Hi Everyone,
I wanted to figure out some of the difference in a lot of the default settings of the infill patterns as there isn't a ton of clear information on there. Note this is not a comparison of technical structural integrity and which one is the strongest under what kinds of loads. This is simply a comparison of what each infill pattern does to your print times and the amount of filament it uses compared to the general support it provides.
TLDR at the bottom.
For this test I did each pattern on two models, the first was a large plain cube that used as much of the print bed as possible and wanted as much infill as possible. That will be the first set of columns that you set. The second was that same cube but almost completely flattened down to allow for very little infill and has more of a horizontal approach to the print.
I use Rectilinear as my default control for number comparisons below the table as that what was default on my profile. This test was done in a Bambu P1S with PLA Matte. All other settings were kept the same with the only thing changing being the infill pattern. Infill was set to 15% for both models.
| Infill Pattern | Total Time (D:HH:MM) | Total Filament Usage (grams) | Small Print Time (D:HH:MM) | Small Print Filament (grams) | Notes |
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| 3D Honeycomb | 3:01:57 | 2334.25 | 0:07:35 | 277.56 | |
| Adaptive Cubic | 0:20:17 | 1428.52 | 0:04:17 | 260.32 | Repeatedly jumps back and forth between sections of lots of support and sections with large gaps. |
| Alingned Rectilinear | 1:07:53 | 2709.38 | 0:04:45 | 304.65 | |
| Archimedean Curve | 1:07:33 | 2689.23 | 0:04:43 | 303.29 | |
| Concentric | 1:07:57 | 2711.22 | 0:04:45 | 305.4 | |
| Cross Hatch | 2:08:22 | 2641.62 | 0:06:29 | 299.57 | |
| Cubic | 1:07:51 | 2688.19 | 0:04:45 | 303.33 | |
| Grid | 1:08:23 | 2704.98 | 0:04:47 | 304.42 | |
| Gyroid | 3:00:22 | 2583.91 | 0:07:30 | 295.82 | Not very optimized in terms of time. Software tends to hang and freeze when slicing this one. |
| Hilbert Curve | 2:23:14 | 2701.23 | 0:07:34 | 304.09 | |
| Honeycomb | 3:18:07 | 3337.64 | 0:09:10 | 350.19 | Not very optimized in terms of time. Software tends to hang and freeze when slicing this one. |
| Lightning | 0:09:40 | 485.5 | 0:04:31 | 190.5 | Almost entirely hollow, only has infill in like the top 10% of the cube. Very little infill actually happening. |
| Line | 1:07:28 | 2689.56 | 0:04:43 | 303.17 | |
| Octagram Spiral | 1:12:18 | 2707.36 | 0:05:03 | 304.51 | |
| Rectilinear | 1:07:51 | 2709.4 | 0:04:44 | 304.65 | |
| Support Cubic | 0:15:22 | 1035.14 | 0:04:10 | 260.3 | Lower third has lot of support, middle third has wide gaping holes in the supports, and top third has solid support on infill. |
| Tri-Hexagon | 1:07:45 | 2677.49 | 0:04:44 | 302.52 | |
| Triangles | 1:07:55 | 2690.11 | 0:04:45 | 303.37 | |
Couple of curious outliers. The first big shock to me was how horrendously slow Gyroid actually is. I had heard a lot of people like it and while the filament consumption is comparable to the others with some benefit (It takes about 3-4% less filament) The time it takes to print it is massive. It takes almost 3 times as long on the larger model. I suspect part of this is due to the software not being optimized for this pattern on larger/taller objects, that said even the smaller one takes about 60% longer. This strange effect was the same case for the Honeycomb (very similar numbers to gyroid, but far more filament consumption), the 3D Honeycomb (About the same timeframe as gyroid but a good chunk more filament saving). Cross Hatch was a weird one where it wasn't as long as the above patterns but it also doesn't save you anything either leaving it in just a bad place overall.
On the reverse end of the spectrum you have Lightning, which was blazing fast (approximately 325% faster than Rectilinear). It managed to crank out the full volume cube in just 9 hours! That is insane printing speed. This lead does drop heavily when there is less infill on the smaller model as it only knocks 15 minutes off the default on the smaller model. The speed of lightning only really comes in on the larger object. That said a huge disclosure needs to be made on Lightning on larger objects, IT HAD ALMOST NO INFILL AT ALL. Legitimately the bottom 75% of the cube was just completely hollow with no infill or support at all, but the top 25% had quite a bit of that lightning pattern in it. So while it is fast be careful on what you use it for as there will not be a ton of rigidity to the object.
Some surprising contenders on speed and balance were both Support Cubic (about 2x as fast as Rectilinear) and Adaptive Cubic (about 50% faster than Rectilinear) while also saving you a ton of filament (only 1/3 the filament used on Support Cubic compared to Rectilinear and a little over 1/2 user on Adaptive Cubic). Both of these guys impressed me quite a bit as they were also the fastest printing times for the smaller models as well. Something to note is that Support Cubic has a good amount of infill in the bottom and top thirds but there was a large chunk of the middle section that has gaps and are potential weak points for your prints. Adaptive Cubic uses a bit more filament and time but switches back and forth much more frequently distributing this gap more evenly to make the object stronger overall. So while I can't speak to the technical specifics Adaptive will hold better but take a bit more time and filament, Cubic is faster with less filament but has a potential weak point in the center of the object.
When it comes to the rest of the patterns it truly is like what you hear where it comes down to personal preferences, most of the rest were in similar realms of time and/or filament consumption.
TLDR
If you just need the fastest print, go lightning but it has no support in large models, best support in a quick setting with little filament usage is Adaptive Cubic. Gyroid, Honeycomb, 3D Honeycomb, and Cross Hatch are significantly slower than average but these patterns generally save you some filament and provide great support. All other patterns are generally comparable in time and filament usage so pick whatever one you prefer from the rest.
Edit 1: FYI for those unfamiliar such as myself, the above was done with largely default settings in Bambus software. Turning on a setting "Infill Combination" changes some of the times significantly. I will post an additional chart tomorrow with that setting on for comparison.
