Slicing, materials and profiles · CommunityCAD for Klipper docs

Describes the private beta build of 6 October 2026. Features may change before launch.

The plugin can slice on the printer with a built-in copy of OrcaSlicer, so you can go from a CommunityCAD model to a print with just your phone.

Slicing on the printer needs 64-bit Raspberry Pi OS and 2 GB of memory or more. scripts/install-all.sh adds it when your printer can run it; see Installing.

How long it takes#

Times on a Raspberry Pi 4:

Model	Slice time
20 mm cube	under 1 second
60 mm sphere	about 10 seconds
150 mm sphere	about 47 seconds (using about 920 MB of memory)

Bigger and more detailed models take longer. Slicing is only allowed while the printer is idle, so it never competes with a running print.

Quick print#

Print on a model file is the fastest way from model to printer:

The plugin slices the model with the last material you used and your default profile.
It shows the print time, filament in grams and the material. Change the material or profile right there and it slices again.
Choose Print, Send (save the G-code to the printer), or Open in slicer for more control.

Print always asks you to confirm before the printer starts. Models that need more than one plate open in the slicer instead.

The slicer#

Open in slicer, or a project from Projects, opens the slicer. It has two views.

Prepare:

plates: split a model across several plates;
placement: lay on face, rotate, and move with snapping;
arrange objects with even spacing;
process settings: material, profile, and the settings you want to change for this print.

Preview:

the toolpaths, layer by layer, with a slider;
Pause here or Change filament here at any layer. These run your printer's PAUSE macro, or M600 if your printer.cfg defines it, and are saved in the project the same way OrcaSlicer saves them.

After any change, Send and Print wait until you choose Slice again, so you never print an old slice. Sliced files are never overwritten; each slice gets its own file.

Not on the printer: scaling, mirroring, cutting and support painting stay in desktop OrcaSlicer.

Projects are saved in ~/printer_data/projects, and models waiting to be sliced in ~/printer_data/models. Both are kept if you uninstall.

Printer facts#

Most of what the slicer needs is read from your printer.cfg: build volume, kinematics, speed and acceleration limits, nozzle and extruder. A few things can't be read from it, so you add them yourself:

Fact	What it does	Example
`bed_surface`	Picks bed temperatures for each material	`"textured_pei"`, `"smooth_pei"`, `"glass"`, `"cool_plate"`, `"garolite"`
`hotend`	A hint for sensible material defaults	`"revo_voron_40w"`
`part_cooling`	How strong your part fan is	`"stock"` or `"strong"` (e.g. a CPAP)

The printer card in Settings → This printer shows which facts are missing under Facts you add, with the exact lines to add and a copy button. Add them to printer.cfg in Mainsail or Fluidd, save, and restart Klipper:

[gcode_macro _COMMUNITYCAD]
description: Printer facts for the CommunityCAD slicer (not a command)
variable_bed_surface: "textured_pei"
variable_hotend: "revo_voron_40w"
variable_part_cooling: "stock"
gcode:

Keep the quotes around text values; Klipper won't start with a value it can't read. The macro only holds settings and does nothing if run. Missing facts are fine: the slicer uses a safe default (a textured PEI bed, for example) and says so. The plugin never edits printer.cfg itself.

Settings for slicing#

Settings has a panel for each of these.

Print profiles#

Layer height, walls, infill, supports, speeds and the rest:

New projects start from: the profile new projects and quick prints use.
Your own profiles, saved in print_profiles.cfg next to your printer.cfg.
OrcaSlicer's default profiles. You can remove ones you don't use; they're hidden, not deleted, and Restore brings them back. Projects already using a removed profile keep it, and the last profile can't be removed.

Speeds and accelerations are capped at your printer's max_velocity and max_accel.

Materials#

Your filaments: type, colour, temperatures, flow, cooling and retraction. They're saved in materials.cfg next to your printer.cfg, so you can back them up or edit them by hand.

New material starts from Generic PLA. Set Based on first (for example a PETG or ASA preset), so the other settings start from the right values.

The editors#

Materials and profiles open in an editor with two views:

Simple (the default) shows the essentials, grouped with icons:
- materials: Filament, Temperature, Flow, Cooling, Retraction;
- profiles: Quality, Strength, Support, Bed adhesion.
Advanced shows every setting, in collapsed groups with descriptions. Settings marked Only for MMUs and tool changers don't apply to single-extruder printers.

Every setting has a plain label, its unit, an ⓘ with an explanation, and ↺ to reset it. Colours have a picker and 14 quick swatches. The plugin remembers your choice of view in each browser.

OrcaSlicer presets#

Import your presets from desktop OrcaSlicer (.json, a .zip, .orca_printer or .orca_filament), or Export materials and profiles to use as user presets there.

For safety, post-processing scripts (post_process) are never imported or used.

Licenses#

OrcaSlicer is a separate program under the AGPL-3.0 license. The installer downloads its official release; it isn't part of the plugin's own code.