Support Materials 101???

Hello.

I've had my Robo3D for about 1.5 months now, and just got to printing PLA in 0.1mm resolution . My girlfriend asked me to design a simple ring for her, but the top arch of the heart will require some sort of support. I've been messing around with rafts and support material for about a week so far, and I keep finding pictures and YouTube videos of people simply cracking the support material off as if it were spiderwebs. Here's my ring pre-sliced:



Using the following support material options:
Generate support material: Checked
Overhang Threshold: 0
Enforce support for the first: 1 layer
Raft: 1 layer
Options for support material and raft: Honeycomb
Pattern spacing: 2mm
Pattern angle: 0 degrees
Interface layers: 0
Interface pattern spacing: 0mm

Once I slice it, I wind up with this:



Seems drastic no? I tried printing it anyways, and it's a fortress. No tools will remove the "support" without damage to the ring. Does anyone have (or know of) a "Support Materials 101" to help a guy out?

 

I've played around a little with rafting but I'm not anywhere close to being an expert. I'm sure there are people here who know a hell of alot more than me about it as I know very little... but. I believe you want more than a single layer of rafting. If you think about it, a single layer at 0.1mm is just that.... 0.1mm. That's nothing. You want a raft that's at least big enough you can get a tool into the layer to try to separate it from the rest of the model.

This is a link I've found that I've seen but haven't tried it yet. It may be helpful.

http://zavax.wordpress.com/2013/04/...le-supportive-raft-base-platform-with-slic3r/

 

Something that small I'm surprised you need supports to print it.

 

I agree. Why would you need support for that ring? There are no overhand that I can see that would.cause problems.


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The only thing I think that might need support is the point that extends down into the hearts that are oriented right-way-up. It's an isolated spot that I think it'd just fling filament into the air. For that I think you'd be better off just building a little support structure for it, or playing with the overhang angle until you get it only placing support there but nowhere else.

 

I figured I'd need support for this part of the ring:

 

I definitely can (and will) design support, but I'm still curious why the support generated is so intense. I work in the Aerospace industry, and I see people printing parts all the time with thin, segmented rectilinear support that cracks off no harder than a toothpick. Why is it so difficult here?

 

Mark,

When I use your settings, I get this:



It's definitely a step in the right direction, but if you look closely, you'll see it doesn't actually support the heart-point in question.

 

Could you print it without support to show what the problem is?


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Oh yeah duh. Were it me I'd have all the hearts in the same direction so it could be printed without supports

 

LOL yeah that's the easy way out, but suppose you wanted to start a 3D print business and the customer wanted this design??? Gotta understand the beast or else you'll wind up pigeon-holing yourself with your designs because "they print easy"

 

Printing one now...

 

Well I run into a lot of design problems when designing for injection molding. Sometimes you just have to accept tooling limitations and design around it.

In this case, it might eventually work with good supports but I'd be concerned about it breaking. Something that detailed would probably be best left to an sla printer. Otherwise I'd tweak the design to print w/out support to have less chance of breaking it after printing.

Good luck on this one!

 

why not make a single wall for the heart tip?
it will be only a small one and shoul stay stable, and it thin so it should not be that hard to remove it (maybe add some gaps on top of the wall)