Complete Slicer Settings Guide

Layers & resolution

This group decides how your print is sliced vertically and how thick each extruded line is. It has the largest single effect on both quality and print time.

Layer height

Cura: Layer Height · PrusaSlicer: Layer height · OrcaSlicer: Layer height

The thickness of each horizontal slice, and the single most impactful quality setting. Halving it roughly doubles print time. It mostly affects curved and sloped surfaces; vertical walls look nearly the same at any layer height.

Rule of thumb: stay between 25 % and 75 % of nozzle diameter. With a 0.4 mm nozzle that is 0.1–0.3 mm. Below 25 % the nozzle tip drags in the previous layer; above 75 % layers do not bond properly and you get layer separation.

Initial layer height

Cura: Initial Layer Height · PrusaSlicer: First layer height · OrcaSlicer: Initial layer height

The very first layer, set independently of the rest. A thicker first layer (0.2–0.3 mm even when printing at 0.12 mm) forgives an imperfect bed: more material means small level errors get squashed out instead of turning into gaps. Almost every profile uses 0.2 mm regardless of what follows.

Adaptive / variable layer height

Cura: Adaptive Layers · PrusaSlicer: Variable layer height (tool) · OrcaSlicer: Adaptive layer height

The slicer uses thin layers on shallow slopes and thick layers on vertical sections, so you pay for resolution only where it shows. On a model that is half vertical, half domed, this can cut 30–40 % of the time versus slicing everything fine. PrusaSlicer lets you paint the layer height distribution by hand, which is the more predictable version of the same idea.

Skip it on mechanical parts where a constant layer height keeps dimensions predictable.

Wall generator: classic vs Arachne

Cura: Wall Transitioning / Arachne engine · PrusaSlicer: Perimeter generator (Classic / Arachne) · OrcaSlicer: Wall generator

The classic generator only prints lines at one fixed width, so a wall 0.55 mm thick either becomes one 0.4 mm line with a 0.15 mm gap, or gets skipped. Arachne varies line width continuously to fill the exact space available. It is the default in current Cura, PrusaSlicer and OrcaSlicer, and it is a clear improvement on models with thin features, embossed text or tapered walls. Keep it on unless you are chasing a very specific dimensional behaviour.

Line widths

Line width — extrusion width — is how wide each deposited bead is. It is the second biggest lever after layer height, and the one people leave alone the longest, usually because slicers hide a dozen of these fields in different places.

The nozzle is not a stencil. A 0.4 mm nozzle can lay a 0.3 mm line or a 0.7 mm one: the plastic leaves the tip round and is then flattened to the layer height, so it spreads sideways by an amount you control. The usable range is roughly 60 % to 200 % of nozzle diameter. Below that the bead does not touch its neighbours; above it, the nozzle can no longer press the material into shape and corners round off.

Default (generic) line width

Cura: Line Width · PrusaSlicer: Default extrusion width · OrcaSlicer: Default line width

The base value every other width inherits from. In PrusaSlicer and OrcaSlicer, leaving a per-feature field at 0 means "use the default", and leaving the default itself at 0 means "derive it from the nozzle diameter" — which is why changing your nozzle can silently change every width in the profile.

Set it to 100–120 % of nozzle diameter: 0.42–0.45 mm on a 0.4 mm nozzle. Slightly wider than the nozzle is the standard choice for a reason — the extra material is squeezed sideways into the neighbouring bead, which closes the tiny voids between lines and gives measurably stronger, more watertight walls.

First layer line width

Cura: Initial Layer Line Width (% of default) · PrusaSlicer: First layer extrusion width · OrcaSlicer: Initial layer line width

110–125 % (0.44–0.50 mm on a 0.4 nozzle). More material on the first layer means more squish against the plate, better wetting, and small level errors filled instead of left as gaps. It is one of the cheapest adhesion improvements available. Push it too far and you get the extra material squeezing out sideways as elephant foot.

Outer wall line width

Cura: Outer Wall Line Width · PrusaSlicer: External perimeters extrusion width · OrcaSlicer: Outer wall line width

The width that decides how much detail survives. Narrower is sharper: 0.38–0.40 mm on a 0.4 nozzle resolves embossed text, fine edges and tight corners noticeably better than 0.45 mm, because a narrow bead can follow a tighter radius.

