Part 4 covered the materials that feed your printer. This part covers what you actually do with them. You learned about PLA, PETG, ABS, and resin. Now you need to know how to tell your printer what to do with those materials, because a spool of premium filament run through bad settings produces garbage just as reliably as cheap filament does.
Settings are where most beginners give up or, worse, never realize they had a problem. They blame the printer. They blame the filament. They buy a new brand. The print still fails. The settings were always the issue.
This is Part 5 of 13 in the 3D Printing 101 series. By the end of this article, you'll understand the core settings that govern every print you make, how to calibrate both an FDM machine and a resin machine from scratch, and how to stop wasting material on prints that were doomed before the first layer landed.
Why Fundamentals Matter More Than Fancy Filament
You can spend $50 on a premium silk PLA and still produce stringy, warped, layer-separating disasters. You can also spend $18 on a basic brand and pull off a clean, precise print that looks like it came from a professional shop. The difference isn't the filament. It's the settings.
The 80/20 Rule of 3D Printing Success
Eighty percent of your print quality comes from twenty percent of your settings. Layer height, infill, supports, temperature, and calibration. That's it. Everything else is tuning at the margins. Beginners tend to obsess over filament brands and exotic materials before they've nailed the fundamentals, which is roughly equivalent to buying racing tires for a car with a misaligned frame.
Part 4 introduced you to the materials landscape: PLA for beginners, PETG for functional parts, ABS for heat resistance, and resin for detail work. What Part 4 couldn't cover in depth is how your slicer settings interact with those material choices. PLA and PETG need different temperatures. Resin needs different exposure times depending on color, brand, and ambient temperature. The material tells you what's possible. The settings determine whether you actually get there.
What This Article Covers and Why It Builds on Part 4
This article covers both FDM and resin settings side by side, using the FlashForge Inventor and the Anycubic Photon S as the reference machines for this series. Where settings differ between the two technologies, you'll see both explained clearly. Where they overlap conceptually, you'll get one explanation that applies to both.
The calibration section near the end is the part most beginners skip entirely. Don't skip it. Calibration is the foundation everything else rests on. Every setting in the world won't save a print if your bed isn't level or your build plate isn't zeroed correctly.
Layer Height: The Single Setting That Changes Everything
If you only understand one slicer setting deeply, make it layer height. It affects print time, surface quality, structural integrity, and how much detail survives the printing process. Every other setting you tune is working around the constraints that layer height establishes first.
What Layer Height Actually Means in Practice
Think of layer height like choosing between stacking pancakes and slicing bread. Stacking thin pancakes gives you smooth, gradual curves and fine detail. Stacking thick ones gets the job done faster but the steps are obvious. Your printer is doing exactly that: depositing material in horizontal layers, one on top of the other, until the model is complete.
Lower layer height means more layers, more time, and finer resolution. Higher layer height means fewer layers, faster prints, and a rougher surface. Neither is universally better. The right choice depends entirely on what you're making and why.
Choosing the Right Layer Height for Your Project
For FDM printing on the FlashForge Inventor, three settings cover most use cases:
0.1mm is fine detail mode. Use it for display models, miniatures, or anything where surface quality matters more than time. Expect print times to roughly double compared to standard settings.
0.2mm is the standard. It's the workhorse setting that balances quality and speed for the majority of functional and decorative prints. When in doubt, start here.
0.3mm is draft mode. Use it for rapid prototyping, fit tests, or anything you're going to reprint anyway. The surface will show visible stepping on curves, but the print will finish significantly faster.
One rule to keep in your head at all times: the 50% rule. Your layer height should never exceed 50% of your nozzle diameter. With the standard 0.4mm nozzle on the FlashForge Inventor, that means 0.2mm is your practical ceiling for reliable layer bonding. Push past it and your layers stop adhering to each other properly.
