I Switched 3D Printing Slicers & You Should Too

After years of faithfully using PrusaSlicer for all my 3D printing needs, I made the switch to a little known Orca Slicer.

In this video I'm going to share why, and why you too might want to consider making the jump.

🎥 IN THIS VIDEO: 🎥
00:00 Introduction
00:25 What Is Orca Slicer?
01:30 Reason No. 1: Compatibility With More 3D Printers
02:21 Reason No. 2: One App For Everything
03:17 Reason No. 3: User Interface Improvements
04:38 Reason No. 4: Built-In Calibration Tests
05:04 Reason No. 5: More Granular Settings
05:40 Reason No. 6: For Users By Users

🛒 RECOMMENDED GEAR: 🛒

🔗 OTHER LINKS 🔗

❤️ LOVED THIS VIDEO? ❤️
▶️ Subscribe to the channel
🔔 Turn on Notifications
🎁 Send a “Super Thanks” (Tip)
✍️ Write a comment below!
👍🏿 Like this video

#3dprinting #3dprinted #3dprinter

[dtyra]

I have used both SuperSlicer and OrcaSlicer, and am now using the beta version of PrusaSlicer 2.6 for all the new features, including organic supports. Both SuperSlicer and OrcaSlicer benefit from all the development work done by the Prusa software team. They are also each maintained and updated by a single person. In the case of SuperSlicer, updates have slowed down. Just remember if you invest in converting your profiles and workflow to forks that don't have the stability of a company like Prusa backing them, you are depending on a single person for maintenance, updating, and bug fixes.

[kmartyCZ]

"Calibration tests nobody did before"... Superslicer: "Am I joke to you?"

[ManicMate]

Only reason I use SuperSlicer over PrusaSlicer is because of SuperSlicers built in calibrations (which is where Orca must have gained the inspiration from). Definitely keen to give Orca a try!

[trekgod]

If you have an Ender series printer, Cura along with CHEP's extra fast profile is a game changer. It cuts printing time in half with little loss of quality

[bongi]

My current favourite slicer is SuperSlicer. It has many of the features of Orca slicer, like the calibration prints, while still having a the user interface structured like prusa slicer which I personally prefer over the layout in Cura or Orca slicer.

[justinchamberlin]

Two thoughts on OrcaSlicer:

1) I tried OrcaSlicer a tiny bit and came away unimpressed. Scenario: I'm at work, looking to slice a few files to print at home because I want to add some custom text and it's frankly easier to do it here than it is in Tinkercad. I configure the slicer for my Ender 3, edit a few of the default settings to account for my mods/upgrades, slap some text on my design, and notice that a brim is enabled by default. Strange, but it seems easy enough to just go with a skirt like normal...and then my print had both a skirt and a brim. Rather than struggle to get the slicer to do one of the more basic things in 3D printing, I just sucked it up and added text in Tinkercad.

2) There is a downside to a slicer fork being maintained by one person, and we're seeing that in real time with SuperSlicer: when the person driving the bus gives up for one reason or another, that's it...the project is dead. If SoftFever gets hit by a bus tomorrow, who takes over? Major development in SuperSlicer seems to have died out last September, with only one beta release since then and little to no updating going on with issues or pull requests since April. I'm now glad I dragged my feet on getting set up in SuperSlicer, and because of that experience I'd rather stick with trusty Cura than go down the "lone developer" route again.

[BoostFiend_Bud]

I guess you've convinced me to give it a try. I've spent my 4+ years printing all on PrusaSlicer and the largest inconvenience was learning how to set up any calibration test prints. The positive of course being that I was forced to learn more about G-code and how my printer "thinks" but I love the pre-designed ability for those newer to printing who could most use the fine-tuning a full calibration suite can give you.