Two limits. Very narrow lines at high speed ask the extruder for a very small, very precise flow, which is exactly where inconsistent extrusion shows up — drop the outer wall speed if you narrow it a lot. And narrowing the outer wall while the inner walls stay wide changes your total shell thickness, so check that the part still measures right.

Inner wall line width

Cura: Wall Line Width · PrusaSlicer: Perimeters extrusion width · OrcaSlicer: Inner wall line width

Free time. Nobody sees the inner walls, so widening them to 0.45–0.50 mm covers the same shell thickness with fewer passes. On a 4-wall part this is a real saving with no visual cost, and the shell ends up marginally stronger because there are fewer line-to-line interfaces.

The catch is small features: wide inner walls cannot fit into thin ribs or narrow bosses, and Arachne will start dropping or thinning them. If a part has fine internal detail, keep inner walls at default.

Top and bottom surface line width

Cura: Top/Bottom Line Width · PrusaSlicer: Solid infill / Top solid infill extrusion width · OrcaSlicer: Top surface line width

Narrow lines close a surface better — more beads means more chances to fill the last sliver of gap, and each bead is pressed harder into its neighbour. 0.40 mm or slightly below on a 0.4 nozzle. Combined with a monotonic pattern, this is most of what separates a clean top face from a patchy one.

The bottom surface above layer 1 rarely needs its own value; the first layer setting already covers what matters.

Infill line width

Cura: Infill Line Width · PrusaSlicer: Infill / Solid infill extrusion width · OrcaSlicer: Sparse infill / Internal solid infill line width

Sparse infill is invisible and structural, so widen it: 0.45–0.60 mm, sometimes more. Wider lines mean fewer of them for the same density, which is a genuine time saving on big parts.

This is where the flow ceiling bites. A 0.6 mm line at 0.2 mm layer height and 300 mm/s asks for 36 mm³/s — far beyond what most hotends melt. The slicer will silently slow down to respect max volumetric flow, and your "faster" infill runs at the same real speed as before. Widen infill lines or raise infill speed, not both.

Solid infill (the layers under the top skin) can sit at 0.45 mm. Do not go much wider: over-wide solid infill telegraphs its ridges up through the remaining top layers.

Support line width

Cura: Support Line Width · PrusaSlicer: Support material extrusion width · OrcaSlicer: Support line width

The most useful line-width setting nobody touches, and the answer to "my supports are welded to the part". Set it narrower than default — 0.32–0.38 mm on a 0.4 nozzle.

Thin support lines are deliberately weak. They have less contact area with the part above and less strength in themselves, so the support snaps off cleanly instead of tearing chunks out of the surface. You also use noticeably less filament on the part of the print you are going to throw away. If supports currently fuse to your part, narrowing this is often more effective than increasing the Z distance, because it does not cost you surface quality.

Support interface line width

Cura: Support Interface Line Width · PrusaSlicer: (follows support extrusion width) · OrcaSlicer: Support interface line width

The dense layers touching the part. Keep at or slightly below default — the interface density and spacing matter much more here. If interfaces leave a rough, welded-on finish, narrow this before you widen the Z gap; a narrow interface line gives a smoother contact surface and still releases.

Skirt, brim and prime tower

Skirt and brim normally inherit the first-layer width, which is what you want: a wide brim line sticks harder and peels off in one piece, while a narrow one tears into fragments. If your brim keeps shredding on removal, widen it rather than shrinking it.

The prime/wipe tower line width is usually left at default. Widen it (0.5–0.6 mm) if the tower keeps toppling on tall multi-colour prints — thicker walls make it considerably more stable.

Reference table

Starting values for a 0.4 mm nozzle. Scale proportionally for other nozzles — everything here is really a percentage of nozzle diameter.

Width, height and flow — the rule behind all of it

One bead's cross-section is line width × layer height, and multiplied by speed that is your flow in mm³/s. So every millimetre of extra width is spent directly out of the flow budget your hotend can deliver.

That gives a simple policy, and it is the whole section in one line: widen where it removes passes, narrow where it buys quality or removability. Wide on inner walls and sparse infill. Narrow on outer walls, top surfaces and supports. Default everywhere else.

