Introduction: More Than Just "Print Speed"
The biggest problem with 3D printing is waiting. A simple-looking design on your computer screen can easily take 12 hours to print. Most people think the answer is to find the "print speed" setting and turn it way up, but this usually leads to failed prints and poor quality. Real speed improvement requires a complete approach.
In 2025, getting fast, high-quality prints is easier than ever before, mainly because of amazing improvements in printer software. This guide gives you everything you need to know, organized into three main areas: Slicer Settings, Mechanical Setup, and Advanced Software/Hardware Upgrades.
In this complete guide, you will learn:
* The basic science of speed and what you give up to get it.
* How to cut print times dramatically using only free slicer settings.
* Important mechanical checks to get your printer ready for high performance.
* The advanced software and hardware that unlock incredibly fast speeds.
The Basic Rule
Before you change anything, you need to understand how speed, print quality, and your machine's health work together. Printing faster isn't just about moving the print head more quickly; it's about controlling the forces you create when you do.
Why You Can't Just "Turn It Up"
Every quick change in direction creates momentum and shaking. The faster you go, the stronger these forces become. Think about trying to take sharp turns in a car at high speed; you'll miss the corners and the ride will be very bumpy. Your printer goes through the same thing. This shows up as specific print problems and can even damage your machine's parts early. The real limit is often how fast the hotend can melt plastic, which is called the Volumetric Flow Rate. Go past this, and you'll get serious under-extrusion.
Understanding these problems is the first step to finding and fixing them.
| Problem Name | What It Looks Like | Why Speed Causes It |
|---|---|---|
| Ringing / Ghosting | Wavy lines or echoes appearing after sharp corners or features. | Frame and belt shaking from sudden changes in printhead direction. |
| Poor Layer Sticking | Layers come apart easily; the part is weak and breaks easily. | Plastic doesn't have enough time in the hotend to melt completely and stick to the layer below. |
| Loss of Detail | Rounded corners, blurred small features, and wrong dimensions. | The printhead's momentum makes it "overshoot" where it should go, smearing the details. |
| Under-extrusion | Gaps in walls, weak infill, or a rough, hole-filled surface. | The extruder can't push plastic fast enough, or the hotend can't melt it fast enough (going over volumetric flow). |
Level 1: Slicer Improvements
The biggest changes you can make are completely free and found in your slicer software (like Cura, PrusaSlicer, or OrcaSlicer). Learning these settings is the foundation of fast printing.
Main Speed & Acceleration
Most users only see one "Print Speed" setting, but there are several. Print Speed affects walls and infill. Travel Speed is the speed of non-printing moves. Initial Layer Speed controls the important first layer. For reliability, always print the first layer slowly—around 20-30 mm/s. This makes sure it sticks perfectly to the bed, giving a stable base for the rest of the print. Travel moves can be set much higher, often 150-250 mm/s on a well-tuned machine.
Beyond simple speed, look for Acceleration and Jerk (or Junction Deviation) settings. Acceleration controls how quickly the printhead gets up to speed, while Jerk/Junction Deviation decides the instant speed change allowed at corners. Higher acceleration values dramatically reduce print time but need a solid machine to handle the forces.
Printing Less, Faster
The fastest way to print is to print less material. This is mainly controlled by your wall and infill settings.
- Infill Percentage: Many models are printed with 20% infill by default. For decorative or non-structural parts, you can often drop this to 10% or even 5%. For many models, reducing infill from 20% to 15% can save 10-25% of the total print time with almost no impact on strength.
- Infill Pattern: Not all patterns are the same. Patterns like Lines or Zig-Zag involve simple, continuous movements and are much faster to print than complex patterns like Grid, Triangles, or Gyroid. Use a fast pattern for most prints and switch to a stronger one only when mechanical strength is the top priority.
- Walls/Perimeters: A print's strength comes mainly from its outer walls, not its infill. Reducing the wall count from three to two will save significant time. However, for any part that needs to be durable, we recommend sticking with at least three walls.
