We’re putting our new PolyPrinter machine thru its paces and having it print some difficult and huge parts. The prints are coming out nicely as we are changing some of the support generation features, but we’re finding that it’s difficult to remove a lot of the support material due to the Taulman 910 material being so strong….go figure! We are only interested in printing in materials like this, so going with softer/more brittle materials isn’t an option.
Anyway, I was curious if there was a way to modify the G-Code for the support generation. I want the last layer of support to get only intermittent material added, something like one side of a zipper, so that the support strength is still there but it would be easier to remove. We using Cura/KISSlicer + Pronterface for slicing/print control. Ideas?
If you can figure this out, I think it would be VERY helpful to anyone using a single extruder for parts that require a lot of support and support removal.
You’ll need a slicer with more control over the support material generation. I don’t know a whole lot about the various slicers out there, but I’ve heard that this one in particular has very fine-grained controls:
So I’ve spent the last half hour looking for something I’d read and posted (somewhere) about before… Can’t find it. Bummer.
At any rate, I have heard nothing but good things about Simply3D! I’m not sure if it can do exactly what you are looking to do; but, it might be worth looking into, if it’s a feature you’d be using enough to justify the cost.
What I was looking for was an article I had read a while back about a similar software - that allows customized support and infill - that was still in BETA but FREE… Some of the reviews indicated that it had a great GUI; but, less than great results when actually printing. Considering it was BETA though, there’s a chance it may be improved by now (… if I could only remember what it was called! egad!).
I had installed it on one of the design PCs at one point to test it out; but, I believe it was on the PC that kept crashing (that we’ve since stopped using). I never really had a chance to try it - because the computer it was installed on was having problems the day I installed it. (fun fun, right?)
I’ll be at the 'Space later 'n see if I saved the install files or can find any hint of what it was… If I do, I’ll post another reply to let ya know…
Thank you for your help! I’ve also heard really good things about Simplify3D. Samples I had received from some other 3D printer companies that used it had really clean looking results where supports were removed…but the samples were also printed in ABS instead of nylon. I’m not sure what the Simplify3D support generation does that is so special that we can’t replicate its ease of removal to some degree. We aren’t too worried about the price of the S3D software though as it could potentially pay for itself in man-hours saved from the more difficult support removal jobs…but I’d like to see what options there are or changes that we can make with our current software first.