So I have printed a couple things with the new support system and have developed a love/hate relationship. I would really appreciate the option to use the old support system when needed as I found it to have some great advantages sometimes. One of the things I like about the old supports was that they weren’t all interconnected. While this make the support unit less rigid (which I didn’t find to be a problem but more on that later) at also allowed me to use wire cutters to separate the base into little pieces only connected to one or two points at a time. Once this was done, I was free to pick/pull/cut the individual supports one at a time from the part. This also helped with small, fragile geometry as the separation force of one touch point was very low.
With the new system all the supports grow up and connect before the top. Then from this connection little tiny touch points grow to the geometry. I think (and correct me if I’m wrong) that this was done to make the support structure more rigid so that it “pops” or separates in a more velcro/fluid movement. Unfortunately this has the unintended side effect of just making the supports really, really strong. Especially if you don’t mess with the supports settings. For an example look at my print of our logo box. It has an embossed logo on the top and a debossed logo on 4 sides. When I printed this with the old support structure it printed fine but I ended up breaking it being careless in separation of the supports (no pics sorry). With the new supports, and specifically the internal supports activated, I tried to print it with the new settings. The internal supports generated with the stock settings are probably twice as strong as any of the geometry in the model.
So on to the love portion of the new supports. I just finished printing a “shy light” from thingiverse and had great success. Not only did it print flawlessly on 50 micron layer settings, but the internal supports on this one were very useful. First I’ll note here that I decreased both the density and size of supports almost all the way to the minimum this time to avoid any breaking of the structure. While removing the supports I found that I had no choice with the internal supports but to grab them with a tweezers, and twist and pull until they broke. Surprisingly though, they broke off without cracking the thin walls, and with a quick/sharp quarter turn. However, the new supports leave tiny little nubs everywhere. They are smaller than the nubs that the old supports use to leave, but there are more of them (see pics). Another cool thing about the new supports is the intelligent bases (at least that’s what I’m calling it). Instead of just printing a giant raft that fits under the whole object, it seems like the new software only puts bases underneath supports. While this would save some resin if it used the old supports; I’m not sure that coupled with the new larger/thicker sub supports it is actually saving any resin.
Well anyways, just wanted to share my experiences with the new supports system. I’m trying to decide currently if I’m going to go back to the old software since I have had such great luck with it. I also don’t want to waste any resin trying to print out customer orders and my own designs while trying to get the supports to fit and work right.
Dylan Jackson
Expensive Habit Engineering
dyjax@expensivehabitengineering.com
interesting. im not sure how i feel about them yet, on one hand it was easier to clean up, on the other hand, this last print came out warped slightly, i wonder if its because of the newer more solid supports…
I always use the minimum settings for supports and it works fine. Wish there was a way to change the default parameters, as I have to fix them in every print.