Help Any support tips?

[stolowma 1]

I've only had my Ender 3 Pro for a bit less then a year and I think I'm getting the hang of it. I'm really happy with how my prints turn out but one thing has become my nemesis, supports. They either fuse to the model and are almost or totally impossible to remove, generally with interfaces, or the overhang quality is as bad if not worse than printing without them, generally without interface. The last models I printed needed support everywhere and even without interfaces on one it fused to the bottom enough to tear a hole in the top of the structure it sat on, the other it completely fused to the bottom and a wall and I destroyed the print and still couldn't get it separated. The rest were difficult to remove I even had to cut part of it out with a Dremel to get it off. Attached is .3mf of that print.

Any suggestions?

5015-cooling ducts.3mf

[GregValiant 1,409]

This is probably the #1 reason why people go to dual extruders.

I would go about the supports on those a little differently (like normal instead of tree) but that's just personal preference.  If you increase the floor distance then an interface can be a lot easier to remove.  It will look kind of sloppy, but so what - it's all getting thrown away anyway.  Try setting the Floor Distance to .4mm.

Another thing you can do is make the support weaker by decreasing the flow.  You are at overall 95% flow so try dropping the Support Flow and Support Interface Flow to 87% or something.  If it's too low it won't lay down correctly.

I've been running the Support Line Layer Thickness at 2X layer height so they only go down every other layer.  In Cura 5.0 the high flow rate of doing that will cause a speed slow-down so you would need to adjust the Flow Equalization Ratio to 0%.

I've noticed that the top interface comes away from the print a lot better if it was cool when the initial skin went down on top of it.  I haven't done it yet - but for small prints I'm considering adding a pause at height just to allow the interface to cool.  Large prints was how I noticed the difference as the support always seems to come away easier.

A decent set of pics, a set of micro files, an Exacto hobby knife, a narrow sharpened screwdriver, and a pair of needle-nose pliers are necessary evils when dealing with support removal.