Layer Height on the Anycubic Photon S vs FlashForge Inventor
Resin printing changes the conversation entirely. Because the Anycubic Photon S cures resin with UV light rather than depositing melted plastic, it isn't constrained by nozzle diameter. Standard resin layer height is 0.05mm, and many users go as fine as 0.025mm for miniatures or jewelry-quality detail work.
That's four times finer than standard FDM, which is why resin prints have that characteristic smoothness that FDM struggles to match without post-processing. The trade-off is that resin prints are slower per layer in terms of setup, and the curing time per layer adds up. At 0.05mm, a 50mm tall model requires 1,000 layers. Plan accordingly.
Layer Height Quick Reference
FDM fine detail: 0.1mm. FDM standard: 0.2mm. FDM draft: 0.3mm. Resin standard: 0.05mm. Resin high detail: 0.025mm. Never exceed 50% of nozzle diameter on FDM.
For functional parts that need to fit together or handle mechanical stress, 0.2mm FDM is the right call. For display models, miniatures, or anything that will be photographed or painted, 0.05mm resin is worth the extra time investment.
Infill: How Solid Does Your Print Actually Need to Be?
Your print looks solid from the outside. It almost certainly isn't. The inside of most 3D printed parts is a structured lattice, not a block of material. That's intentional, efficient, and usually exactly right.
Infill Percentage Explained
Picture a waffle. The outside is a solid border. The inside is a grid of open cells with thin walls holding the structure together. FDM prints work the same way. The infill percentage controls how dense that internal grid is, from nearly hollow at 5% to completely solid at 100%.
Most prints don't need to be solid. Solid prints use dramatically more material, take much longer, and often don't perform meaningfully better than a well-designed lower-density print.
Here's a practical breakdown:
- 10 to 15%: Decorative items, display models, things that won't be handled roughly. Light, fast, minimal material.
- 20 to 30%: General use. Phone stands, organizers, enclosures, hobby parts. This is the range where most prints live.
- 50% and above: Structural parts, load-bearing components, anything that takes repeated mechanical stress.
- 100%: Rarely needed. Mostly useful for very small solid parts or specific functional applications.
Infill Patterns and When They Matter
The percentage is only half the story. The pattern determines how that internal structure distributes stress.
Grid: Fast to print, decent strength in two directions. Fine for most general use.
Lines: The fastest option. Weak in one axis. Good for draft prints where you just need something to hold together temporarily.
Triangles: Better multi-directional strength than grid. Slightly slower.
Honeycomb: Strong, material-efficient, and visually satisfying if you ever cut one open. A solid all-rounder.
Gyroid: The standout choice for flexible or impact-resistant prints. The gyroid pattern distributes stress in three dimensions rather than two, which means it handles impacts and flex without cracking along a single plane. It's slightly slower to generate in your slicer but the performance difference on the right application is real.
Infill for Functional vs Decorative Prints
Resin printing handles infill differently. Resin prints are typically printed hollow with small drainage holes at the base. Solid resin prints trap uncured liquid resin inside the shell, which continues to exert pressure as it eventually cures. That pressure cracks prints from the inside out, sometimes hours after they look finished. Hollow with drainage holes is not optional for resin; it's how you avoid destroying a print you just spent four hours making.
| Project Type | Suggested FDM Infill | Pattern |
|---|---|---|
| Display model | 10 to 15% | Grid or lines |
| General use part | 20 to 25% | Grid or honeycomb |
| Flexible or impact part | 25 to 35% | Gyroid |
| Structural or load-bearing | 40 to 60% | Gyroid or triangles |
| Small solid functional part | 80 to 100% | Grid |
Supports: The Necessary Evil of 3D Printing
Printers build from the bottom up. Every layer needs something beneath it to rest on. When your model has geometry that juts out into open air, the printer needs to build a temporary scaffold to hold that geometry in place while it cures or cools. Those scaffolds are supports, and they are simultaneously essential and annoying.
Why Overhangs Need Support
The 45-degree rule is the standard guideline: any overhang angle steeper than 45 degrees from vertical will likely need support. Below 45 degrees, most FDM printers can bridge the gap with enough cooling and the right speed settings. Above it, you get drooping, curling, or outright collapse.
