge to slice for my Mendel90 back in the day.

[@Mitch3D]

Mendel90 builders, there are dozens of us! (I got better results on my mendel90 than a lot of printers available at the time.)

[@sunnywiz]

No! Stop! ... awesome. Thank you for including that.

[@JohnOCFII]

I also started with Repetier and Slic3r, but it was in 2015, which seemed quite a bit closer to today’s world than the prehistoric era you demonstrated!

[@IDoNotLikeHandlesOnYT]

Me too. And the printer had no control panel-you controlled it from Repetier Host and that was that. (I think its axis motion buttons were in the shape of arrows back then, not quarter-circles, but Angus didn't show the Manual Control tab, so that's just from memory.)

[@kardnewt5296]

concentric is good for getting a sealed bottom for planters or in some cases it makes the top layer look better

[@Jwmbike14]

Hey there! I was printint on a Solidoodle 3 at this time. It did print ABS, very well for its era. I actuslly miss some features in Slic3r/repetier host that no linger exist. We have cameras now, but back then they had a 3d image if the Gcode veing sent ti the printer where you could watch aa CG 3D live feed if your print, or view it kayer by layer. It also had a graphical view of ask/demand from your mother board to return as far as tracking tenps and such. Pretty neat stuff baxk then Ive had multiple printers from enders to prusa and I have never been as happy as I am now with my X1C.

[@i-muts]

can you release the gcode for that weird benchy? its kinda cool ngl

[@Santibag]

I started using 3D printer slightly before 2020. And I'm so impressed that even I witnessed some slicer improvements live. The last one I had before selling my Ender 3 Pro was variable line widths. I immediately loved it. Because I'm a mechanical engineer and I printed many small detailed parts. Sometimes I designed the complex parts myself. But non-variable line width added some level of uncertainty to the prints. There would be so many very small filling lines that the machine would do many vibration movements. And vibration is not something I like. Especially after I learned that I could use much higher than default accelerations. I just gave Cura changelog a check, and I noticed that they added "heat the nozzle and bed at the same time for Ender 3 Pro" on V5.1, which is crazy good. I couldn't try it myself, but I always felt the need for that. Because of not having that, I would always use preheat profiles of the machine. If I forget the preheat before starting the print, I would either cancel the print during heating, or manually add the missing heating. This change is huge! An exact same time may not be the best for preheat starts. The time between heating starts for the nozzle and the bed can be adjusted for completing the preheat at the same time. But even starting together is great! Cura 5.0 marketplace improvements were also great. Vanilla Cura is good, but I always preferred to have some marketplace plugins. And of course, many of the greatest changes are the behind the scenes improvements. Cura was not difficult to use when I started. But when I took a break from printing for a few months, it was much easier to use when I started printing again.

[@mordantly]

Hey I tried to buy your castle and the other clearance test, but there isn't a way to combine both into one purchase?