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What is infil and shell?

Discussion in 'Troubleshooting' started by Michael DiFilippo, Feb 28, 2013.

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  1. Michael DiFilippo

    Michael DiFilippo Active Member

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    So being new to 3D printing I have seen the words "infil" and shell all over thingiverse. Can someone explain this in simplest terms?
     
    #1 Michael DiFilippo, Feb 28, 2013
  2. Seshan

    Seshan Active Member

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    Shell is the outer layer of the object, infill is the inside of the object, settings for these depends on what you are looking to get out of the object, if you want strength you will want more infill, if you are just going for looks you can do a thicker shell and do less infill.
     
    #2 Seshan, Feb 28, 2013
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  3. Ahmed Jaber

    Ahmed Jaber New Member

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    You'd need infill because filament extruders are bad at elevated horizontal surfaces.
     
    #3 Ahmed Jaber, Mar 1, 2013
  4. vanesavis18

    vanesavis18 New Member

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    shell is the programming code .
     
    #4 vanesavis18, Mar 4, 2013
  5. Seshan

    Seshan Active Member

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    We are talking about 3D printing, not programming.
    What I said before is correct.

    *edit* That person is actually a spam bot, seeing the other thread they made, Bots are getting pretty good these days.
     
    #5 Seshan, Mar 4, 2013
  6. Michael DiFilippo

    Michael DiFilippo Active Member

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    So for maximum strength 100% infill and 1 shell? What about a case where lets say I want to put a light inside of an object I make, would 0% infill and 1 shell make it most translucent?
     
    #6 Michael DiFilippo, Mar 4, 2013
  7. Seshan

    Seshan Active Member

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    I believe most people do multiple shells (2-3) even if they are doing 100% infill.

    If you did 1 shell and 0% infill it will just be 1 layer thick, your print would be hallow. Translucent would depend on what you are printing with.

    Here's a picture I found that shows shells and infills, you can see the shells (2) on the outs side and the infill is the pattern. There are also different types of infill patterns.
    [​IMG]
     
    #7 Seshan, Mar 4, 2013
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  8. Printed Solid

    Printed Solid Volunteer Admin
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    @michael: Its actually a little more complicated than that. Its probably best to think of a 3d printed part as a composite material. Even when its 100% filled, its not really 100% filled. You really have a bunch of strings of filament that are welded together where they are touching.
    I haven't played around with this yet, but you should be able to play around with slicer settings and orientation of your build axes to optimize your strength. You probable don't want to be carrying a tensile load on the z-axis. You probably do want to orient the part so that you do get nice long lines parallel to the direction of tensile load.

    On shells and fill: 100% fill overrides shells. If it didn't you would be adding to the width of your part and filling in holes.
    When you have an infill less than 1, your actual number of layers of filament in the walls are whatever you specify +1. I.e. if you say 0, then you actually have only 1 layer wall (probably not a great idea to try at first). If you say 3, then you have 4 layers. Also, keep in mind that no matter what your resolution is set at, the width of each layer in the plane of the build plate is the diameter of the nozzle. I think this is 0.4mm for the robo like it is for most others.
     
    #8 Printed Solid, Mar 4, 2013
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  9. Printed Solid

    Printed Solid Volunteer Admin
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    Too late to edit the post, what I actually meant to say is,
    No way Seshan, I don't know where you got those pictures from, but Shell is the programming code!
     
    #9 Printed Solid, Mar 4, 2013
  10. Michael DiFilippo

    Michael DiFilippo Active Member

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    thank you seshan and printed solid for the info! Very helpful
     
    #10 Michael DiFilippo, Mar 4, 2013
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  11. tesseract

    tesseract Moderator
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    When using 3d modeling tools the shell command is used to generate the outer shell of an object so based relationship between infill of an object and 3d tooling used I believe shell is indeed referring to the outer shell of a 3d object.

    In programming terms shell is a command-line interpreter or shell that provides a program user interface and I do not believe in this context it is related to 3d printed object in anyway as in contrast infill actually is.
     
    #11 tesseract, Mar 6, 2013
  12. Printed Solid

    Printed Solid Volunteer Admin
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    Jeff, I think that Vanesavis was just a clever spammer and not actually trying to contribute. If I'm wrong, I apologize for the mocking comment I made in #9.
     
    #12 Printed Solid, Mar 6, 2013
  13. Printed Solid

    Printed Solid Volunteer Admin
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    Correcting some misinformation in my previous post. 100% fill doesn't override shells. shells is the # of times your perimeter is traced. infill will be a different pattern, generally unrelated to your surface, depending on your slicer settings.
     
    #13 Printed Solid, May 10, 2013
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