Supports? No thank you. Cut your print times down!
Posted Oct 8, 2019, 4:28 PM UTC
614
This needs good cooling to work effectively, otherwise you’re gonna get some significant sagging on large bridges.
Nice print though!
2
This is true! Though stock ender 3 can due 100mm bringing with hardly no sag.
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Yep. I've printed 100mm bridges successfully.
Here's the test I used. Give it a test drive! ;)
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I see a lot of folks using supports when not needed, especially for short bridging or flat overhangs. Printing without support cut 3h off my total print time, give it a try!
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What I need is autogenerated supports which I can then edit to make sensible.
4
You can use support blockers in most slicers. It's a bit fiddly to deal with though.
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Learning to use support blockers in Cura can save a good deal of time. You can increase infill density for certain parts, or just not print supports at certain areas. I find it quite handy!
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Interesting. I will look for tutorials.
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I'm just getting started with this stuff, and I realize this wouldn't help for most downloaded parts.
But for items you design yourself, you could probably model in supports just where you think you'll need them. And if those supports go down to the build tray, with angles better than 45 degrees, maybe you could avoid needing slicer-provided supports. Then clip them off after the part is printed.
I just tried Tree supports in Cura the other day. While maybe not perfect, they DID let me print a Voronoi model which had started turning into spaghetti when I tried printing it without supports. And with traditional supports, Cura was putting them inside the structure, which might have been difficult to remove. These mostly attached to the outside.
While not perfect, Tree was at least a handy, automatic, option.
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Nice username!
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I print d&d minis, they tend to be tiny, detailed, and have lots of awkward overhangs. I've had some success with trees, but they engulf the print and often break things on removal. I usually use lines or zigzags, with roofs, but it would be great to be able to edit the supports as Cura often puts them in stupid places!
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Sometimes people want to be safe. Every printer and person is different.
It’s better to waste 3 hours printing supports than 12 with a wasted print by not having supports.
That's why you use test prints to check.
For instance I chopped this model to just the top few mm, a quick ten minute print to verify I didn't need supports.
Everything you described doesn’t take 10 minutes and people have different skill sets. Also, I’ve had duplicate print jobs do something completely different both times while printing the exact same thing. There’s just so many things that can go wrong because it’s not so simple as just slice and print to perfection.
At the end of the day some people would rather have the printer print an extra 3 hours, 3 hours that they are not actively monitoring and are away from the printer, then to spend more time trying to figure out if the job actually need supports or not.