Variable layer height, solution for 3D printing smooth surfaces
So, your 3D print shows a little staircase or ladder when printing. What now? Read all about it, right here.
Before we start
Hello there! I started documenting my 3D printing journey some time ago. In the meantime I found out some things you might want to know to. Whether you are a beginner or a super trained souped up veteran, this could be the place for you. Follow and like this article to follow along on my journey!
Introduction
As shown on the picture above you can see the problem some of us could have. It’s simply the layers that want to show a smooth surface, but they don’t.
When you just started with 3D printing, I can see way this can be frustrating. It was for me anyway. You print out this nice model you found online, you expect something nice and smooth, but you receive a model with visibele layer lines at the top most surfaces. However, perhaps we can quickly fix it. It’s called, as you might have guessed, variable layer height.
The solution
So, what is this variable layer height to begin with? Very basic, it modifies your layer height (shocker) to create a smooth surface instead of a ladder layers.
If done right, you can drastically decrease and remove any ladder layers from your print. There are a few things you need to keep in mind though.
The settings
In your slicer you can tweak a few settings. To start out, you need to keep the printed layers between the capability's of your nozzle. Don’t expect a nozzle to print 1cm lines.
Get Axel’s stories in your inbox
Join Medium for free to get updates from this writer.
If you’re slicing things up with the Bambu Lab slicer, you can find the nozzle settings here. However, if you sync the info with your printer or if you haven't changed the settings to begin with, you should be fine.
Now you kinda need to make a chose whether to print smooth or just go for plain printing speed. If you’re reading this, my gut feeling tells me you’re going for smooth printing stead of speed.
Every slicer is different, but I’ll show the settings for Bambu Lab here.
Now, as you can see, once you selected the option shown in the ribbon representing the layer lines, there are a few options presented to you. A slider between quality and speed, a radius slider and clickable buttons being adaptive and smooth.
Now, you can do this full manual mode and spend your day perfecting the layers, or you can let your slicer do the work for you. If you want to do this manually, look to the right of your screen and you’ll see a sort representation of the layer lines of your print. Good luck with the clicking, I will not cover this as this is a tedious proces and I guess most of us will not use this.
Now for the slicer doing all the work.
For starters, go to the slider saying adaptive (so choice between quality and speed slider). Make a choice there whether you prefer quality or speed on your print. Then click the adaptive button. You’ll notice that the bar on the right with all the layer lines, shows a different graph then before. This is the automation setting in, based on your choice.
The smooth slider can be used to, to smooth out the lines. Think of it as a sort of gaussian filter in Photoshop. When the button is clicked next to the slider, changes will appear in the graph as well.
Did al you want to to? Happy with the result? Click the slice plate button and start printing!
Small side note
When using variable layer lines, the organic tree support is not supported.
Wrap-up
So there you have it. You never know when this might come in handy.
Feel like you’re missing out on information? Drop a line, I’ll reply and make a post about it if necessary!
Follow along for the ride and drop a like and follow!