Walls & shell

Walls (perimeters) are the outlines printed on each layer. They carry most of a part's real-world strength and all of its visible finish.

Wall count (perimeters)

Cura: Wall Line Count · PrusaSlicer: Perimeters · OrcaSlicer: Wall loops

The number of concentric outlines. More walls means a stronger part far more efficiently than more infill — a wall is continuous material running along the load path.

Beyond 5 walls the returns flatten out and small holes start closing up. If a part keeps breaking, add a wall before you add infill.

Wall order

Cura: Outer Before Inner Walls · PrusaSlicer: External perimeters first · OrcaSlicer: Wall printing order

Inner then outer (default) gives the outer wall something to lean on, which produces better dimensional accuracy and cleaner overhangs. Outer first prints the visible wall directly onto empty air, which can look slightly sharper but is more fragile on overhangs. OrcaSlicer adds inner–outer–inner, which is generally the best surface finish on modern printers at the cost of a little time.

Outer wall speed

The visible wall benefits from being printed slower than everything else — less vibration, more consistent extrusion. A common split: inner walls 150–200 mm/s, outer wall 60–120 mm/s on a modern CoreXY; 60–80 and 25–40 mm/s on an older bed slinger. See speed for the full picture.

Thin wall handling

Cura: Print Thin Walls · PrusaSlicer: Detect thin walls · OrcaSlicer: Detect thin wall

Prints features narrower than one line width by laying a single thinned bead. Useful for fins, lettering and lattice models. It can produce inconsistent extrusion, and with Arachne enabled it is largely redundant — Arachne already handles narrow geometry properly.

XY size compensation

Cura: Horizontal Expansion / Hole Horizontal Expansion · PrusaSlicer: XY size compensation · OrcaSlicer: X-Y contour and hole compensation

Shrinks or grows every contour by a fixed amount to correct systematic dimensional error. FDM printers typically make holes slightly undersized because the plastic pulls inward as it cools; a hole compensation of +0.05 to +0.15 mm often makes press-fits and screw holes land correctly. Measure a calibration cube before changing this — it is a correction, not a quality setting.

Seam position

Cura: Z Seam Alignment · PrusaSlicer: Seam position · OrcaSlicer: Seam position

Each layer's loop has to start and stop somewhere, and that join is visible as a vertical line of small blobs.

Scarf joint seam (OrcaSlicer, and increasingly elsewhere) ramps the Z height at the join so the layer start and end overlap gradually instead of butting together. It genuinely makes the seam almost invisible on smooth curved models, and it is the biggest recent improvement in this area. It slightly increases print time and is not useful on models where the seam already sits in a corner.

Top & bottom surfaces

Top and bottom layer count

Cura: Top Layers / Bottom Layers · PrusaSlicer: Solid layers top / bottom · OrcaSlicer: Top shell layers / Bottom shell layers

How many fully solid layers close the print off. Too few on top and the infill shows through as a bumpy, holey surface — pillowing.

Minimum: 4–5 top layers, 3–4 bottom. Think in millimetres, not layers: 5 layers at 0.2 mm is a 1 mm skin, but 5 layers at 0.08 mm is only 0.4 mm and will not close. If you lower the layer height, raise the layer count. Most slicers also expose a minimum shell thickness (Cura: Top/Bottom Thickness, OrcaSlicer: Top/Bottom shell thickness) which does that maths for you — set it to 0.8–1.0 mm and let the slicer pick the count.

Top / bottom pattern

Lines is fast and fine. Concentric follows the outline, which suits round parts and flexibles. Monotonic forces every line to be laid in the same direction so each new bead is pressed against the previous one, which removes the patchy look on top surfaces. Monotonic is the best default anywhere it is offered, at essentially no time cost.

Ironing

Cura: Enable Ironing · PrusaSlicer: Ironing · OrcaSlicer: Ironing type

After finishing a top surface, the nozzle sweeps over it again with almost no extrusion, melting the ridges flat. Three sub-settings matter: flow (8–15 % — more than that leaves a rough film), line spacing (0.1–0.15 mm) and speed (15–30 mm/s). It gives a noticeably smoother, slightly glossy top face.

