About this 3D model

TLDR: This post is quite long and detailed because it involves the findings from hundreds of experiments. If you're just looking to try the best settings, download TestSuite_OrcaSlicerOnly_V6.3MF , make sure to set your own filament profile and note the per-object settings that are used along with the global settings. This plate was tuned against Prusament Simply Green PLA. 3x Test objects are printed for 2 sets of optimized settings and a reference “traditional seam” set (for my Bambu X1C). One set of settings is Arachne for general use, the other set is newer and is optimized on curved overhangs, which are quite challenging, it may also work well for general use. For details and to optimize for your printer, read below! Updates: 2/29/24 PM : New best settings! Excel sheet and test suite updated to v2. Using extrusion rate smoothing now helps a little bit more with quality. I think I'm finally done optimizing. 3/1/24 : Youtube Video featuring this is now up: 3/8/24 : Significantly reworked this post. Updated Binary build files to latest main branch build. Added new whole section on learnings about overhangs from the test pot model. Retired old test plate and introduced a new best starting settings test plate. 3/12/24 : Removed builds, please use Orca 2.0 Beta or newer now , which has this feature. ----------------------- Scarf seams are a cutting edge feature in Orcaslicer that allow you to do amazing things, primarily enable hiding of seams on curved surfaces, which has always been a difficult problem with FDM 3D printing. This guide is intended to show you how to use the feature and get better prints. If you enjoy my hard work, please download + like my model, it makes me smile ! Scarf Seams - Overview The basic idea with scarf seams is that they work by "ramping the seam" over itself, which results in a printed wall that prints on top of itself like this: Because this is like wrapping a scarf over itself and is also like the common scarf woodworking joint, we call this a “scarf seam”. What are the pros? Scarf seams solve a hard problem in 3D printing of hiding the seam, particularly for prints where the seam must lie on a curved surface . This is actually incredibly common, as inside round holes or external curved surfaces are present in a large number of prints. Scarf seams can also work well on flat surfaces, but in some cases traditional seams may be a better option. What are the Requirements / Gotchas ? Scarf seams can be good for many prints, but particularly in the cases of sharp corners it may be better to use a traditional seam. Scarf seams do have some requirements for use to get good results. Extensive optimization has been done to find good general settings and another set of settings in particular that may work better for overhangs. The general principals are: Use of a slower outer wall speed is particularly important to get good results without wall distortions. How important this is may vary by printer's ability to precisely control extrusions at very low flow. Going too slow can be bad too, as it causes localized heating issues. Optimal speeds are generally in the range 50-100 mm/sec for the scarf speed. My suggested settings use 75 or 100 mm/sec. Use of a wider outer wall helps decrease extrusion rate error. For a 0.4 nozzle, I recommend 0.6 outer walls. Use of a higher layer height than 0.2 may be helpful, again, because it reduces extrusion rate error. In some cases, however, it can hurt. My settings are optimized on the common 0.2 mm height. Use of inner/outer/inner is the recommended wall order. Outer/inner appears to provide worse results, as does inner/outer. This means that overhang performance may suffer, but this is challenging in general with scarf seams (see considerations below). Use of extrusion rate smoothing can help edge out just a little more quality on my Bambu X1C printer. I set mine to 300mm^3/s^2 and this got me the best settings. Non X1/P1 printers may need other settings.. read the mouse-hover tooltip in OrcaSlicer for an idea of what to use for your printer. Toggling certain features make things ugly. Do not use the following : Using "Wipe on loops" or “Wipe on external loops” make things bad. Combination of (Retract on layer change off + Wipe while retracting off) also no good. Overhangs optimization / additional considerations. If possible, it is recommended to paint a scarf seam away from an overhang on a model. However if it is not possible to do so, then there are some things you can do (see bullets below). Certain overhangs can be a challenge with scarf seams, and it seems to depend on geometry strongly. I have designed and tested a difficult “pot” model to optimize overhangs, and have run an additional 80+ tests on this to try and find good values. Here's what I learned from this mess of little pots: Curved overhangs are particularly sensitive to both the number of inner walls , their width and their print order . It's important to note that changing certai