Calibrating a 3D printer can be a nightmare.
Wouldn’t it be great if instead of having to play around 
with a  million different settings,
you could just print a bunch of stuff, pick the one that 
looks the best and automatically get the right settings?
Well, it turns out you can! I came across a new service 
called 3D Optimizer that tries to do exactly that.
I was actually quite surprised by the results, so let’s see 
how it works.
Just to put the obvious out of the way, this isn’t a 
sponsored video.
The people behind 3D Optimizer didn’t even know that I was 
making this video until the very end.
In fact, since it’s currently still in beta, all of the 
features are free for now,
but I’ve bought a license anyway to support their work.
As I’ve stated in my channel info over 2 years ago,
I’m only doing reviews of things that I’ve purchased with my
 own money.
I feel that’s the only way to avoid any bias and this video 
is no exception.
So, how exactly does it work? The basic idea is both simple 
and ingenious;
it generates a gcode for you with a range of different 
settings,
which you then print out and simply pick the one that looks 
the best.
You start by adding your printer and some basic settings.
Some of the popular printers are already listed, but double 
check the values anyway.
Next step is adding the material information.
I really like this approach, because you can then quickly 
optimize every new filament that you buy,
instead of having to waste time and plastic printing all the
 different torture tests.
And finally, you can select what’s most important to you; 
strength of your prints, how they look or fast printing 
speeds. 
We’ll go with aesthetics for now, but I’ll compare the other
 two later as well.
You’re now presented with a list of different tests, but you
 should start with the first one.
Another great feature is that the tests build-up on each 
other.
As you determine the best printing speed, it saves it for 
later tests.
The first test will determine the best height of your first 
layer and the optimal printing speed.
It assumes that your bed is already properly levelled, so 
make sure it is.
If you’re not sure, I’ve made a bed levelling video a while 
ago that’s quite popular,
so check it out if you want to get near perfect results.
Enter a range of values that make sense for your printer.
All the values in between will automatically be calculated 
for you, so it’s easy to try out different ranges.
You can now generate the first gcode and start printing.
Now simply inspect each part and decide which one looks the 
best.
In this case, we’re testing both first layer height and 
printing speed,
so I want to pick one that’s further down, but still looks 
good enough.
Hmm, I’ll go with this one. Now, remember the exact 
position…
… and then back at the page simply pick the same one.
Once you’ve confirmed your pick, you’ll notice that the next
 test was skipped over.
This is because the second test is optional and only needed 
if you have any gaps between the lines.
As you work through the tests, a few others will be skipped 
as well.
Don’t worry about that and just do them as they’re offered 
to you.
Once you’re finished, you can always go back and do some 
fine-tuning with the remaining tests.
The second test will determine how fast you can print at 
different temperatures.
This one might be a bit harder to decide, but if you’re 
unsure,
just pick what looks good and is within recommended 
temperature range for your filament.
I’ll go with this one, seems to be ok.
Having skipped over quite a few tests, we now come to the 
test that I absolutely love;
the retraction distance test.
I’ve always hated doing retraction tests, but this one is 
perfect,
because it tests different retraction settings in one go and
 it only takes a few minutes.
Scrolling down, you can again see all the values that are 
locked in from the previous tests.
Pick the first one where there’s barely any stringing left.
If you remember from my hotend video…
… too much retraction can lead to blockages,
so the goal is to have as little retraction as possible, 
while still not having excessive stringing.
The final test will determine best bridging settings.
This is probably the hardest one to pick, as you’ll soon 
see.
The bridges are very short and shouldn’t be a problem for 
any printer.
However, that’s not the point of this test; instead, you’re 
trying to determine
which surface is the most even overall, that is,
where there aren’t many gaps and all the lines look about 
the same.
It’s probably easiest if you look at it with a light source 
behind.
Try to pick one where the lines are all equal and where the 
gaps between them are smallest.
Don’t forget that you’re choosing from all the triangles, 
not just the bottom ones.
Once all the tests are done, you’ll get a final report.
Don’t worry though, you won’t have to enter all the values 
manually,
because you can simply download the provided profile for 
your slicer; all three main ones are included.
Before I started this, I’ve created a new default profile 
for my printer and did a test print.
Let’s compare that with the new settings from 3D optimizer.
While the stock settings aren’t bad by any means, the new 
settings are still visibly better.
I’m definitely impressed and all the tests combined only 
took about 10 grams of plastic.
I mentioned at the beginning that you could pick three 
different test goals;
strength, aesthetics and speed. Let’s take a look at the 
differences between them.
I’ve generated new profiles using default settings and I’ve 
picked the same results for each one,
so we can easily compare the differences.
Doing a diff for all three profiles shows that there are 
only
a few changes between them, as you can see here.
I can’t really argue with most of the choices;
sure, printing at 0.25 will be much faster than at 0.1,
which will in turn produce better looking prints.
I don’t agree with all the infill choices though.
When it comes to speed, rectilinear is indeed faster than 
most other infill types;
line infill is slightly faster, but only by a percent or 
two, so no real difference.
It also tends to produce best looking top surfaces, so 
again, a good choice for aesthetics.
The issue I have though is with the concentric when it comes
 to strength.
Concentric is the strongest only with 100% infill.
In this case however, the infill is set to 20%, at which 
point it becomes basically useless
when it comes to horizontal load.
Since it’s not offering any support to the side walls, you 
might as well print the object hollow.
A much better choice would be either honeycomb or gyroid 
infill, since those two are the strongest for general use.
Of course, keep in mind that this is still in beta, so some 
issues are to be expected.
Speaking of which, I actually found the first bug right 
away, but it only affected Prusa printers.
Because of the different way that Prusa executes bed 
levelling command,
running any test meant that the bed levelling would trigger 
twice before the test
and twice again after the print.
The levelling after the print was really troublesome, 
because as the printed object was still on the bed,
the hotend could easily have hit it and potentially damage 
something.
I’ve e-mailed the developers and they responded back within 
a day and by now,
two weeks later, the bug has already been fixed.
The second thing isn’t an issue but more of a request; while
 I love the current retraction test,
I’d be thrilled to see more options like wipe and coasting 
settings.
It would also be great if the final profiles would be more 
fine-tuned for each slicer. 
For example, Simplify3D has the best support for thin-walls,
 while PrusaSlicer offers the gyroid infill,
which isn’t available in the other two. 
Overall though, I really like the idea behind this project.
As far as I know, nothing’s been done like this before, 
where it guides you through different settings
and you get to pick the best one. With traditional torture 
tests,
you have to juggle between tons of settings at the same 
time, while here, you’re only focusing on one or two.
Sure, KISS slicer has the tuning wizard, but it doesn’t test
 for as many settings
and it’s much more involved. It is free though, so I can’t 
complain.
In the end, 3D Optimizer is definitely not perfect, but I 
see it as a huge potential once it gets developed further.
Even in its current state, it really does help, especially 
with tricky settings like retraction and bridging.
And with that, have fun and I’ll see you soon.