It adds real time on large flat tops, and it does nothing for the sides. Use it on visual parts with a big flat top; skip it on functional parts. Ironing PETG tends to smear rather than smooth.

Single-wall top surface

OrcaSlicer: Only one wall on top surfaces · Cura: (via Top Surface Skin settings)

Prints only one perimeter on the topmost layer so that the solid infill covers more area, removing the visible ring where the top skin meets the walls. Small setting, clearly better top faces on flat parts.

Infill

Infill density

Cura: Infill Density · PrusaSlicer: Fill density · OrcaSlicer: Sparse infill density

The percentage of the interior filled with material. It is the setting people over-tune the most.

Above roughly 50 %, more infill is the wrong lever. You are adding weight, time and warping stress for very little extra strength. Add walls instead: two extra perimeters beat 20 extra points of infill on almost every load case, for less material. 100 % infill is rarely worth it — it traps stress, and over-extrudes unless flow is calibrated.

Infill pattern

If you never want to think about it: grid at 15 % for display parts, gyroid or cubic at 25–40 % for anything that has a job to do.

Infill direction and anchoring

The infill angle (default 45°) rotates the pattern; alternating it per layer is automatic in most slicers. Infill overlap (Cura: Infill Overlap Percentage · PrusaSlicer: Infill/perimeter overlap) controls how far infill lines push into the inner wall — 10–25 % is normal. Too little leaves a weak seam between shell and infill; too much shows as bumps telegraphing through the outer wall.

Infill anchor length (PrusaSlicer: Length of the infill anchor · OrcaSlicer: Sparse infill anchor length) makes each infill line run along the wall for a few millimetres before turning off, so it is properly welded to the shell rather than just touching it. 2–12 mm; leave the default unless infill is visibly detaching.

Infill / wall order

Printing infill before walls (the default in most slicers) means the walls are laid against a solid backing. Printing walls first can improve outer surface quality on some machines. Minor setting — worth trying if you see infill ghosting through the surface.

Solid infill every N layers

Cura: (via Infill Support) · PrusaSlicer: Solid infill every <n> layers · OrcaSlicer: Solid infill every N layers

Inserts a fully solid layer at a fixed interval through the part. It adds stiffness and gives sparse infill something to build on. Rarely needed, genuinely useful on tall thin-walled parts.

Bridge and internal bridge settings

Where solid top skin has to span over sparse infill, the slicer treats it as a bridge: reduced flow, higher fan, dedicated speed. OrcaSlicer's internal bridge handling — printing an extra bridging layer over the infill before the top skin — is one of the more effective quality settings for flat top surfaces at low infill density.

Temperature

Nozzle temperature

Too cold gives under-extrusion, weak layer bonding and clicking from the extruder. Too hot gives stringing, oozing, drooping overhangs and heat creep clogs. Start with the range printed on the spool — the differences between brands of the same material are real.

Faster printing needs more heat: at 300 mm/s the filament spends far less time in the melt zone than at 60 mm/s, so a profile tuned at low speed will under-extrude when you speed it up. Add 10–15 °C when you significantly raise flow.

First layer temperature

Most profiles print the first layer 5–10 °C hotter at the nozzle and often hotter at the bed. It improves wetting onto the plate. If you see elephant foot, lowering the first-layer bed temperature by 5 °C is one of the cleanest fixes.

Chamber temperature

On enclosed machines, an actively or passively warm chamber keeps the whole part near its glass transition so it shrinks evenly. This is what stops ABS, ASA, PC and nylon from warping and splitting. Conversely, PLA in a hot chamber softens and jams — vent the enclosure for PLA.

Temperature tower

The calibration print for this section: a tower whose temperature drops every few layers, so you can compare stringing, overhang quality and layer bonding at each step and pick the best. Most slicers can generate one, and OrcaSlicer has it built into its calibration menu. Do this once per new filament brand.

Speed & acceleration

Speed settings are where "fast printer" claims live, but the real ceiling is almost never the speed number — it is flow (see below) and the machine's rigidity.

Per-feature speeds

Every slicer derives most speeds from a base value. Typical starting points:

Fast travel reduces the time the nozzle spends dripping between islands, so it directly reduces stringing.

