[Air gap requirement for custom supports]

1 hour ago, Labern said:

This was a very old version of cura. The air gap isn't a setting. It's the amount of gap in the part model between surfaces as this thread is about custom supports that the user is designing.

 

Thanks. I found it after posting my question, of course. In the current version of Cura, what some people refer to as "Air Gap" is now "Support Z Distance" with separate settings for Top Distance and Bottom Distance. Like many, I struggle to remove supports, especially when using PLA+, and am always looking for ideas. My last struggle was to get a mere 2mm  worth of supports off the bottom of a delicate piece, about 4 inches by 3 inches with several small sections that wanted to come off with the supports; the supports were too small to grab hold of with pliars even, and I had to use a sharp scraper - I was afraid I was going to slice myself open in the process, it was very difficult to get them off without destroying the piece. One person's idea was to increase the air gap/support top distance to .4 or .6, to ease in support removal after printing, thus my search.

[Air gap requirement for custom supports]

Where the heck IS the air gap setting! I can’t find it, even by searching, lol.

[Splitting Up a Print]

On 6/8/2019 at 9:33 AM, tinkergnome said:

 

Lol, "Meshmixer" and "intuitive" are terms that i would not use in the same sentence...🙂

 

In Meshmixer:

- "Edit" -> "Separate Shells" (the object browser shows up with a list of separate shells)

- select a single part

- "Export" as *.stl

 

Or in a recent version of Cura:

- go to the Marketplace and install the "Mesh Tools" plugin from @ahoeben

- this gives you a new menu entry:  "Extensions" -> "Mesh Tools" -> "Split model into parts"

 

THIS - this is just precisely exactly what I needed to do today, THANK YOU. I'm talking specifically about using the Mesh Tools extension to separate two parts into two separate stl & gcode files. I can hardly wait to try it tonight on something that failed utterly to print in it's original form. The various 3D model softwares are confusing as heck, as mentioned. For someone just starting out anyway.