Resin behaves differently. Because each layer is cured by light from below (on the Anycubic Photon S, the LCD screen is at the bottom), resin prints are actually printed upside down. The build plate rises out of the resin tank layer by layer. This means overhang rules still apply, but in the opposite orientation. Parts of your model that face downward relative to the build plate are the parts that need support.
Auto-Supports vs Manual Placement
Every slicer offers automatic support generation. It's fast. It's also frequently wrong in ways that cost you an hour of post-processing.
Auto-supports tend to place support columns on fine detail surfaces, which leaves marks exactly where you don't want them. They sometimes miss critical overhangs entirely. They occasionally generate supports that are structurally unnecessary, wasting material and print time.
Manual support placement takes longer upfront. It saves you significantly more time on the back end. The workflow is simple: rotate your model, identify every surface that hangs over open air past 45 degrees, and place supports deliberately, aiming for flat or inconspicuous areas rather than detail faces.
Auto-Support Warning
Auto-generated supports are a starting point, not a finished plan. Always review them manually before printing. A support column landing on a face you plan to display is a problem you'll spend 20 minutes fixing with sandpaper.
Support Settings on FlashForge and Photon S
In FlashPrint (the FlashForge Inventor's slicer), supports are configured under the support settings panel. Key variables are support density, the angle threshold, and whether you enable interface layers. Interface layers are a thin section of different material or spacing at the top of each support column, right where it meets the model. They make supports dramatically easier to remove cleanly.
In Chitubox (the standard slicer for the Anycubic Photon S), you choose between light, medium, and heavy support types. Light supports are thin and easy to remove but can fail on heavy model sections. Heavy supports are more reliable but leave larger marks. For most resin prints, medium supports with manual placement on non-detail surfaces is the right approach.
Removing Supports Without Destroying Your Print
"The best time to think about support removal is before you hit print, not after."
For PLA on the FlashForge Inventor, a brief soak in warm water (60 to 70 degrees Celsius) softens the material slightly and makes support removal cleaner. Flush cutters placed as close to the model surface as possible reduce the stub left behind. Work slowly and cut one support at a time rather than trying to snap off a cluster.
For resin on the Anycubic Photon S, timing matters. Remove supports after the isopropyl alcohol wash but before the final UV cure. At that stage, the resin is firm enough to handle but hasn't reached full hardness, which means supports flex and detach rather than snapping and taking a chunk of your model with them.
The single most common support mistake is letting auto-placement put columns directly on fine detail surfaces. Catch it in the slicer preview before you print, and you save yourself a frustrating cleanup session.
Exposure Settings for Resin Printing on the Anycubic Photon S
Resin printing is a photochemical process. The Anycubic Photon S uses a UV LCD screen to project each layer's shape onto the bottom of the resin tank, curing the liquid resin into a solid cross-section one layer at a time. The amount of time the light shines on each layer is the exposure setting, and getting it wrong is the most common reason resin prints fail.
Normal Exposure vs Bottom Exposure Layers
There are two distinct exposure values you'll set for every resin print.
Bottom layers (typically the first 4 to 8 layers) use much longer exposure times to bond the print firmly to the build plate. For most resins on the Photon S, this is somewhere between 40 and 60 seconds per layer. Those first layers are doing the hardest mechanical work: holding the entire print against the plate while it peels away from the FEP film below on every subsequent layer. Weak bottom layers mean the print detaches mid-job.
Normal layer exposure for the remaining layers is much shorter, typically 6 to 12 seconds depending on resin type, color, and ambient temperature. Standard gray or white resins from established brands usually land around 8 seconds at room temperature on the Photon S. Treat that as a starting point, not a final answer.
What Happens When Exposure Is Wrong
Overexposure and underexposure fail in opposite but equally frustrating ways.
