Printing on supports

[jjl71194 0]

Hey guys,

I've been doing some printing and my model has some overhanging parts that require supports to be built first, but when its starts printing the overhanging parts on the supports, the plastic starts to sag into the support holes and the layers don't stick together well. It causes rough surfaces where you can see each individual layer and none of the layers are in a straight line. Is there any way to avoid this? Thanks

[gr5 963]

Please post a photo. Also please specify country in your location profile setting and specify which printer(s) you have.

I'm guessing you are talking about sagging between bridging.  If so you will get much better results with faster fan.  For example with PLA make sure fan is at 100% and if you already do that then consider lowering the temperature to 210 or 200 or even 190C (but you might have to also print slower.  With ABS you may have had the fan off to get good layer adhesion and you would want to up it to 30% fan speed (about the minimum where it will spin) for bridging layers.

Edited June 15, 2015 by Guest

[peggyb 139]

tick the white box behind the support setting and you will get the expert settings for this. There you can increase the % of support (and the angle for when support is generated..) This way the lines can be closer with smaller gaps. You can also rotate your model to change the orientation of the support (support is always generated in the same direction).

[danilius 117]

If supports and surface quality are a major issue I tend to split model into two or more parts and assemble them with superglue. In this way I can print support-free.