New to 3D Printing

[DustynTheWind]

As the title says, I'm rather new at 3D printing. I've printed several things both big and small. Some prints I've had complications with and other not a single problem. Right now I'm using UltiMaker Cura and I've been using the "normal" suggested printer settings. I feel like that set up just takes way too long. The ODST helmet I printed took 5+ days to print and I have others tell me they have theirs done in 1-2 days.

So I'm asking what your printer settings are (if you use UltiMaker) for a fast/detailed build?? Or if you can send me to the right thread. All help is greatly appreciated!
*If it helps I'm currently printing on an Elegoo Neptune 3 Plus and using PLA+*

I also apologize in advance because I'm also rather new to this page. Slowly figuring things out as I go.

 

[spartan114x]

It depends on the quality you want. Some people want speed, some let the machine do more work to reduce the manual labor of filling and sanding. Hopefully 5+ days got you a high quality print. What are the settings you’re using right now? Number of perimeters, infill percentage, supports, etc?

You can also adjust speed settings. For my Prusa mk3s I usually do two walls and 10% infill at 0.2mm layer height. Smaller layers take more time but the lines are closer together and thinner so in theory there is less filling and sanding work needed. I also slow my external perimeters down to 18mm/s. I’ve printed 21 days worth of machine time in the last four weeks from being completely new before that so this is my own experience. There are a ton of seasoned vets here though!

 

[pinoyfiasco]

As the title says, I'm rather new at 3D printing. I've printed several things both big and small. Some prints I've had complications with and other not a single problem. Right now I'm using UltiMaker Cura and I've been using the "normal" suggested printer settings. I feel like that set up just takes way too long. The ODST helmet I printed took 5+ days to print and I have others tell me they have theirs done in 1-2 days.

So I'm asking what your printer settings are (if you use UltiMaker) for a fast/detailed build?? Or if you can send me to the right thread. All help is greatly appreciated!
*If it helps I'm currently printing on an Elegoo Neptune 3 Plus and using PLA+*

I also apologize in advance because I'm also rather new to this page. Slowly figuring things out as I go.

Sharing your current settings would help, like your speed, layer height, perimeter/wall count, infill percentage, supports, et cetera. How you're orienting the part on the build plate can also affect the print time and the amount of supports you use. Are you using a built in Cura profile for the Neptune 3 Plus?

However, 5 days isn't out of the ordinary. My Morrigan helmet is coming up on four days total on my Ender 3v3. I'm doing 5 walls, .016 layer height, 10% gyroid infill, organic supports, 150mm/s - 300mm/s. My Commando helmet took almost six days on my Kobra Max. It's not hard to imagine that if you attempted to print the entire helmet all at once that you'd see similarly long build times, even if your printer's capable of higher speeds.

 

[Aura091]

Was the helmet done in 1 piece, or multiple that you've assembled together? Doing it all separately will probably cause there to be some downtime between the prints, and can definitely drive up the timing compared to others that might have faster settings and can take advantage of a continuous print. I'm not terribly familiar with the Ultimaker Cura though. On another note, how did the helmet come out, and how's the weight?

 

[Opherox]

You could change the infill pattern to triangular, its one of the faster patterns to print, and it doesn't make you loose heavily on mechanical strength (although it does make you loose some). There is a setting on prusaslicer that also helps to speed up big prints, it basically merges infill layers, so that if the extruder permits it, for example, with a 0.4 mm nozzle at 0.16 mm layers, instead of 0.16 mm infill layer, it will print 0.32 mm layers (or more if your extruder is bigger, basically multiples of your chosen layer size). You could also increase the printing speed for internal fill and walls, but maintain the external perimeters speed so that visual quality is not harmed. Additionally, you could change your nozzle to a bigger one, like 1.0 mm, and print with a bigger layer size.

Buying good quality filament is also important, as a good filament is usually easier to print with good results, so it permits you to increase the speed a bit.

Overall, Id say that you shouldn't pay too much attention to the time part, 5 days is ok for a helmet using fdm printing. Resin is much faster for big prints, but printers are smaller so you usually cant print one piece helmets there. Print quality saves you tons of hours of manually perfecting the whole thing, the machine´s time isn't worth as much as yours.