Acceleration

How hard the printhead ramps up and down. This, not top speed, is what determines the real duration of a print full of short moves — and it is the main cause of ghosting/ringing.

500–1 500 mm/s² on a machine without input shaping; 5 000–20 000 mm/s² with it. Most slicers let you set it per feature: keep outer-wall acceleration low (2 000–5 000) even when infill runs high — the eye only sees the outer wall.

Jerk / junction deviation / square corner velocity

The same idea under three names: how much speed the printer keeps through a corner instead of decelerating to a stop. Marlin classic uses Jerk (8–12 mm/s), Marlin 2 uses Junction Deviation (0.01–0.05 mm), Klipper uses square_corner_velocity (5 mm/s default). Raising it makes prints faster and corners rounder; lowering it is the second fix for ringing after acceleration.

Maximum volumetric flow rate

PrusaSlicer / OrcaSlicer: Max volumetric speed (filament setting) · Cura: (indirect, via speed limits)

This is the setting that actually caps your print speed, and the one most people never touch. It is measured in mm³/s and describes how much molten plastic the hotend can deliver:

flow (mm³/s) = layer height × line width × speed

At 0.2 mm × 0.45 mm × 300 mm/s you are asking for 27 mm³/s. A stock volcano-less hotend does 8–12 mm³/s with PLA; a modern high-flow hotend does 20–35 mm³/s. Ask for more than the hotend can melt and you get under-extrusion no matter what the speed field says. Set a realistic max volumetric speed per filament and the slicer will automatically slow down wherever needed — this is the correct way to speed-limit a profile.

Flow & extrusion

Flow settings decide how much plastic actually arrives, and when. They are less glamorous than speed and matter more.

Flow rate / extrusion multiplier

Cura: Flow · PrusaSlicer: Extrusion multiplier · OrcaSlicer: Flow ratio

A global scaling factor on how much filament is pushed. 1.0 (or 100 %) means the slicer's calculation is trusted exactly. Too high shows as bulging walls, rough top surfaces and blobs — over-extrusion. Too low leaves gaps between lines and weak parts.

Calibrate it rather than guessing: print a single-wall cube in vase mode, measure the wall with calipers in several places, and scale flow by target ÷ measured. Expect 0.94–1.02 for most filaments. Do this per material type, not per colour.

Pressure advance / linear advance

Klipper: pressure_advance · Marlin: Linear Advance (K-factor) · OrcaSlicer: Pressure advance (filament) · Bambu: automatic

Molten plastic in the nozzle is compressible, so when the head decelerates the pressure keeps pushing plastic out, and when it accelerates the flow lags behind. The result is blobs at corners and thin lines after them. Pressure advance predicts this and adjusts the extruder ahead of the move.

It is the single biggest quality improvement available on most printers — sharper corners, consistent line width, far fewer seam zits. Typical values: 0.02–0.06 for direct drive, 0.4–0.9 for Bowden (Klipper units). It must be calibrated per filament type; a pattern or tower test takes ten minutes.

Coasting

Cura: Enable Coasting · PrusaSlicer: (n/a) · OrcaSlicer: (n/a)

Stops extruding shortly before the end of a line and lets residual nozzle pressure finish it. Reduces blobs at line ends on machines without pressure advance. Typical volume 0.05–0.2 mm³. Only reach for it if pressure advance is unavailable.

Wipe

Cura: (via nozzle wipe) · PrusaSlicer: Wipe while retracting · OrcaSlicer: Wipe on loops / Wipe distance

Moves the nozzle back along the just-printed line while retracting, so leftover pressure is deposited on the existing bead instead of forming a blob at the seam. Cheap and effective — 1–2 mm of wipe distance visibly cleans up seams.

Retract restart / extra prime

Cura: Extra Prime Amount · PrusaSlicer: Extra length on restart · OrcaSlicer: Extra length on restart

Adds a small extra push after a retraction to compensate for plastic that oozed out during travel. Usually 0. Add 0.05–0.2 mm only if you consistently see a thin, starved start to lines after travel moves — too much causes blobs everywhere.

Retraction & travel

Retraction distance

How far the filament is pulled back before a travel move — the primary defence against stringing.

More is not better. Excessive retraction pulls softened filament up into the cold zone where it swells and jams — a common cause of a clogged nozzle partway through a long print. Find the minimum that stops stringing with a retraction tower.

