Suggestion for "Brim" option

[madoverlord 0]

I'm having a lot of fun with the new Cura, and the new "brim" option is certainly an improvement.

However, it occurred to me when cleaning some brim off a print that instead of a continuous brim, a series of small tabs (say, 5mm x 5mm?) that alternated around the outer perimeter of the model (as long as they didn't intersect with the model or another tab) might be just as good, and much easer to remove (by just bending the tabs)

 

[gr5 962]

Brim is important only for large parts - for example 4 to 8 inches long because the warping lifts the corners. You need every possible amount of brim for these parts to hold the corners down. Especially with ABS which has even worse warping.

The old Cura did brim also but it was kind of a hidden feature. It was called "skirt with distance 0".

 

[madoverlord 0]

Actually, I found that brim was the solution to an adhesion problem with a smaller part that had multiple points of contact with the bed -- in this case a level-2 Menger Sponge rotated so two of the vertexes went through the Z axis and then cut to form a triangular base (which is composed of smaller triangles). On the initial print, several of the triangles detacted; brim provided extra support enabling them to stick to the bed until they joined up into the larger structure.

Furthermore, brim has the advantage of being much easier to clean than raft, and provides a much better bottom surface to the model -- a big win if you're printing sections for later assembly.

The downside of brim is that it's a bit finicky to clean it from within "fjords" -- thus the suggestion.