Preform 3.4.6 was released today with “the introduction of the new hair-tip support structure”. Could someone describe what this is?
I noticed when I use small touchpoints with Castable Wax (e.g. <= 0.4mm) the supports no longer end in “pencil tips”, but instead with thin, cylindrical connectors:
Is that what this is about?
I experimented with something like that a couple years ago in a standard resin project with custom-modeled supports. I found in some cases I actually preferred connecting to the model with a short segment that’s consistent in diameter. It seemed to break off easier, and inhibited fusing near the contact area that can otherwise make the effective touchpoint larger.
But I’m kind of surprised some of the supports, like the one in green, end in flat faces before the “hair-tip” starts. I would have chamfered them for a smoother transition on the “far” side of the touchpoint. You can see other supports in that screenshot have cleaner transitions.
Are the flat faces a bug, or intentional? e.g. Did Formlabs find smoothing the transition in certain scenarios introduced too much weakness in the support?