First start

Download the last version of Ginger Slicer from our website and check if your printer has the last updates!

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Select the country.

Choose which nozzle you need and which material, you can add both later anytime.

interface

Prepare

The settings inside the prepare are divided into 3 main categories:

To enter the settings menu of printer and pellets just cick on the icon on the right of the type name

Printer

Here are all the settings regarding the hardware, usually those settings are not changed by the users and are stock.

The main difference between filament printers are those settings that allow you to turn on the volumetric flow through the rotation volume, the forced feeding and activate the control on each zone of the extruder. 

Multi heating zones

This feature was added to Orca Slicer to support extruders with multiple independently heated zones. Unlike the standard single-temperature setting, our setup requires managing three separate temperature zones within the nozzle.

In our specific hardware configuration, each heating zone along the nozzle plays a different role in the extrusion process—such as pre-heating, melting, and maintaining flow. Having control over each zone’s temperature allows us to:

• Optimize material flow and response
• Reduce clogs and under-extrusion
• Fine-tune print quality based on the material and geometry
• Extend compatibility with high-performance or experimental filaments

Machine G-code

In the machine g-code you can check the start G-code with the parameters needed to start a printing process. Those parameters are used by the start code macros in klipper 

Extruder settings

The section extruder 1 has all the settings about the retraction, the most important are:

• Length is the amount of retraction
• Extra length on restart is the amount of extra material extruded after recovering the retraction
• wipe distance is the length without extrusion on the printed layer
• zhop height is the movement in Z to raise the nozzle during the travels

Pellets

Here there are the configurations used for different materials, each material needs his own custom settings that need to be tuned.

The main parameters related to the materials are:

Pellet flow coefficient must be 1

Extruder rotation volume

The main difference between filament-based and pellet-based printers lies in how the machine determines the correct amount of material to extrude.

• Rotation Distance (Filament): This is the length of filament (in millimeters) pushed through the extruder with one full (360°) rotation of the stepper motor. It tells the printer how much filament to extrude. If the value is incorrect, the printer may over- or under-extrude, which can negatively affect print quality. For example, if one motor rotation pushes 25 mm of filament, the rotation distance should be set to 25 mm. This value must be correctly configured in the firmware for precise extrusion.

• Rotation Volume (Pellet): In pellet-based printers, the rotation distance is replaced by rotation volume, which refers to the volume of material (in mm³) extruded with one full rotation of the extruder screw. Unlike filament, where different materials have minor extrusion differences, pellet-based printing can show significant variation—up to 40% between PLA and PETG—mainly due to differences in viscosity and other material properties.

Calibrating Rotation Volume: Usually, when using predefined material profiles, the rotation volume values are already set correctly. However, when using a new or different type of material, it’s important to verify and adjust this value.

• Manual Method: Print an object (even just the skirt), and use a caliper to measure the printed layer height and width. Calculate the actual cross-sectional area and compare it to the expected area from the slicer. Use this comparison to determine the correct rotation volume.

Pressure advance

Pressure Advance is a feature used to compensate for the delay between when the extruder starts or stops and when material actually begins or ends extruding at the nozzle. This delay is caused by pressure buildup inside the extruder, especially noticeable pellets extruder.

Without pressure advance, you may see issues like:

• Blobs or over-extrusion at corners or the start of lines
• Gaps or under-extrusion at the end of lines
• Inconsistent line widths during acceleration or deceleration

When enabled, Pressure Advance slightly adjusts the extruder motor to:

• Push more material before high-speed segments or corners (to pre-build pressure)
• Retract slightly before slowing down or stopping (to release pressure)

This keeps flow rate consistent and improves surface quality.

All Ginger Additive material profiles include:

• Pressure Advance = 0.3
• Smooth Time = 0.5

These values are tuned to match the physical behavior of the pellet extruder and work well for most materials.

Manual Tuning (Optional)

If you’re working with a custom material or need to optimize extrusion for a specific geometry, you can adjust these parameters using the Pressure Advance macro in the Mainsail dashboard.

How to use:

• Start a print.
• Open the Macros tab in Mainsail.
• Click the Pressure Advance macro.
• Enter:
  • ADVANCE (e.g. 0.3)
  • SMOOTH_TIME (e.g. 0.5)
• Adjust and observe changes in real time.

Smooth Time

Smooth Time is a parameter used with Pressure Advance to control how gradually the compensation is applied to the extruder motor. Instead of instantly changing the extruder speed when pressure needs to increase or decrease (e.g. at corners or speed transitions), Smooth Time tells the firmware to spread the change over time, making the motion smoother and less abrupt.

With high Pressure Advance values, the extruder motor is asked to react quickly to flow changes — especially during sharp accelerations and decelerations. In screw-based pellet extruders, this can be problematic because:

• The motor may not have enough torque to handle aggressive changes.
• Sudden movements can cause skipping, inconsistent flow, or vibrations.