Overexposure causes UV light to bleed past the intended layer boundary, curing resin that should have stayed liquid. Fine details fill in. Text becomes unreadable. The base of the print develops elephant foot: a flared, bloated first few layers caused by excess light spreading outward. Delicate features like thin spires or mesh structures fuse together.
Underexposure means layers don't fully cure before the next one is added. The print is fragile, sometimes rubbery,
Common Beginner Mistakes and How to Squash Them
Every printer has a learning curve. The honest truth is that most failed prints trace back to a handful of predictable mistakes, and knowing them in advance puts you miles ahead of where most beginners start.
FDM Mistakes: The Top Offenders
Printing too fast is the single most common FDM error. Speed affects everything: layer bonding, detail resolution, and how well the filament has time to adhere to the previous layer. A print that looks fine at 60mm/s often looks dramatically better at 40mm/s, especially on curves and overhangs.
Wrong bed temperature is particularly brutal with ABS. ABS contracts as it cools, and if your bed isn't hot enough (aim for 100-110°C), the corners peel up mid-print. You'll come back to a spaghetti mess and a part that looks like it tried to escape the build plate.
Not drying your filament is a quiet killer. Moisture absorbed from the air causes stringing, bubbling, and weak layer bonds. PLA is relatively forgiving, but PETG and nylon are moisture sponges. If your prints are suddenly worse and nothing else changed, the filament is the first suspect.
Walking away during the first layer is a rookie move that experienced printers still occasionally make. The first layer determines everything. Watch it. If it's not sticking flat and evenly, stop the print and fix the issue before wasting two hours of material.
Resin Mistakes: The Silent Print Killers
Not shaking the resin bottle before pouring leaves pigment settled at the bottom. Your prints will be inconsistent in color and may have adhesion problems on the first layers.
Skipping the FEP film inspection is how you ruin a print and potentially damage your LCD screen. Check it before every session. Cloudy, scratched, or punctured FEP needs to be replaced before you pour a drop of resin.
Cold ambient temperature is a resin printer's enemy. Resin needs warmth to cure properly. Below about 20°C (68°F), cure times change unpredictably and adhesion suffers. Print in a warm room or warm the resin gently before use.
Skipping gloves and ventilation isn't just a best practice. Uncured resin is a skin sensitizer and the fumes are genuinely unpleasant. Wear nitrile gloves every time you handle liquid resin, and make sure air is moving through your workspace.
Safety First, Always
Uncured resin is a chemical hazard. Nitrile gloves, eye protection, and ventilation are not optional. Dispose of resin waste properly. Never pour uncured resin down the drain.
The Mindset Shift: Iteration Over Perfection
Here's the reframe that changes everything. A failed print isn't a failure. It's a data point. Something went wrong, and now you know one more thing that doesn't work with your specific printer, filament, and environment. That's valuable.
Print calibration cubes before committing to big projects. A 20-minute test print that reveals a bed leveling problem saves you from a four-hour print that fails at hour three. Small tests first. Always.
Print Speed and Temperature: Finding the Sweet Spot
Settings don't exist in isolation. Speed affects temperature requirements. Temperature affects adhesion. Adhesion affects whether your print survives the first layer. Understanding how these variables interact is what separates consistent printing from constant troubleshooting.
FDM Print Speed Settings Explained
The FlashForge Inventor ships with default print speeds around 50-60mm/s for most profiles. That's a reasonable starting point, but it's not the whole picture. FlashPrint (and most slicers) let you set different speeds for different parts of the print.
Perimeter speed (the outer walls) has the most visible impact on surface quality. Slowing perimeters to 30-40mm/s while keeping infill speed at 60-80mm/s and travel speed at 100-120mm/s gives you better surface finish without dramatically increasing total print time. The outer walls are what people see. Make those count.
Temperature Towers: The Best Calibration Print You're Not Doing
Nozzle temperature ranges give you a starting point, not a final answer. PLA typically runs between 190-220°C, PETG between 230-250°C, and ABS between 230-260°C. But the right temperature for your specific filament brand and color varies, and the only way to find it is to test.
