The filament type is one of the first things that come to mind for printing models with a specific goal, as ensuring that the filament has suitable characteristics for your purposes is one of the best ways to optimize your model before the printing process even takes place.
On the other hand, just as the filament type itself, the filament brand is also a significant consideration to keep in mind, as the quality of the filament largely depends on the manufacturing process and the composition of materials that the manufacturer has chosen.
Today, we will work on finding the most optimal settings for printing with the Hatchbox brand of PETG, in particular, by using the manufacturer’s guidelines as the basis, which will provide us valuable insight into optimizing the print settings in a way that would perform better than the generic PETG configuration, and create a better final product.
So, what are the optimal print settings for Hatchbox PETG filament?
Below, you can find the optimal print settings for printing with Hatchbox PETG filament, according to the manufacturer’s specifications:
- Nozzle (Print) Temperature – 230 to 260 degrees Celsius
- Bed Temperature – 80 to 100 degrees Celsius
- Print Speed – 60 to 100 millimeters per second
- Filament Diameter – 1.75 mm
In the upcoming sections, we will be analyzing the optimal print settings for Hatchbox PETG in more detail, find out how to save the specific Hatchbox PETG configuration on Cura and PrusaSlicer, and finally, quickly go through the optimal Hatchbox PETG settings specifically for the Ender 3.
Table of Contents
What Are the Optimal Settings for Hatchbox PETG?
As the material composition of the filament you’re using can vary dramatically based on the brand, with each manufacturer using a different formula for their production, the optimal print settings naturally also differ as a result.
Based on the specifications on the manufacturer’s website, a nozzle temperature range of 230 to 260 degrees Celsius, a print speed range of 60 to 100 millimeters per second, and a bed temperature of 80 to 100 degrees Celsius is optimal for printing with Hatchbox PETG.
As Hatchbox PETG only comes with a filament diameter of 1.75 millimeters, ensuring that your slicer’s filament diameter value is configured to the correct value should be enough to guarantee that you don’t face any over-extrusion or under-extrusion related to the diameter.
To find the best possible values for your 3D printer, we highly recommend running test prints while incrementing or decrementing the values you initially picked (make sure to stay within the recommended ranges), observing the results, and making adjustments accordingly.
How to Add Hatchbox PETG as a Custom Material and Profile in Cura?
Permanently saving the parameters you have explicitly customized for usage with Hatchbox PETG is the best way to ensure that you always have access to the configuration without having to look for the values again in the case that you switch between filaments.
To start, let’s add Hatchbox PETG as a custom material in Cura, which will contain the filament-specific settings:
- Click the Prepare tab on the top of the Cura window.
- Click the middle pane, which will bring up the material and nozzle size settings.
- Click the Material dropdown, and choose Manage Materials.
- Click Generic PETG from the list, and click the Duplicate button to create a new material profile that will act as the foundation.
- Choose the new entry from the list to edit it.
- Type Hatchbox into the Brand input and 1.75 mm into the Diameter input.
- Switch to the Print Settings section.
- Fill the values that belong to the filament, such as the print temperature, into the corresponding inputs.
After completing the process of custom material creation, the next step is to create a custom profile containing the non-filament-specific settings you would like to use while printing with Hatchbox PETG through Cura’s profile feature.
Below is a step-by-step guide you can follow to create a custom profile that contains all the settings that you intend to use while printing with Hatchbox PETG:
- Go to the Prepare tab in Cura.
- Click the right pane, which will bring up the Print Settings.
- Click the Custom button if visible; else, skip this step.
- Click the dropdown menu labeled Profile, and choose the Manage Profiles option from the list.
- Duplicate one of the currently available profiles, and name the new profile Hatchbox PETG.
- Activate the profile by clicking the Activate button.
- Make the modifications you intend to utilize to the print settings, such as changing the print speed.
- Click the dropdown menu labeled Profile once again, and choose the “Update profile with current settings/overrides” button to save all the modifications you have performed to the profile you have created.
With both steps complete, you will be able to find both the custom material and the custom profile in their corresponding places, and activating both will prompt Cura to load all the settings you have configured for the purposes of printing with Hatchbox PETG.
How to Add Hatchbox PETG as a Preset in PrusaSlicer?
Since the presets in PrusaSlicer allow you to save a specific set of configurations for later usage, it’s the perfect feature for creating distinct sets of configurations that correspond to different brands and types of filament.
Here is a step-by-step guide you can follow to add Hatchbox PETG as a Preset in PrusaSlicer:
- Navigate to the Filament Settings section by clicking the corresponding tab that you can find on the top of the PrusaSlicer window.
- Click the Save button (floppy disk icon) located next to the dropdown menu in the top left corner.
- Type Hatchbox PETG into the box, which will be the new preset’s name.
- Modify the parameters such as Filament Diameter, Filament Density, Filament Cost, Spool Weight, Nozzle Temperature, and Bed Temperature accordingly.
- Click Save once again.
- Click the OK button without modifying the name, and PrusaSlicer will save the configuration you have changed into the preset you have created.
After configuring and saving the preset, you will be able to find it in the Filament dropdown menu, located in the Plater tab of PrusaSlicer, and activate it to use it in your prints whenever necessary.
What Are the Optimal Hatchbox PETG Settings for Ender 3 (Pro/V2)?
As the specific settings that would work the best with the Ender 3 are something that is commonly asked about due to the printer’s popularity, regardless of the brand and the type of the filament in question, let’s quickly go through the optimized configuration.
Below are our recommended Hatchbox PETG settings for the Ender 3:
- Nozzle Temperature – 245 degrees Celsius
- Bed Temperature – 80 degrees Celsius
- Print Speed – 60 millimeters per second
- Filament Diameter – 1.75 mm
As always, feel free to perform your customized optimizations whenever necessary, as the values we have listed are merely the ones that provided the best results during our tests.
Wrapping Up
We highly recommend using the manufacturer’s recommendations for configuring your print settings for a particular brand of filament whenever possible, as they will always perform better than the generic settings recommended for the filament type.
To quickly recap, a range of 230℃-260℃ for the print (nozzle) temperature, 80℃-100℃ for the bed temperature, 60-100 mm/s for the print speed, and finally, 1.75 mm for the filament diameter are the suggested settings for printing with Hatchbox PETG by the manufacturer.
On the other hand, as the values provided are merely ranges, finding the figures that are specifically fine-tuned to work the best with your 3D printer will require you to run some test prints, observe the results, and configure accordingly based on your findings.
Happy printing!
Mike started his 3D printing journey with the Anet A8 when it first came out back in 2017, and has been obsessed with 3D printers ever since. Nowadays, he primarily uses his Ender 3 to print functional parts that make his life more convenient whenever possible.