Cura Questions - Best Infill Pattern

Hey folks, TechNibbers here. We're back with another Cura Questions video. Today's topic, what is the best infill for your 3D prints? Stick around because it's going to get pretty interesting and I'm probably not even really going to answer this question. Hey folks, welcome back to Cura Questions. Today's question is a little bit more open to interpretation and the answer is going to be very much opinion-based and subjective, meaning it's going to depend on the situation and the person in that situation what they offer forward is the best. You'll notice here I do have a lot of walls in this print, in this slice and there's a reason for that. I will talk about that in a few minutes. For right now, you can notice I have the triangle infill on and it's not that I'm particularly attached to the triangles. It's just what I happen to switch to when I slice this. The thing we're going to talk about is benefits to using different infills. Okay, different infills don't really have different purposes structurally. Now, there's some debate as to which infill is the strongest. If you're trying to make a part that is the strongest part you can make and the answer to that is always to print it at about 98% and make it almost completely solid. Now, you don't want to do 100%. In most cases, that will overextrude but if you're going for a solid part, just print it solid. It doesn't matter what infill you pick. It's not going to be a very big strength difference and there are videos on this that will explain to you exactly why that is. But today, I do want to touch on a few other things. There are reasons, obviously, to print your objects with infill instead of using all the filament it would take to fill the interior cavity of the whole object. Okay, so what are the benefits to using different ones if you have to use them? Obviously, we're going to be using infill. Why would I want to pick one in particular over the other? Well, that's basically going to come down to the pathing and the design of that particular infill. So, some of these are pretty simple like the grid and some of them are pretty complicated like the cross 3D and gyroid. Now, they do look... not gyroid. Gyroid is pretty simple. It's just a wavy line in both directions. Concentric can get difficult. Quarter cubic and both of the crosses actually are time intensive for doing the lines and the longer the path is to draw that infill pattern in there, the longer your print is going to take. Okay, so that brings me to my point on how I'm judging or determining the best infill pattern to use and that is for my purposes. Again, I said this video subjective. My purpose is when it comes to the infill in particular, I don't want to see the infill when the model is complete. I do want it to be there in some cases and when I do, it doesn't matter to me what the pattern is. Now, in some cases, when you print, if you don't have enough walls, your infill pattern is going to show through the print object and that can be less than ideal. So, in that case, you're going to want to increase your walls by one layer at a time until that artifacting kind of disappears. So, then at that point, it really shouldn't matter what your pattern is. Whatever is getting you your print the fastest and having a quality exterior using the right amount of infill and everything. So, the purpose of all of these extra walls here, now obviously, in most cases, you're not going to need to go that thick. With the infill, a lot of them, four, five layers at the most will usually cover them up. Sometimes, you can get away with three. Here, I have several turned on and the reason for that is there are models that in most cases can be sliced without any infill whatsoever, okay? That means you're just printing the shell of the model. It doesn't mean you have to fill it up 100% completely. Check out Joel Telling's video on this. He printed a big Pikachu without any interior filling. I think it was a Pikachu. And I know there's several other videos on it as well. In fact, I have one here on my channel. I really feel like digging it out. It wasn't the best video. But the information is there and you can actually print without the interior in most cases if you increase the walls to between 8 and 10 or more. And what that does is it allows the interior to be built up around the interior of the shell and generally, it'll print the last wall of the outer wall last. So, it has the most structure to adhere to and you get some really nice models this way. Now, you might run into a problem with super flat top surfaces doing this. But for objects where you have models that are like even miniatures and have figurines or have heads at the top or rounded objects like that, it works really, really well. Diablo here would actually be a decent candidate to try it out with. Let's get out of the preview and see if it's less laggy. There we go. So, if I were to print this without infill, the only real problems I would run into might be a small spot right in here. But for the most part, we'll go back to preview mode and we're going to scroll down through this really slowly. I want you to look at the walls and notice that for the most part, none of those walls are not touching the layer below them or just kind of hanging out in the middle of nowhere. So, let's see here. Okay, and you can kind of see how it works. Now, imagine without the infill there that you would just be getting these walls and that will leave you with a completely hollow model. But in most cases, saving that plastic works really well and you don't really necessarily need the infill. It's kind of just a waste of space. It's used for structural support for the tops of overhang models that are super flat on top. Obviously, you can't print on nothing. One of the other interesting things that can save you time and filament if you're interested in trying out the no infill technique is variable infill. You can set it to print different amounts at different heights. So, it'll basically go the cone upwards like this. So, it's using very little at the bottom and then getting wider and wider on top of that and then that'll support your spaces and that uses a lot less filament than a full infill. Now, you are going to use full infill on a lot of your models and in that case, I encourage you to play around with in particular the grid and the gyroid because the gyroid is pretty static no matter what. It's two wavy lines that cross each other but it's very straightforward with the back and forth and the pathing is quick. When you get to like the cross and cross 3D, your time is going to take a lot more time because it's making an intricate pattern that you're never going to see. As far as structural integrity, again, I touched on those videos that are out there that will go over this and you can definitely check for some of those on YouTube but for the most part, you're not going to notice any difference in part strength simply because the orientation of the part is going to be more important to its strength than the infill because of the way that 3D printing is anisotropic. It's simply one layer on top of another layer on top of another layer so if there's a shearing force that goes against those layers, it'll rip them apart regardless of how they're attached in the middle. Now, certain infill patterns may have more connection points inside and reduce the damage but none of them are really going to make the actual item stronger than the layer adhesion between two layers. I hope this was helpful to you. I'm sorry I didn't give you a definitive answer for which one is the best. I do try them all. I like making time lapses of some of the more longer and intricate ones but for the most part, go with grid or lines or even triangles or the gyroid down there just to save yourself some time. Infill is not necessarily needed at this point and as printers get better and faster, it's going to be less of a thing. That's going to be it for this. Guys, if you have any Kira questions, leave them in the comments down below. I am dragging my tongue through this. I feel like I can't talk. I've had a couple days off. We had an unscheduled vacation from YouTube, if any of y'all heard about that. Leave a like, hit subscribe. We'll see you in the next video. If you got questions, let me know. Stick around, guys. I got another YouTube recommended video for you right here and if you haven't already, subscribe, subscribe, subscribe. Make sure that you smash that like button. We'll see you in the next one. Tech Nibbers out.