Speed can be a controversial topic in 3D printing circles. Although it is important, it can be hyped to the point where it takes attention away from other important issues in 3D printing.
Even so, there are many cases where speed is a very important factor when 3D printing and you’ll want to optimize your printing speeds as much as possible. Choosing a fast infill for 3D printing is one way to achieve this.
In this article, we’ll reveal the fastest infill patterns in PrusaSlicer today. We’ll also reveal the slowest infill patterns and point out some of the factors that make some infill patterns much faster than others. Read on to discover the fastest infill for 3D printing, plus more.
What is the Fastest Infill for 3D Printing?
The fastest infill pattern for 3D printing today is the lightning infill. This infill pattern only provides support to internal structures to help them print successfully. It is not expected to contribute significantly to the strength of the printed part. As a result, the infill is concentrated underneath layers that require bridging with other areas having little or no infill at all.
Lightning infill doesn’t have a singular pattern, but, as seen in the image above, the infill pattern gets denser the higher up a print goes. This ensures a larger surface area of the bridged section is supported while using less time and material on the lower sections.
This unique characteristic gives this infill pattern a shape that is said to resemble a tree or a bolt of lightning. This is the secret to lightning infill’s name and speed.
What Makes an Infill Pattern Faster?
Several factors determine how much time an infill pattern will need to print, but the two obvious ones are the amount of material needed, and the amount of directional changes that take place when printing a single infill layer.
Amount of Material Used
In an experiment where all available 17 infill patterns on PrusaSlicer Version 2.6.1 were tested, there was a noticeable correlation between amount of material needed to print infill and the time needed to print the infill. This was mainly noticeable in models with large solid sections.
This correlation between amount of material and time is expected because the material has to be melted and then deposited. The more material that needs to be melted and deposited, the more time the print will need.
Directional Changes
The extruder assembly does not change direction instantaneously. Changes in direction require the extruder to decelerate and come to a stop before accelerating in a different direction. A separate line of code also has to be processed to accommodate all this.
This means that printing a straight line will take less time than printing a zig-zag line, even if the same amount of material is used. This, therefore, means that infill patterns with fairly complex shapes will require more time to print.
To illustrate this, the lines of G-code needed to print the same cube were compared for three different infill patterns at 50% infill density. The results are shown in the table below.
| Infill Pattern | No. of G-Code Lines | Printing Time (Minutes) | Material Estimate (g) |
|---|---|---|---|
|
Aligned Rectilinear |
12020 |
18 |
5.64 |
|
Triangles |
20452 |
20 |
5.69 |
|
Honeycomb |
83542 |
40 |
6.39 |
As seen in the table above, the number of lines of g-code needed to print the honeycomb pattern is more than 4 times greater than that of the triangles pattern. The result is a doubling of the print time.
Not every additional line of code indicates a change in direction, but a substantial number do. In the image below, you can compare the complexities of the three patterns. Note that the honeycomb pattern also requires more material to print.
What Other Infill Patterns Are Fast?
As fast as lightning infill is, the fact that it contributes little to the strength of the part is a significant drawback. It can be a useful pattern for prototyping but it is not a a good choice for practical prints.
Luckily, lightning infill is not the only fast infill option available. In some cases, it’s not even the fastest option.
The Second and Third Fastest Infill Patterns
In an analysis of 17 infill patterns using 10 different models, the lightning infill pattern resulted in the fastest printing times for eight out of the 10 prints.
When the lightning infill pattern is taken out of the comparison, two infill patterns exchanged the top spot depending on the model.
These two patterns were:
- Support Cubic
- Adaptive Cubic
For six out of the 10 models, these two infill patterns resulted in the same printing times. In three out of the 10, support cubic was the outright fastest, and in one out of 10, adaptive cubic was the outright fastest infill pattern.
The data used for this analysis can be accessed in the Google sheet linked at the end of this post.
The Mid-Tier Infill Patterns
In the same analysis, several infill patterns consistently showed up in the middle when it came to print speeds. These infill patterns were:
- Aligned rectilinear
- Rectilinear
- Line
- Stars
- Cubic
- Grid
- Archimedean Chords
- Triangles
- Concentric
- Octagram Spiral
In some cases, the print times for some of these patterns were very close or even equal to the top three. In other cases, they were closer to the bottom group. Octagram spiral, in particular, shows up in the slowest group from time to time.
In general, these infill patterns were not the fastest but were typically far from the slowest.
Which Are the Slowest Infill Patterns?
The slowest infill patterns in the current version of Prusa Slicer are honeycomb and 3D honeycomb. For the ten samples mentioned above, these two infill patterns exchanged last place, tying in two occasions. 3D honeycomb was the outright slowest for five of the 10 models, making it the slowest infill pattern in this analysis.
In addition to these two, two other infill patterns consistently recorded rather slow printing times. These were:
- Gyroid
- Hilbert curve
This is important to note since the gyroid infill pattern is quite popular due to its looks.
The difference in printing speeds between the different infill patterns was more significant in some cases compared to others.
On one extreme, the percentage difference in printing speed between the fastest and the slowest infill was approximately 7% on an average print time of 28.5 minutes. On the other extreme, the difference in printing time was 157% on an average printing time of 1616 minutes.
In general, the difference between a fast and slow infill became more pronounced the longer a print ran as shown in the chart below.
Conclusion
Choosing some infill patterns can result in significantly faster print times. The lightning infill pattern is the fastest overall, but the adaptive cubic and support cubic patterns are also quite fast, and perhaps better suited for more than just prototyping.
There are infill patterns that can be fairly fast or fairly slow depending on the specifics of the model you are printing. However, the honeycomb and 3D honeycomb consistently had the longest printing times in the analysis conducted.
The speed of the infill is significantly affected by the complexity of the movements needed to print it. The amount of material needed is also a factor with the slowest infills typically needing more material.
Access all Data and Charts
Fancy doing some analysis? Click below to access all data and charts used for this article. No sign up or email needed!
View Data
Pingback: What is the Strongest Infill Pattern? - The Printed Future