Retraction and deretraction speed

25–45 mm/s covers most setups. Too fast grinds a flat spot into the filament (you will hear the extruder skip); too slow does not relieve pressure before the travel starts. Many slicers allow a slower deretraction speed than retraction, which helps avoid a blob on restart.

Minimum travel and retraction limits

Cura: Minimum Travel / Maximum Retraction Count · PrusaSlicer: Minimum travel after retraction · OrcaSlicer: Retraction minimum travel

Below a certain travel length (1–3 mm) retracting is not worth the wear and time. A maximum retraction count within a small area prevents the extruder from chewing the same segment of filament dozens of times on a dense, holey layer — a real cause of grinding and mid-print failure.

Z-hop (lift Z)

Lifts the nozzle during travel so it does not drag across the print. Modes:

0.2–0.4 mm is plenty. Z-hop slightly increases stringing because the nozzle spends longer in the air, so enable it when you have knock-over or scarring problems, not by default.

Combing / avoid crossing walls

Cura: Combing Mode · PrusaSlicer: Avoid crossing perimeters · OrcaSlicer: Avoid crossing walls

Routes travel moves through the inside of the part so the nozzle never crosses an outer wall — no retraction needed, no scar on the surface. Cura's "Not in Skin" option is the good middle ground: comb through infill, but never drag across a visible top surface. It costs a little time and can lengthen travel paths considerably on complex models.

Cooling

Cooling controls how fast each bead freezes. More cooling means better overhangs, bridges and small details, but weaker bonding between layers and more warping on high-temperature materials. It is the most material-dependent group on this page.

Fan speed

Most slicers expose a minimum and maximum fan speed that ramp between them based on layer time — slow layers get less cooling, fast small layers get more.

First-layer fan

The fan is normally off for the first 1–3 layers so the plastic stays molten long enough to weld to the plate. Turning it on too early is a common cause of poor bed adhesion.

Bridge and overhang fan

Separate fan overrides that push cooling to 100 % specifically over bridges and steep overhangs, even on materials printed with low fan. This is how you get clean bridges in PETG without embrittling the rest of the part. OrcaSlicer additionally slows down over overhangs by degree of overhang, which is very effective.

Minimum layer time

Cura: Minimum Layer Time · PrusaSlicer: Slow down if layer print time is below · OrcaSlicer: Slow down for layers below

If a layer would finish faster than this (typically 5–10 s), the slicer slows the head down so the layer can cool before the next lands on it. Without it, small parts like tower tips turn into soft blobs. There is usually a companion minimum speed so it never crawls absurdly slowly.

Better still, where available: print two copies of a small part at once. Real cooling time beats artificial slowdown.

Auxiliary and exhaust fans

Enclosed machines often have a side/auxiliary fan for extra part cooling and an exhaust fan for chamber temperature and fumes. Use the aux fan for PLA and PETG in an enclosure; turn both off for ABS, ASA and PC, where chamber heat is the point.

Supports

Support type

Support placement

Everywhere supports overhangs that rest on the model itself; build plate only refuses to build on top of the print, which avoids ruining surfaces but leaves some overhangs unsupported. Painted supports — you brush the areas that need support directly on the model — give by far the best result on anything complex, and take under a minute.

Overhang threshold

Cura: Support Overhang Angle · PrusaSlicer: Support on overhangs threshold · OrcaSlicer: Support threshold angle

The angle from vertical beyond which support is generated. 45° is the standard; well-cooled PLA handles 50–55° unsupported, PETG and ABS usually need 40–45°. Raising the threshold means less support and more risk.

Z distance and XY distance

The gap between support and part. Z distance (top and bottom, usually settable separately) is typically 1–2 layer heights: 0.2 mm at 0.2 mm layers. Too small and the support fuses to the part; too large and the supported surface droops. XY distance (0.5–0.8 mm) is the horizontal clearance around vertical faces.

For soluble supports set both to 0 — the point is full contact and chemical removal.

Support density, pattern and interface

Support density of 10–20 % is plenty for structure. What actually determines the finish of a supported surface is the interface: 2–3 dense layers directly under the part, at 70–90 % density with 0.1–0.2 mm line spacing. Turning interfaces on is a small time cost for a large quality gain, and it is the first thing to enable if supported undersides come out ragged.