Using a higher Smooth Time (e.g. 0.5 seconds) slows down how quickly Pressure Advance is applied. This gives the motor more time to build or release pressure gradually, reducing mechanical stress and improving stability.

Print temperature

Our version of Orca Slicer provides specific support for extruders equipped with multiple independently controlled heating zones. The Ginger Additive G1 Pellet Printer uses three distinct heating zones along its extrusion barrel:

• Feeding Zone (Zone 1): Responsible for initially heating and compressing the pellets.

• Melting Zone (Zone 2): Fully melts the pellets, ensuring consistent plastic flow.

• Nozzle Zone (Zone 3): Maintains optimal temperature for accurate extrusion onto the build platform.

Identifying Temperature vs. Rotation Volume Issues

When tuning temperatures, first identify whether extrusion problems are temperature-related or linked to rotation volume settings. If your machine consistently under-extrudes or extrudes irregularly, this typically indicates insufficient compression due to inadequate feeding zone temperature (usually too low). Before adjusting rotation volume settings, always verify that extrusion stability is achieved by fine-tuning the feeding zone temperature.

Recommended Initial Setup

Begin with a uniform temperature setting across all three zones. For example, when printing PLA, start by setting each zone to around 190°C, for PETG around 230°C, always check the datasheet from the supplier!

After evaluating initial print results, adjustments can be made according to the specific material and pellet characteristics.

Every plastic comes in different grades (PLA, PETG, ABS, etc.), and each grade can behave differently in pellet extrusion. Variations in molecular weight, crystallinity, additives, or recycled content affect how the material melts, compresses, and flows. As a result, two materials with the same polymer name may require different temperature settings, especially in the feeding and melting zones. Always begin with the general recommended temperatures for that polymer, then fine‑tune according to the grade and supplier to achieve stable extrusion.

Feeding Zone Adjustments:

• Higher Temperature (e.g., using liquid masterbatch): Raising the feeding zone temperature helps increase internal pressure and compression, beneficial when using liquid additives to ensure consistent feeding and flow. Higher temperatures soften pellets earlier, allowing better compression within the screw.

• Lower Temperature (slow printing or tiny pellets): If you're experiencing melted plastic rising up into the hopper causing blockages, lower the feeding zone temperature to reduce early pellet melting, thus decreasing unwanted pressure build-up and preventing clogs. Cooler pellets remain more solid, reducing premature compression and maintaining proper pellet feeding.

Melting and Nozzle Zones Adjustments:

Typically remain stable, adjusted primarily for ensuring complete melting without burning or degrading material (covered further in temperature guidelines).

Tips for Handling Common Issues

Clogging at Feeding Zone:

If melted plastic is flowing back into the hopper, reduce the feeding zone temperature by 10°C.

Stepper Motor Losing Steps at Low Speeds:

Apply liquid plastic lubricant (smooth flow), typically used in injection molding, onto pellets. This prevents sticking in the feeding zone, enabling higher feeding zone temperatures and significantly increasing flow, up to 300% increase observed with PETG and recycled PLA.

Best Practices

Regularly monitor the extrusion behavior during initial prints and make gradual adjustments.

Maintain detailed notes of temperatures used for specific materials and pellet types to streamline future setups.

Use liquid lubricant proactively if encountering flow resistance issues or motor step loss frequently.

Max volumetric speed

Max Volumetric Speed (MVS) refers to the maximum rate at which your pellet printer G1 can effectively melt and extrude plastic material. This parameter is expressed in cubic millimeters per second (mm³/s).

Importance of Max Volumetric Speed

The primary purpose of correctly setting MVS is to prevent the stepper motor from losing steps due to excessive torque demand. When the volumetric speed is set too high, the motor torque may not suffice, causing the motor to skip steps and negatively affect print quality.

Modern Printers and MVS

With modern Klipper-driven pellet printers like the G1, the mechanical kinematic speeds (movements of the printer head) are usually not the limiting factor. Instead, the extrusion rate becomes the bottleneck. Thus, tuning print speed effectively revolves around optimizing your Max Volumetric Speed, as you rarely achieve the printer's maximum mechanical speeds.

Practical Examples

• Virgin PLA pellets: Typical safe value around 250 mm³/s.
• PETG with lubricant: Can reach up to 500 mm³/s.
• Recycled PLA with lubricant: Approximately 400 mm³/s.

Given that the G1 printer’s kinematic limit is around 300 mm/s, it typically won't be reached. Recommended extrusion speeds to ensure consistent extrusion quality typically range between 120-150 mm/s for normal printing moves and 300 mm/s for travel moves.

