printing with support

[alaris2 1]

I thought I'd try printing some parts that needed support to better understand how to use this feature.

So it's a Cura RC2 setup with default support settings, and I start printing. layer 0 looks great, lots of meandering wiggles.

layer 1 comes along, and the head just rips up layer0 as it progresses over it and makes a nice ball of plastic for the cat to play with.

anyone care to suggest what am I doing wrong? (before I randomly change parameters in the hope of finding out through trial and error)

prints without support work very well, no problems - importantly the first layer sticks fairly well (not always perfect, sometimes edges curl slightly) but never had a print so consistently destroyed at such an early stage. temperature is at 210C right now, PLA is flowing very freely and has good adhesion between layers.

the bed has been levelled several times (but is the next thing on my 'to check' list)

thanks, nik

[IRobertI 521]

When I see signs of the first layer not adhering properly I usually just give the z-axis screw a little twist, one or two "snaps" is usually enough to get the head to really smush the plastic down into the tape. I gave cura a quick try last week and I think by default it's set to make the first layer thicker (as in higher) than the other layers. Personally I think that's wrong and I set it to be the same height as the rest of the print.

Nice job with cura btw daid it's come quite a long way since I first tried it, I'm still sticking with Netfabb but alternatives are always good

Aand now that I've finished typing I realise that you're really only having trouble with the support and I now feel like an idiot. My head are a million places at once lately... Carry on! :lol:

[Daid 306]

Cura RC2 has a bug in the support, it doesn't lay down enough material in the first support layer. It's actually laying down material for a layer thickness of a normal layer, and not the thicker first layer.

In the development version this is fixed, and it will put down 100% support material for the first layer, so the support really sticks well (even if you give in 50% support material, the first layer still has 100%). Sadly, I found and fixed this problem 3 days after releasing RC2.

[alaris2 1]

ah, maybe time to download the latest and greatest then..

I was going otherwise to see what happened if I used a raft as well since that would seem to be a workaround.