A temperature tower is a single print that changes nozzle temperature every few millimeters of height. You print one, look at the results, and pick the temperature zone that produced the cleanest bridges, sharpest details, and least stringing. It takes about 30-45 minutes and saves you from guessing on every future spool.
Bed temperature matters just as much for adhesion. PLA sticks well at 50-60°C. PETG prefers 70-85°C. ABS needs 100-110°C and benefits from an enclosure to prevent drafts from cracking the print mid-build.
How Speed and Temperature Interact
Faster printing means the filament spends less time at the nozzle. Less time means less heat transfer. If you push speed up and start seeing poor layer adhesion or gaps, raise the nozzle temperature by 5-10°C before anything else. The reverse is also true: if you slow down and start seeing over-extrusion or blobbing, dropping the temperature slightly can clean things up.
Cooling fan settings complete the triangle. PLA benefits from full cooling after the first few layers. ABS needs minimal cooling or none at all. Aggressive cooling on ABS causes layer separation and warping. When in doubt, check the filament manufacturer's recommended settings and treat them as a ceiling, not a floor.
Putting It All Together: A Settings Reference Cheat Sheet
Settings discussions are useful. A table you can actually reference mid-print is better. These numbers are starting points calibrated to common machines and common materials. Your printer will have opinions.
FDM Quick-Reference Settings by Material
:::figure
| Material | Layer Height | Nozzle Temp | Bed Temp | Print Speed | Cooling |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PLA | 0.1-0.3mm | 195-215°C | 50-60°C | 40-60mm/s | Full |
| PETG | 0.15-0.3mm | 235-245°C | 75-85°C | 35-50mm/s | Partial |
| ABS | 0.15-0.3mm | 235-255°C | 100-110°C | 40-55mm/s | Minimal |
| FDM starting settings by material. Adjust based on your specific filament brand and printer behavior. | |||||
| ::: |
Resin Quick-Reference Settings for the Anycubic Photon S
:::figure
| Resin Type | Bottom Layers | Bottom Exposure | Normal Exposure | Lift Speed |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Standard | 6-8 layers | 50-60s | 8-12s | 60mm/min |
| ABS-Like | 6-8 layers | 55-65s | 9-13s | 50mm/min |
| Resin settings for the Anycubic Photon S. Ambient temperature significantly affects these values. | ||||
| ::: |
How to Document Your Own Successful Settings
Keep a print log. It doesn't need to be elaborate. A notes app entry with the filament brand, color, nozzle temp, bed temp, speed, and result is enough to save you from repeating experiments you've already run.
Save Your Profiles
Both FlashPrint and Chitubox let you save named slicer profiles. When a settings combination works well, save it immediately with a descriptive name like "Hatchbox PLA Gray 0.2mm Fast" before you forget what you changed. Community-tested profiles are also available on Reddit's r/3Dprinting and manufacturer Discord servers.
Every printer has its own personality. These tables get you close. Your print log gets you exact.
Your Part 5 Action Checklist: Lock In Your Settings Before Part 6
Part 4 got your machines assembled and your first prints running. Part 5 is where you move from "it printed" to "it printed well." Before moving on to Part 6, work through this checklist. Each item builds the calibration foundation that every future print depends on.
What's Coming in Part 6: From Consumer to Creator
Part 6 is the one most beginners quietly dread. Designing your own models sounds like something reserved for engineers with expensive software and years of CAD training. It's not.
Part 6 breaks that myth completely. You'll get a tour of beginner-friendly design tools, a plain-language explanation of how 3D modeling actually works, and a guided project: designing and printing a simple, useful object from scratch. No engineering degree required. No artistic talent assumed.
The settings you locked in during Part 5 matter here. A well-calibrated printer turns your first design into a real object instead of a cautionary tale. All that work pays off the moment you hold something you imagined and then printed.
Fair warning: designing your own things is where this hobby gets genuinely addictive.