Making Layer Height Work Better
The relationship here is simple: a thicker layer needs fewer layers to complete a model. Doubling your layer height from 0.15mm to 0.3mm can nearly cut your print time in half. The trade-off is visual quality; thicker layers create more obvious lines on the surface of your print.
This is where you must consider what the print is for. For a functional bracket or a rough prototype, a large layer height is perfect. For a detailed miniature or a display piece, you'll want a smaller layer height. A good rule is to never go over a layer height that is about 75% of your nozzle's diameter (for example, a 0.4mm nozzle should print at a maximum of 0.3mm layer height).
We once printed two identical test models. The first, at a 0.12mm layer height, took 8 hours and had a beautifully smooth surface. The second, at a 0.28mm layer height, took just under 3.5 hours. While it showed clear layer lines, it was perfectly functional for its intended purpose as a prototype.
Getting Rid of Wasted Movement
Travel moves, especially those that involve a retraction, add significant time to a print. Slicers have settings to minimize this. In Cura, the setting is called Combing Mode; in PrusaSlicer, it's "Avoid crossing perimeters." By turning this on, you tell the slicer to keep the nozzle inside the footprint of the model during travel moves as much as possible. This avoids slow retraction-unretraction cycles and long travel paths, keeping the nozzle moving efficiently over the part.
Level 2: Mechanical Setup
Your printer's physical structure is its foundation. A weak, poorly maintained machine will shake too much at speed, ruining your prints. Before pushing for higher speeds, make sure your hardware is ready.
A Solid Frame
Any looseness or wobble in your printer's frame is an enemy of speed. At high speeds, small vibrations get amplified into significant print quality issues like ringing. Go through your printer and systematically check every screw and bolt on the frame, making sure they are tight. For open-frame printers, consider printing and installing frame braces. These printed parts can substantially increase the stiffness of the Z-axis, leading to better quality at higher accelerations. A solid frame is like good suspension on a car; it allows you to handle speed smoothly.
Perfect Belt Tension
Your printer's belts translate motor commands into precise movement. If they are loose, you get backlash—a sloppiness in the system that results in wrong dimensions and ghosting. If they are too tight, they can cause early wear on motors and bearings.
Proper tension is key. Go beyond just "make them tight." A properly tensioned belt should have a specific feel and sound. When you pluck it like a guitar string, it should make a low, bass-like 'twang'. It should not sound like a high-pitched note (too tight) or a dull thud (too loose). Check both your X-axis and Y-axis belts. This simple, free adjustment is one of the most effective ways to improve precision at speed.
Consider a Larger Nozzle
To print faster, you need to move more plastic. The most direct way to do this is with a larger nozzle. Swapping a standard 0.4mm nozzle for a 0.6mm or even 0.8mm nozzle dramatically increases the maximum volumetric flow you can achieve.
Moving from a 0.4mm to a 0.6mm nozzle increases the cross-sectional area of the opening by 125%. This allows you to print much wider and taller layers, drastically cutting print times, especially for large, simple objects. For a large storage box or a functional part without intricate details, using a 0.6mm nozzle with a 0.4mm layer height can cut print times by 60% or more compared to a standard 0.4mm nozzle setup. The obvious trade-off is a loss of fine detail, making this approach unsuitable for miniatures or highly detailed models.
Level 3: Advanced Upgrades
Once you've mastered your slicer and tuned your mechanics, you can enter the world of high-performance upgrades. In 2025, software and specialized hardware are the keys to unlocking the final level of speed.
The Software Revolution
For years, most printers ran on software like Marlin, where all calculations were handled by the printer's own, often limited, mainboard. The modern approach for high-speed printing is software called Klipper.
The design difference is the key. Klipper installs on a powerful companion computer (like a Raspberry Pi) that connects to your printer's mainboard. The Pi performs all the intense motion calculations and then sends very simple, pre-processed instructions to the printer's board. This "look-ahead" processing allows for far more complex and precise motion control than a mainboard could ever handle on its own.
