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The Uncomfortable Truth About “Default Settings” (and a PC Case Study)
“Default” profiles are built to be safe across a wide range of printers, rooms, and use cases. That’s fine—until you need real strength, speed, or reliability. Then “safe” often becomes “leaving performance on the table.”
Key points
- 65% tensile strength (30.4 MPa → 50.3 MPa)
- 39% faster 3D print time (1h 43m → 1h 3m)
- Thermal Quality Index improvement 45% → 93%
- Here’s the kicker: the simulation revealed the cooling fan was actively hurting layer bonding for that PC setup. No material change. No hardware change. Just smarter, evidence-based process decisions.
- This is what Helio really changes in 3D printing: it replaces gut-feel tuning with measurable thermal reality, and then uses that to guide optimization. Dragon’s optimizer currently focuses on speed optimization, and automatic fan-speed optimization is explicitly on the roadmap—meaning the system is evolving toward even more “hands-off” intelligence.
Call to action
If you’re printing PC, ASA, or anything that punishes guessing—run simulation first. Find the thermal failure mode. Then optimize with intent.