[BogdanKecman]

Just a small correction. This is NOT the first slicer that came with calibration scripts/parts in it. If you remember first beta of netfabb slicer and later on nefabb studio slicer it came with calibration objects for acceleration, for speed, for flow rate... they used the set of triangles, squares and arc's and procedures to follow to properly calibrate slicer settings using them :) .. this was almost 15 years ago :D ... they also had some ingenious idea for raft that sits on "blobs" that would allow printing on very uneven bed and very easy release of the raft from the bed (not important today with modern beds but if you remember we used acrylic beds without heaters back then)

[DifferentAverage]

Switched to OrcaSlicer a few weeks ago and haven’t looked back. Bambu studio used to crash a lot on Mac but Orca is much more stable. Calibration test, custom nozzle size setting (for aftermarket hotends) and more advanced controls makes it the best slicer for a bambu lab printer, especially the P1P

[faasteercz]

I only recently switched to Orca Slicer. But I really like it. 👍 I used to use the CURA slicer because I have a modified Ender S1 Pro with Klipper. But since I have ordered and am waiting for delivery of the new BambuLab P1S with AMS. I wanted to try what it would be like to work with their slicer (or its equivalent).

And I have to say, working with this slicer is very pleasant. It allows all the important settings, but the user doesn't have to be a rocket scientist to use it. 🤣 Most importantly, after calibration, my prints are better quality and also faster than on a similarly tuned profile that I used in the CURA slicer.

Of course, the unification of slicer and printer control is very nice. But I consider it "something extra". I didn't mind operating the printer in a web browser and having the slicer next to it in a window. On the contrary, sometimes I happen to forget and look for the slicer window. While I'm already in it, but on the Klipper control tab. 🙄

And of course, I read somewhere that the whole project rests on the shoulders of one man. I'm a little worried about that. It wouldn't be the first time such a strategy has failed. On the other hand, I learned the controls in less than an hour, and the calibration for all the materials I use took about a day. So I'm willing to risk it and I'll hope nothing bad happens.

I'm not saying Orca or Cura is better. But my experience made me change my primary slicer. And I would encourage everyone to at least try it and make up their own mind. 😎

[TheZombieSaints]

Yes I too have switched to orca, best thing I ever did! Even if you just use the calibration tools, my prints have never looked so good.

[Rob_]

I don't know ... I think I prefer the PrusaSlicer layout, maybe because I am used to this since a long time now.
Bambu Studio is based on PrusaSlicer but removed some "unused" features like support for multiple extruders. That means that, currently, OrcaSlicer does not support multiple extruders and that is kind of a show stopper for me since I just built a custom Jubilee3D tool changer printer that I need to configure.

[StarkRG]

As a SuperSlicer user, I'm definitely going to have to give Orca a try. It sounds like it's got the same or similar level of functionality so it'll be interesting to see it implemented differently.

[Logan]

After years of My Trusty(And Highly modded)CR10… I Finally picked up a Core xy…
Figure it’s Time to give Orca a shot as well… Thanks for taking the time to the Document.
🤙🏻

[SlowRkers]

i've never been able to properly print Chainmails on my Sidewinder X1 n 2 using Cura as i found it hard to calibrate my printer there. After moving to Orca, using its inbuild calibration tools and a few prints later i managed to dial in the perfect settings for my printer and now i'm able to print super clean prints including chainmails which i could never do using Cura. Love Orca slicer. ^^

[Hunihunor]

I was waiting for this video so much. Finally can watch it 🤩

[johnnyrocko]

Yes !
Welcome to Orca
Hopefully you are using 1.6.3 as it's out of beta
Precise Walls works well with Arachne and will speed things up a bit
Also I suggest the combine infill option, reduce infill/wall overlap from 15% to -5% and don't use grid infill
My go-to infill is Gyroid for 90% of my prints

[-OG]

There are 2 things I miss inn Orca. The first thing is the possibility of having line width as a percentage of the nozzle size, the second is having a way to save PA values as a function of nozzle size. Both of these can be done in Superslicer, and they're the things holding me back from making the jump. There is also some issues regarding having speeds set as a percentage of a base speed variable set in filament properties, but I haven't explored that part yet...

[mikepeterson]

I am going to check it out today. Cheers to you from Chigwell, Alberta, Canada

[nicholascrutchfield]

including instructions on how to download Orca or a link to the webpage would have been time saving and beneficial!