Soluble supports

On multi-material machines you can print supports — or just the interface layer — in PVA, BVOH or HIPS and dissolve them. Interface-only soluble support is the pragmatic version: you get a perfect supported surface while using a few grams of expensive filament instead of a whole tower. PVA absorbs water aggressively and needs to be kept dry (see the humidity guide).

Bed adhesion

Skirt

An outline drawn near but not touching the model. It primes the nozzle and lets you watch the first extrusion before the part starts. No adhesion benefit. 1–3 loops at 2–5 mm distance. A tall skirt (several layers) can act as a mini draft shield for small ABS parts.

Brim

A flat collar of single-layer material attached around the base, adding footprint where the part has little. The correct answer for tall narrow parts, sharp-cornered ABS, and anything that keeps lifting at the edges.

5–8 mm for general use, 10–15 mm for serious warping. Set a small brim gap (0.1 mm) to make it snap off cleanly instead of scarring the part. Most slicers also offer an inner brim (inside holes) and a brim placed only around the outer edge.

Raft

A thick multi-layer platform printed under the whole model. Maximum adhesion, but it wastes material, adds time and leaves a rough bottom face. Genuinely useful for warping-prone materials on a bed you cannot get flat, or on a textured plate where the underside does not matter. The air gap (0.1–0.3 mm) determines whether it separates cleanly or fuses on. Treat it as a fallback, not a default.

Draft shield

A tall single-wall enclosure printed around the part to trap heat and block room draughts. A cheap approximation of an enclosure for ABS/ASA on an open printer. Costs material and time; works surprisingly well on small parts.

Elephant foot compensation

Cura: Initial Layer Horizontal Expansion · PrusaSlicer: Elephant foot compensation · OrcaSlicer: Elefant foot compensation

Shrinks the first layer inward by 0.1–0.3 mm to cancel the bulge caused by squishing the first layer into the plate — elephant foot. Matters whenever the bottom of the part has to fit something. Fix nozzle height and bed temperature first; this setting compensates, it does not cure.

First layer settings, together

The first layer is where most prints are won or lost. The settings that matter, all covered above: thicker layer height (0.2 mm), wider line width (120 %), slow speed (15–30 mm/s), fan off, nozzle and bed 5–10 °C hotter. If the first layer is good and the part still fails, the cause is almost never adhesion.

Multi-material & multi-colour

These settings appear once you have an AMS, CFS, MMU, ACE or a second extruder. See the multi-colour guide for the hardware side.

Prime / wipe tower

A sacrificial tower printed alongside the part where the nozzle purges the old colour before returning to work. Without it, every colour change would bleed into the model. Key settings are its size (bigger = more reliable purging, more waste) and position (keep it away from the part but on a well-adhering area — a wipe tower that falls over kills the print).

Purge / flush volumes

How much filament is pushed through to clear the previous colour, set per colour pair. Dark to light needs far more than light to dark: going black → white can take 700+ mm³, white → black under 200. Slicers ship a matrix you can tune per pair. This is where multi-colour printing spends its money — badly tuned flush volumes can waste more filament than the model contains.

Flush into infill / into object redirects some of that purge into the part's own infill or into a designated sacrificial object instead of the tower. It genuinely reduces waste and should be on whenever the model has infill to spare.

Ramming and tool change

Ramming shapes the filament tip before it is unloaded, so the next load does not jam — filament-specific and normally left at the profile default. Tool change temperature lets each filament have its own nozzle temperature, with the printer waiting to reach it. Mixing materials with very different temperatures (PLA at 210 °C and PC at 290 °C) means long waits and heat-soaked parts; this is why multi-material is much harder than multi-colour.

Special modes

Vase mode (spiralize)

Cura: Spiralize Outer Contour · PrusaSlicer: Spiral vase · OrcaSlicer: Spiral vase

Prints a single continuous wall that spirals upward with no layer changes at all — so no seam, no retraction, no infill. Fast, elegant and strong for its weight. Requires a model with a single continuous outline and no top surface. Increase line width (0.6–0.8 mm on a 0.4 nozzle) to get a usable wall thickness.

