Great new slicer software, Craftware.

This little Gem has been put to the test by Thingivers member, Gyrobot, The designer of the flexihand among other things.
He loves it and shared it with everyone on the eNABLE group as well.

Key features are customizable/moveable supports!! (that we don't need to pay $140 for) and wicked slicing speed. Not to mention a great looking UI and its freeee

I'm not going to post a direct link because it's a small printer company that makes it but just search, Craftware CraftUnique, it's easy to find.

Enjoy.

 

definitely curious about this.

 

Tried to download their program to try it out. My antivirus program said that both of their beta software contain virus!

 

thats odd Paul. I downloaded fine. were you on the official page?

 

I trust anti-virus about as far as I can throw them.

 

Yes, My Norton Security Suite reported the virus so I went to their official site to download to confirm. Same complain from Norton.

 

I like their CoreXY system. Mechanical wise, the printer looks very good so print quality should be more reliable than Robo 3D. Another thing is it should be relatively easy to make an enclosure for it.

One thing is their board only allows one hotend. There's no room for dual hotend. For those who do not need dual filament extruders, the price point is quite good. I'm tempted.

It definitely raised the bar for Robo 3D to match in the future.

 

How does it actually compare to simplify3d? Also against slic3r I guess? I don't want to feel like I've wasted $140. Hopefully this will encourage the S3D guys to pull their fingers out and make changes to get the finish quality as good as slic3r.

 

Just saw this allows for angular supports to be placed on tall verticals as well. A feature simplify3d left out. That's awesome.

 

I love the look and setup. For people just getting started they do a great job pointing out what the settings do if you are in the expert mode. If you click on a setting, a picture will pop up showing what it is with the description below it. Shown here on the left side.


Tons of control too, like not just infill patterns, but the ability to adjust infill angle for every layer, and when you change a setting it shows you on the fly in the picture what the results will look like.


Alright, it's pretty on the outside, But the burning question is, how does it drive?


If she drives well, @Galaxius, the Simplify3D people may be up against something.

 

@AxisLab, looking to your review/opinion. It certainly looks nice/promising. I miss all the additional configurability of slic3r when I use S3D but I love the speed and UI of S3D.

 

I tried the Craftware latest version beta. Tried to make supports. Really easy, BUT, once support is added, it only allows export via Gcode or Slice. Both fail to produce proper files.

Has anyone been able to add support and then export as a STL file keeping the supports?

Once you add support, if you exit the screen to go to the main screen - which has the export menu - the supports disappear. Hmmm?

Only options are Gcode or slice in the support window.


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Yeah it's only a slicer. not like a modeling tool to export modified stl's.

 

I found it promising, but buggy. Didn't even get to trying out a print from the slices. I'll wait a while...Cura has been my "go to" lately..

 

I've spent the 140 on simplify3d and also just installed craftware. Still playing around with both of them, it's nice to have options.

Crazy shapes like Bathsheba's "Metatron" look like they'll print much better from craftware.

They are both 'good' but craftware seems to create more economical and easier to remove "default support".

just be careful with speed and travel settings as the figures don't gel exactly with what you'd expect coming from repetier host. or MC (yuk)

 

Are you able to print from Craftware?

There doesn't seem to be enough settings to input to tell the software about the Robo3d details.


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it's a little hmm, tricky, but the bounding box is there under options, then all the speed settings and temps are part of the slicer interface, u need the advanced settings though.

I'm discovering though, that the support from simplify is stupid easy to remove.....
the support from craftware is more 'robust'. Probably get either right with more experience and settings.