Issues with support density on smaller prints?

Projects & Prints
1

Hi guys!

Last night I printed this model (https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:956649) fairly small at 0.45 of it’s normal scale. I thought the support structures looked ok, but after it was completed, they were very dense around the flowers/fingers and kind of blobbed together. It was really hard to remove them, and I lost a couple of the flowers as a result. I couldn’t get any good pictures of it because of how small it is, so I’m sorry if my description isn’t very helpful.

Any advice for better support generation, or should I just play with it and minimize the amount of support as much as possible? Also, for prints this small, does anyone have any advice on how to best remove supports without damaging the print?

Thanks!

2

you could try increasing the distance that the print is from the base, the density of the supports, and try reducing the support point size. modifying the orientation may help as well. (all under the advanced tab I think. I would also like to know what resin and printer you are using. Thanks

3

It was printed using a Form2, and the black resin.

This is my third print so far (the other 2 were Marvins so nothing challenging there!) so I am really new to this software and the printer. It’s rather different from FDM, and I definitely need to learn more about what I’m doing, so I appreciate the help!

4

Ok so i’d give the first few suggestions a try and see if any of it helps, make sure you have the latest version of Preform as they have made quite a few changes and some of them should help you. playing around with the orientation could help too. due to the size of the build plate i’d suggest printing a few different orientations and configurations and seeing which ones work best for you.

5

If you could share a picture of the thing you’re trying to print that can help.

I can tell you though, the automatic support generation isn’t necessarily going to give the best result, I can always do a better job by placing the supports myself. Usually it’s that you can use fewer supports or that you can position them better so that your print looks nicer or that the supports will be easier to remove. It’s also important to have good orientation of the print.