FGF-specific settings

Ginger Slicer inherits most of OrcaSlicer’s settings, but several parameters behave differently — or exist only — for pellet printing. This page explains the settings that matter most for FGF on the G1.

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Pellet Modded Printer

Where: Printer settings → General → Pellet Modded Printer

This toggle must be enabled for the G1. When active, the slicer changes how it interprets the E axis:

• Disabled (filament mode): E = millimeters of filament to advance
• Enabled (pellet mode): E = cubic millimeters of material volume to extrude

Without this toggle enabled, the slicer would emit incorrect G-code values and the G1 would severely over- or under-extrude. The G1 printer profile ships with this already enabled — do not disable it.

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Rotation Volume

Where: Pellets (material profile) → Extruder Rotation Volume

Rotation Volume (mm³ per screw turn) is the pellet equivalent of “rotation distance” in filament printers. It tells Ginger Slicer how much material the screw delivers per full rotation.

• This value is material-specific and must be calibrated for each pellet you use
• It replaces the concept of “flow rate %” — you do not adjust a percentage; you calibrate the actual physical volume
• After adding SmoothFlow or changing nozzle diameter, re-run calibration

See Rotation Volume calibration for the full procedure.

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Max Volumetric Speed (MVS)

Where: Pellets (material profile) → Max Volumetric Speed

MVS (mm³/s) caps the material delivery rate. For pellet printing, MVS is a more meaningful speed limit than the linear print speed (mm/s) because it captures the physical limit of the screw extruder.

Why MVS matters more than print speed:

• The G1 screw motor has a maximum torque threshold — exceed it and you get motor skipping, clicks, gaps, and eventual layer shift
• Print speed (mm/s) alone does not tell you whether you are within the extruder’s limits; MVS does
• Ginger Slicer enforces MVS by capping the actual extrusion rate; the head may slow down even if the nominal speed seems fine

What the shipped profiles actually use: 200 mm³/s for almost everything, and that is deliberately below what the machine can reach — a profile has to hold for a long print, not for a ten-second test. The exceptions in the set are Ginger rPLA at 180, Azure PETG at 250 and colorFabb FOAM PLA at 500. Every value is in Material profiles.

See Max Volumetric Speed for how to find your material’s ceiling.

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Multi-Heating Zones

Where: Pellets (material profile) → Multi-zone print temperatures

The G1 barrel has three independent heating zones. Ginger Slicer exposes these as separate temperature inputs in the material profile:

Slicer label	Zone	Position	Role
Zone 1	Feeding Zone (T0)	Top (hopper entry)	Softens pellets
Zone 2	Melting Zone (T1)	Middle	Full melt
Zone 3	Nozzle Zone (T2)	Bottom (nozzle exit)	Final viscosity control

The dialog labels them Zone 1, 2 and 3 — see the screenshot in Material profiles. On this machine E-numbers belong to motors, never to zones.

Each zone is tuned independently per material. Starting temperatures for common materials are listed in Creating a material profile.

See Multi-Heating Zones for detailed hardware context.

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Retraction behavior

Where: Printer settings → Extruder 1 → Retraction settings

Pellet extruders cannot retract mechanically the way filament printers do. The screw cannot pull material back up the barrel. What Ginger Slicer calls “retraction” on the G1 is actually pressure-based ooze reduction:

• Retraction Length: reduces the pressure at the end of a line by briefly reversing screw direction slightly — the effect is limited compared to filament retraction
• Extra Length on Restart: additional extrusion on restart to compensate for pressure loss during the move
• Wipe Distance: nozzle travels without extrusion to clean up ooze before the next move

Caution

Never modify retraction values in the base machine profile. Always set them as Setting Overrides inside the material profile. This keeps the base machine config clean and lets each material have its own optimal parameters.

The symptom retraction is for

A small blob at the restart of each line — the “un-retraction blob”. Left alone it builds up until the nozzle catches on it, and that reads as a layer shift.

What the numbers mean here

On a pellet machine E is cubic millimetres, not millimetres of filament, so retraction is a volume. The shipped values are 25 mm³ on the 1 and 1.8 mm nozzles, 10 on the 3 mm, and 20 on the 5 and 8. Move from whichever your nozzle uses — not from a filament printer’s fraction of a millimetre.

