Jump to content

Saving Money with Supports


BairdB

Recommended Posts

Posted · Saving Money with Supports

Hello, so I have an idea to save the amount of PVA that is used to print supports without compromising any quality! Last time I checked, PVA is significantly cheaper than a main material like PLA. What if you printed only the bottom and top of the support column in PVA, and print the tall, wasteful part in PLA. I this way, you can through the print in a bucket of water, and the PLA column of support will break free from the part after the PVA on the top and bottom of the part dissolve away. Does anyone know how to do something like that, I would imagine that you would need to manipulate the way that Cura slices supports which sounds very hard to do.

Does this make sense? I you have any questions you can reach me at bairdbankovic@gmail.com

  • Link to post
    Share on other sites

    Posted (edited) · Saving Money with Supports

    This feature is already in cura through the following settings:

    .
    Support infill extruder
    Support interface extruder
     Support roof extruder
     Support floor extruder
    

    Obviously it will not work on prints where the support material gets trapped inside the model if it can't be dissolved.

    Edited by Guest
  • Link to post
    Share on other sites

    Posted (edited) · Saving Money with Supports

    It's not as easy as just selecting the PLA extruder as 'Support infill extruder' (unfortunately). You have to change a few more settings for it to work nicely:

    N19VehK.png

    With these settings it should work similar to how PVA-only supports work. It won't work with every model, because the support infill structure is really strong and will often be locked inside/around the model. So watch the layer view before deciding to print with these settings :). Use the 'Support Horizontal Expansion' and 'Support Join Distance' settings to change the shape of the supports.

    Edited by Guest
  • Link to post
    Share on other sites

    Create an account or sign in to comment

    You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

    Create an account

    Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

    Register a new account

    Sign in

    Already have an account? Sign in here.

    Sign In Now
    • Our picks

      • Introducing the UltiMaker Factor 4
        We are happy to announce the next evolution in the UltiMaker 3D printer lineup: the UltiMaker Factor 4 industrial-grade 3D printer, designed to take manufacturing to new levels of efficiency and reliability. Factor 4 is an end-to-end 3D printing solution for light industrial applications
          • Thanks
          • Like
        • 3 replies
      • UltiMaker Cura 5.7 stable released
        Cura 5.7 is here and it brings a handy new workflow improvement when using Thingiverse and Cura together, as well as additional capabilities for Method series printers, and a powerful way of sharing print settings using new printer-agnostic project files! Read on to find out about all of these improvements and more. 
         
          • Like
        • 26 replies
    ×
    ×
    • Create New...