Suggestion: dual material supports

[Paul_Pawelski 0]

Have a setting to allow all but the last two or three layers of supports made in the slicer to be printed by extruder 1 (which is putting out PLA) and then switch to extruder 2 (which has the more expensive, water soluble PVA) for the last few levels of each support before it contacts the actual part. Bonus if you can also make a setting that lets the first few levels of the support also be extruder 2 if the support starts on the part.

 

PLA cost $15 a kg. PVA cost $35. I really don’t like having to pay more for my supports, then for my parts, just to keep from having the surface of my part flawed.  My work printer can afford that because the part material we use is also more expensive and labor costs to clean up a part are $120/hr (total burden rate for an engineer). There we always use dissolvable supports because the cost of labor is high enough to justify the material cost.  At home, I can’t justify that.  The proposed addition to the slicer would eliminate the cost issue.

 

[Paul_Pawelski 0]

Neverminded, Someone pointed out that this is already in the settings, I just didn't figure oufomr the name that it is what I wanted. 😔

[travisrd 0]

Paul - Could you please expand on this?  What should I look for/change in the CURA settings?

 

Thanks

[GregValiant 1,330]

If you have a multi-extruder printer then there are 6 Extruder options to pick from.

"Support Interface Extruder" can be fine tuned to "Support Roof Extruder" and "Support Floor Extruder".