Fuzzy skin

Adds controlled random jitter to the outer wall for a matte textured finish that also hides layer lines and improves grip. Settings are thickness (0.2–0.4 mm) and point distance (0.5–1 mm). Purely cosmetic — and it does hurt dimensional accuracy, so keep it off mating surfaces. Most slicers can now apply it to the outer wall only, or to specific painted regions.

Modifiers, blockers and enforcers

Rather than changing a setting for the whole print, you can place a box or sphere in the scene and give that region different settings — 60 % infill only around a screw boss, more walls only where the part is loaded, no support inside a cavity. Support blockers and enforcers are the same idea specialised for supports. This is the most under-used feature in modern slicers and often the difference between a part that works and one that has to be reprinted heavier everywhere.

Painted settings

Current slicers let you paint directly on the model for seam position, support placement, colour assignment (multi-material) and variable layer height. Painting is nearly always faster and better than fighting the global setting.

Sequential printing (print by object)

Cura: Print One at a Time · PrusaSlicer: Complete individual objects · OrcaSlicer: Print by object

Prints each object to full height before starting the next, instead of layer-by-layer across the plate. It eliminates stringing between objects and means one failure does not ruin the batch. The constraint is collision: the gantry and printhead must clear finished parts, so the slicer enforces a large spacing and object height limit. Best for small parts on a large plate.

Negative volumes and part cutting

Negative volumes subtract a shape from the model at slice time — a quick way to add a clearance hole or a cutout without going back to CAD. The cut tool splits large models for printing, optionally adding dowel pins or dovetails at the joint.

Machine & G-code

Printer-level settings you configure once and then leave alone — until something specific needs them.

Start and end G-code

The command block run before and after every print: home, heat, level, prime line at the start; retract, lift, cool, disable motors at the end. Worth reading once so you know what your printer actually does. Common personal edits are a longer prime line, a bed-mesh call (G29), or parking the head somewhere convenient at the end.

G-code flavour

Marlin, Klipper, RepRap, Bambu and others accept slightly different commands. Set once from the printer profile; getting it wrong produces immediate, obvious failures.

Machine limits

Maximum speed, acceleration and jerk per axis, plus maximum extrusion rate. These are the hard ceilings that override whatever the print profile asks for. If prints refuse to go faster despite high speed settings, the limit is usually here or in max volumetric flow — not in the speed field.

Arc fitting (G2/G3)

Replaces long chains of tiny straight segments with true arc commands. Produces smaller G-code files and visibly smoother curves on printers whose controller stutters on dense segment streams. Safe to enable on Klipper and modern Marlin; some older boards handle arcs badly.

Filament settings

Diameter (1.75 mm nominal, but measure — a real 1.71 mm spool over-reports flow by 4 %), density (used for weight and cost estimates) and cost per kg. Getting density and cost right makes the slicer's material estimate genuinely useful for pricing.

Pause and colour change

Insert M600 or a pause at a chosen layer to swap filament mid-print — the single-extruder way to get two colours — or to embed a nut or magnet inside the part. Every slicer offers this from the layer preview slider.

Input shaping (firmware side)

Not a slicer setting, but it governs what your slicer settings can get away with. Input shaping measures the printer's resonant frequencies and filters the motion commands so the frame does not ring. With it calibrated you can raise acceleration by an order of magnitude without ghosting. Calibrate it before you spend time tuning speeds.

Calibration order

Settings interact, so tuning them in the wrong order means redoing work. Each step below assumes the previous ones are done.

Steps 3–7 are per filament type (and per brand if you care), not per spool or per colour. OrcaSlicer bundles most of these tests in its calibration menu, which is the fastest route if you use it.

Cheat sheets

Symptom → setting

The first setting to look at for each common defect. Full diagnoses live in the visual troubleshooter.

Starting profiles by material

Sane starting points for a 0.4 mm nozzle at 0.2 mm layers. Tune from here, do not treat them as targets.

Composite (CF/GF) filaments are abrasive and will destroy a brass nozzle within a spool or two — use hardened steel or a ruby/carbide tip, and consider a larger nozzle (see nozzle sizes). Nylon, PC and PETG are hygroscopic; wet filament ruins every setting on this page (see filament humidity).