Illuminarti's dragon print in progress

[truckle 0]

I'm about half way through this print, 11 hours to go! I've had to dive in with some matchstick struts and glue as some of the supports are wobbling, but that repair seems to have saved the day, so far.

My question is; can you look at the photo and notice how messy the support printing is? Lots of extra tags and one or two supports came off the bed. I'm using Ultimaker gold, 0.1 layer, speed 35, travel 150, bed 60, print temp 230. Any advice on why my support is not as neat as Illuminarti's? Should I be doing anything else at this stage? 11 nervous hours ahead...

 

[gr5 2,224]

11 nervous hours ahead...

 

I know the feeling!

I always do thicker supports than this. Maybe twice as thick. For this very reason. The match sticks and glue are brilliant.

 

[illuminarti 18]

Looks like your retraction settings could be better... I used 1.5mm min travel, no combing, 0 min extrusion, and set travel moves to 250 - that helps prevent oozing that leads to the coral-effect branches growing away from the supports.

I also found that a 3Doodler hand-held extruder is useful for repairing broken supports if needed.

I'm hoping that Cura will get smarter about how it moves the head in future so that it avoids hitting supports as the head moves around.

 

[Dim3nsioneer 558]

I'm hoping that Cura will get smarter about how it moves the head in future so that it avoids hitting supports as the head moves around.

 

Should'nt the hop feature solve this problem? The head hits if the support struts are curled on the top surface due to temperature, right?

 

[gr5 2,224]

if the support struts are curled on the top surface due to temperature,

 

It's not caused by temperature, but yes this hop feature might help.

More discussion of curled supports here:

http://umforum.ultimaker.com/index.php?/topic/4094-raised-edges/

 

[Dim3nsioneer 558]

Thanks, I know the thread...I participated in... (However, I think the topic over there is not closed yet; I can't see any origin on which everybody agrees; but it's a bit off-topic here... :unsure: )