This design enables a game-changing feature: Input Shaping. In simple terms, Input Shaping is like noise-canceling headphones for your printer's motion system. It works by running a quick test to measure the natural shaking frequencies of your printer's X and Y axes. Then, during a print, it creates an opposite motion signal to cancel out the vibrations before they can become ringing artifacts on your print. This allows for extremely high acceleration and speed without the ghosting that would normally ruin such prints.
Hardware for Speed
To take full advantage of Klipper, you need hardware that can keep up.
-
High-Flow Hotends: A standard hotend has a small "melt zone" and simply cannot melt plastic fast enough to support very high speeds. You will hit its maximum volumetric flow rate, resulting in severe under-extrusion. A high-flow hotend is designed with a longer melt zone, giving the plastic more time in contact with the heater block to melt properly, enabling significantly higher flow rates for high-speed printing.
-
Direct Drive Extruders: A direct drive system mounts the extruder motor directly on the printhead. This short, controlled plastic path provides much more precise control over extrusion and retraction, which is critical for the rapid start-stop movements of high-speed printing. The trade-off is added weight on the toolhead, but modern, lightweight direct drive systems minimize this issue, and the benefits of control often outweigh the added mass, especially when combined with Input Shaping.
-
Upgraded Mainboards: While Klipper handles the heavy lifting, a modern 32-bit mainboard with high-quality stepper motor drivers can still make a difference. These boards can handle the high step rates of fast motion more smoothly and quietly than older 8-bit boards, ensuring the printer's hardware can accurately execute the commands Klipper sends.
Your Step-by-Step Action Plan
This information can be overwhelming. The key is to approach speed improvement systematically. Follow this leveled plan to get faster prints without sacrificing quality or your sanity.
A Step-by-Step Guide
-
Step 1: Test Your Current Setup. Before you change anything, download a standard test model (a 3D Benchy is the classic choice) and print it with your current, everyday settings. Note the final print time and carefully look at the quality. This is your starting point.
-
Step 2: Master Your Slicer (Level 1). Apply the slicer improvements discussed above: adjust layer height, change infill patterns, reduce infill percentage, and optimize travel moves. Reprint your test model. You should see a significant drop in print time. Compare the quality to your starting point.
-
Step 3: Tune Your Mechanics (Level 2). Now, perform the physical checks. Tighten your frame bolts and properly tension your belts. If your goal is large functional parts, consider swapping to a larger nozzle. Reprint the test model. You may not see further time savings here, but the quality at speed should improve, with fewer artifacts like ringing.
-
Step 4: Plan for Advanced Upgrades (Level 3). Once you have maximized the potential of your stock machine through software and tuning, you can evaluate the next step. Research the process of installing Klipper and assess if the cost and effort of hardware upgrades like a high-flow hotend align with your goals and budget.
Summary Table: Choosing Your Method
Use this table to quickly compare the different strategies and decide which are right for you.
| Method | Speed Gain | Cost | Effort/Complexity | Potential Quality Impact |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Optimize Slicer Settings | Medium-High | None | Low | Low to Medium (if done right) |
| Increase Layer Height | High | None | Low | High (Visible layer lines) |
| Use Larger Nozzle | Very High | Low | Low-Medium | High (Loss of fine detail) |
| Mechanical Tuning | Low (Enabler) | None-Low | Medium | Positive (Improves quality at speed) |
| Install Klipper Software | Very High | Medium | High | Positive (Reduces artifacts at speed) |
| Upgrade to High-Flow Hotend | High (Enabler) | Medium | Medium | Neutral to Positive |
Conclusion: Faster and Smarter
Learning how to speed up your 3D printer is a journey, not a destination. The secret isn't just one setting or one upgrade. It begins with free, powerful improvements in your slicer, is supported by a well-tuned and solid machine, and is ultimately perfected with advanced software and hardware.
The goal should never be speed for speed's sake. The goal is to find the right balance of speed, quality, and reliability for your specific needs. By following this leveled approach, you can systematically increase your printer's output, transforming it from a slow tool into a high-performance rapid prototyping machine. Now, go make something, faster.