Tuning it live

1. Enable firmware retraction — Printer, then Extruder, then Use firmware retraction. That hands retraction to Klipper, so it can be changed from the printer display mid-print
2. Print a simple square with grid infill — many retraction events per layer
3. Adjust Retraction Length and Extra Length on Restart from the display while it prints
4. Once happy, put the values into the material profile as Setting Overrides

Two things that reduce ooze without touching retraction: dropping the nozzle zone 5–10 °C makes the melt stiffer (too far and it stops flowing evenly), and concentric top infill instead of 45° cross-hatch simply has fewer retraction moves to leave blobs on.

Seam marks on PETG

A raised or indented line up the Z axis where each layer starts is usually too much retraction — PETG shows it sooner than PLA. Reduce, in the units above.

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Why the print slows down

Two settings slow a print on their own, and both look like a fault the first time.

• Layer time control — Process → Cooling → Slow Down for Cooling. If a layer would finish faster than the minimum layer time, the slicer slows it so the layer below can cool. This is the one you want on; it is why small parts print slowly
• Slow down on overhangs — Process → Quality → Slow Down for Cooling on Overhangs. Useful for filament, mostly confusing here. Turn it off if you do not need it

A related surprise: the speed override on the display does not lift a layer that the slicer has already slowed. The low speed is baked into the G-code, so the multiplier applies to an already-reduced number. If the second layer crawls and the override changes nothing, raise the layer time in the profile rather than fighting it from the panel.

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Pressure Advance

Where: Pellets (material profile) → Pressure Advance and Smooth Time

Pressure Advance compensates for the delay between the screw starting/stopping and material flow actually changing at the nozzle tip. The G1 screw extruder has significant internal volume, so this delay is meaningful.

The printer profile sends 0.2 with a smooth time of 0.5 on all five nozzles, and the material profile then overrides the first number with its own — 0.3 for unfilled grades, up to 0.7 for a 20% filled PETG.

Signs that tuning is needed:

• Blobs at corners or sharp direction changes
• Inconsistent line width at acceleration/deceleration
• Oozing during travel moves

To tune live during a print:

1. Open Mainsail, then Macros
2. Run SET_PRESSURE_ADVANCE_AND_SMOOTH_TIME and watch the change take effect
3. Once satisfactory, copy the values into the material profile

Full procedure: Pressure Advance tuning.

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Arachne wall generator

Where: Process → Quality → Wall generator

Always use Arachne on the G1, whatever the nozzle.

The Classic wall generator divides object walls into a fixed number of lines of fixed width. When the wall thickness is close to the nozzle diameter (e.g. a 7 mm wall with a 5 mm nozzle), Classic produces incorrect Z-moves, blobs, and wall doubling artifacts.

Arachne adapts the wall count and width to the actual geometry, eliminating these artifacts. Set it in Process → Quality → Wall generator → Arachne.

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Z-hop

Where: Printer settings → Extruder 1 → Z hop height

Z-hop lifts the nozzle before travel moves to avoid clipping the print.

Shipped: 0.5 mm on the 1 and 1.8 mm nozzles, 1 mm on the 3 mm, 1.5 mm on the 5 and 8 mm

Increase to 1–1.5 mm when using infill patterns that create tall internal structures (lightning infill, open grid infill with tall cells). With a large nozzle the bead height is significant, and insufficiently tall Z-hop causes the nozzle to hit infill peaks during travel — resulting in motor step loss and layer shift.

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Vase mode (Spiralize outer contour)

Where: Process → Others → Spiralize outer contour

Vase mode prints a continuous single-wall spiral with no layer changes. Ginger Slicer positions the extruded line so that the outer surface of the bead follows the model geometry — because the slicer knows the wall thickness (nozzle diameter) and offsets the line center inward accordingly.

Practical implication: if you model a cylinder of exactly 400 mm diameter, the outer surface of the print will be 400 mm — the center of the extruded line will be offset inward by approximately half the line width (e.g. ~1.5 mm inward for a 3 mm nozzle). Design to the outer dimension of your intended geometry.

Pressure Advance in vase mode: set PA to 0. Any non-zero PA value produces repeating texture artifacts on the continuous spiral wall. Restore your normal PA value after printing in vase mode.

Note

Ginger Slicer refers to this feature as “Spiralize outer contour” in the Print settings.

Ordinary, non-vase prints

Everything above applies; two starting points on top. 10% infill is a sane default for structural parts, and avoid lightning infill until retraction is tuned — its tall thin towers are exactly what an untuned nozzle clips on the way past. See Z-hop.