Okra Garden Supply uses a Ultimaker S5 FDM 3D printer for our product design and manufacturing. Read more to learn about our 3D printing journey, including the print settings we recommend.
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About the Ultimaker S5
Using Cura to Slice your 3D model
OGS Preferred Print Settings
About the Ultimaker S5
The Ultimaker S5 is manufactured by the Dutch company Ultimaker. This is a pre-built Fused Deposition Modeling (FDM) Printer. This means the manufacturing process adds material layer by layer to create the item. The S5 has dual extruders, so this means it can print two different filament materials without needing to change the spool.
We are using exclusively UIltimaker brand ABS (which stands for acrylonitrile-butadiene-styrene) filament for Okra Garden Supply manufacturing. ABS is used to ensure our products can stand up to the sunlight and moisture they are likely to encounter outdoors. While this is one of the more durable materials that can be printed using a FDM printer, it can be difficult to get all the settings optimized for reliable printing.
We have found that the Ultimaker brand filament is much easier to print with successfully, so while it is more expensive than other ABS filaments available, we believe it is a good value.
The Ultimaker S5 has optional Air Manager and Materials Handler that go above and below the printer respectively, but we are not currently using these. The Air Manager provides temperature control of the enclosure and more controlled venting. The Materials Handler allows automated switching of filament and humidity control for extra materials. (Ultimaker spools have RFID tags that allow the printer to identify the content of each spool.)
For now, we are storing unused filament in vacuum sealed zipper bags, and have not had any issues with temperature control.
Using Cura to Slice your 3D Model
Slicing software is used to convert the 3D model into instructions for your printer. Okra Garden Supply uses Cura, which is a popular slicing software made by Ultimaker. Cura allows you to load the models, place them on the virtual bed of your printer, and adjust a bunch of settings for how the printer will be instructed to print the model. Then you click ‘slice’ for the software to process the model into printer instructions, layer by layer. This will then tell you how long the print will take, and how much filament is needed to complete the print with the selected settings.
Click print to send the job to the configured printer.
OGS Preferred Print Settings
The print settings allow you to control the quality of your print. These settings include things like the height of each layer that is printed, effectively controlling the resolution of the print. They also include print speed, wall thickness, and the bed and nozzle temperature settings. There are hundreds of settings, although we have been printing successfully with tweaks to only a few of parameters. Below is a quick reference to Okra Garden Supply’s recommended print settings.
You can visit Ultimaker’s Print Settings Documentation for all the details.
These are the print settings used for typical product manufacturing for sale to end users.
| Setting | High Quality Settings | For Faster Prints |
|---|---|---|
| Filament | Ultimaker ABS 2.85mm (all colors) | |
| Nozzle Temperature | 245.0 C | |
| Build Plate Temperature | 85.0 C | |
| Layer Height | .15 mm | up to .25 mm |
| Wall Thickness | 1.3 mm | |
| Top/Bottom Thickness | 1.2 mm | |
| Infill Density | 30% | 20% |
| Infill Pattern | Varies by design, triangle or octet | |
| Print Speed | 60 mm/s | up to 80 mm/s |