Common Problems and Solutions

• Motor Step Loss: Caused by excessively high volumetric speeds demanding too much torque. When the extruder motor loses steps, you can hear a "clicking" or "tapping" noise. By observing the extruder from the right side, you can see the coupler (the connection between the extrusion screw and the motor) moving jerkily instead of rotating smoothly. These jerky movements correspond to the audible noise.

If this occurs during printing, it is necessary to either:

• Reduce the printing speed (using the display or Mainsail) until the motor resumes smooth operation.
• Alternatively, stop the print and adjust the Max Volumetric Speed before restarting.

To avoid reducing the MVS directly, you can instead:

• Increase the extrusion temperature.
• Add a lubricant.
• Or apply both solutions.

The lubricant helps reduce friction and allows better flow without drastically increasing temperature, preserving both print quality and material integrity.

• Insufficient Layer Solidification: Occurs when layers don't have enough time to cool, causing deformation. Do NOT fix this by lowering MVS. Instead, adjust the "Max Layer Time" setting in your slicer's cooling options.

Special Considerations

• Liquid Masterbatch: High MVS might reduce grip on the extrusion screw, leading to under-extrusion due to lack of proper pellet compression. Lower MVS to maintain consistent extrusion.

• Nozzle Diameter Impact: MVS decreases as nozzle diameter reduces due to increased back-pressure and material friction.

Conclusion

Set your Max Volumetric Speed carefully, prioritizing consistent extrusion quality and motor health. Start cautiously, and adjust according to your materials and nozzle specifications to achieve optimal printing results.

Cooling

Managing the cooling settings is essential for successful printing with pellet extrusion. Good cooling control helps prevent defects like poor layer adhesion, deformation, or warping.

Cooling for Specific Layers

No Cooling for the First Layers: Disabling cooling during the first few layers ensures better adhesion to the heated bed. Activating the fan too early can cause the plastic to cool too quickly, leading to poor bonding with the build plate.

Full Fan Speed at Layer: It is better to set this value high (or leave it inactive) so that the fan ramps up gradually. A gradual increase prevents sudden temperature drops, giving the nozzle PID loop enough time to stabilize the extrusion temperature without oscillations.

Part Cooling Fan Parameters

Min Fan Speed Threshold: The minimum fan speed activates when the layer time (the time needed to print one layer) falls below a certain value.

Example: If the layer time is shorter than 100 seconds, the fan can start to activate.

Max Fan Speed Threshold: Defines the shortest layer time and the maximum fan speed used. Orca Slicer interpolates between the Min and Max fan speeds depending on the actual layer time.

Keep Fan Always On: If enabled, the fan remains active at the minimum speed even if the layer time is longer than the minimum threshold. Useful to maintain a small but constant airflow, but usually disabled for pellet printing.

Understanding Layer Time and Cooling Behavior

Layer Time is the time it takes to print a complete layer.

Layer time is critical because:

• It allows the previous layer to solidify properly before the next layer is deposited. 
• If the previous layer is too soft, the pressure from the new extruded material can cause it to deform downward, and then lift upward as more material pushes onto it.

This effect is worse with overhangs or thin layers compared to the extrusion width.

In pellet printing, because of the big dimension, it is preferable to keep the cooling fan turned off as much as possible to avoid internal stress due to the shrinkage.

Natural cooling without fans reduces internal stresses and minimizes the risk of warping.

Practical Experience with Pellet Printing

With a 3 mm nozzle:

• For PLA, a safe minimum layer time is about 60 seconds.
• For PETG, about 30 seconds is acceptable.

If the layer time becomes too short either the print needs to slow down, or controlled cooling must be introduced to avoid material degradation in the extruder.

Tuning Strategy

Start printing with no cooling.

If needed, gradually enable fan cooling:

• Start at 50% fan speed.
• Increase by 5% steps while monitoring if the layers solidify better.
• Find a balance without overcooling.

Important Warning

If cooling is too high while printing near the bed the airflow can bounce off the bed, hit the nozzle, cool down the temperature sensor too much and cause a thermal runaway error (overcooling shutdown).

In this case, the printer will stop, and you will see a heating error message on the display, caused by a rapid temperature drop at the nozzle.

Always monitor cooling carefully, especially during early layers and small parts!

Troubleshooting Table

Setting Overrides

In pellet printing, extrusion behavior strongly depends on the material you are using.

Different materials (like PLA, PETG, ABS, etc.) have different flow properties, viscosity, and response times. Because of this extrusion settings such as Retraction Length, Retraction Speed, Extra Length on Restart, and others should always be adjusted at the material level.

These adjustments should only be made inside the Setting Overrides section of the material profile.

This method ensures that every material has its ideal parameters, without affecting the base configuration of the G1 printer.

Important:

Never modify the machine's default extrusion settings directly.

Always use the Setting Overrides to create material-specific optimizations safely.