3D printing supports are frustrating—here are 5 tricks for dealing with them

Supports are a necessary but often frustrating part of 3D printing. These structures serve as a base for overhanging elements, so that your model doesn’t warp or sag in unexpected ways.

Not only do supports consume precious filament, but they can leave behind ugly marks and spoil a print.

Find a way to print without them

No support, no problem

The best way to deal with supports is to avoid using them altogether. While this isn’t always possible, it’s always worth considering if you can come up with a way to circumvent the problem.

There are two primary ways of achieving this: reorienting your print and cutting your print into multiple parts. The first is fairly self-explanatory; simply adjust the angle and placement of an object to suit. Think about how layer lines will affect the final quality of your print and the strength of your object before you do this.

Cutting an object up isn’t always an option, and even when it is, you might be resistant to the idea. Take this cake topper that I recently printed for a friend:

The spike at the bottom of the topper is designed to anchor the object in place, which led to this support situation:

Cake topper 3D printing supports in Bambu Studio.

Even though I managed to cleanly remove the supports, I’m now convinced that using Bambu Studio’s cut tool to slice the spike cleanly off (and print in two halves, or discard the spike entirely) would have been the better option.

Tune your printing profile

Make supports easier to remove

Speaking from experience, I find the default Bamboo Studio and OrcaSlicer support settings to be adequate for my needs. I’ve had some issues where removing supports has been a little more difficult than I’d like, but speaking broadly, I haven’t found it necessary to tinker too much with these settings.

That said, there are some vocal proponents of changing certain parameters. One of the big ones is “Line width for supports,” which appears under the “Quality” tab in both of these slicers. The consensus seems to be that this should be set at around 50% of your main line width. So if you’re printing at a default width of 0.42mm on a 0.4mm nozzle, your supports should have a line width of around 0.2mm.

You can also adjust the top and bottom Z distance settings (to around 2.5mm) and make sure you’re using a hollow base pattern.

Remove cleanly with flush cutters or a bed scraper

So you’ve made peace with supports

Sometimes, supports are unavoidable. You’ve looked at your model, your slicer has screamed at you about unsupported sections, and you’ve enabled slim tree supports (arguably the best option). Now your model has printed, and it’s time to remove them.

Before you jump in, make sure your model has cooled down completely. You want the filament to set and harden so that it becomes brittle enough to snap off, rather than bend and stretch. When you stretch filament, the plastic will stress and cause unsightly white marks.

Flush cutters are one of the best tools for the job, allowing you to snip off supports cleanly as close to the model as possible. You can also use them to tidy up any remains that you couldn’t get rid of the first time. Bed scrapers can also be good for removing supports from flat surfaces, but be careful that you don’t stretch that filament.

If you resort to using a knife, be careful, make sure it’s sharp, and always cut away from yourself.

Use different printing and support materials

The ideal way to deal with supports

Using a different material for your printed model and supports is arguably the way to go if you can do so. The only drawback is that if you only have a single-nozzle printer, you’re going to have to deal with an unacceptable level of waste as the print head must purge every time you swap filament.

If you are lucky to have a printer like the Bambu Lab X2D, where one print head has been specifically designed for supports, consider using PLA supports for PETG prints (and vice versa) since these two materials do not adhere well.

There are specialized support-only filaments like PVA which dissolves in water and comes away cleanly (though it’s roughly twice the price of PLA and similar).

Don’t always listen to your slicer

Sometimes the answer is to turn supports off

Sometimes, your slicer gets it wrong. I once opened a print-in-place infinity cube model in Bambu Studio, only to be told there were overhanging sections and I should turn supports on. I immediately dismissed the advice on the basis that the model needed to be able to move freely after printing.

The larger the print, the less of a risk you’re likely going to want to take. Sometimes, you can get away with no supports. This may come at the cost of slightly sagging layer lines or completely failed prints.

If you’ve downloaded your model from a repository like MakerWorld, Printables, or Thingiverse, consult the original author’s description and the reviews to see what others are saying.

Got a load of support material and not sure what to do with it? Don’t throw it away, you can still make use of it!

Source link