PrusaSlicer: Use cheaper material for supports
I have a print that I plan to do on my MMU that uses a significant amount of support from the build plate and I would like to use my cheaper material for a majority of the support structure, up until it makes contact then I would switch to the more expensive material. I am hoping there was a way to do such a thing in PrusaSlicer 2.0.
Also, I am not using water soluble material for this print.
RE: PrusaSlicer: Use cheaper material for supports
First you should consider letting it use the current filament for support. Don't forget to factor the wipe tower into your calculations for cost savings. You'd have to have a lot of support to cover not only the cost of the support material, but also the tool changes.
Poking around I have seen the settings you are looking for, but I don't have the program in front of me to dig them up. There is one which lets you select the tool for the support material as well as the interface.
If you are dead set on changing the support filament, you might also consider using the cheaper filament for the infill too if there is a significant amount. That would reduce the usage of expensive further, but that wipe tower is a costly business no matter what.
RE: PrusaSlicer: Use cheaper material for supports
Here is some of the model I am working on. The base of the shield is using a metallic colored filament that costs double what I am using. Basically what I want to do is use my cheaper filament up until the point that it is touching the body of the object then for a couple layers use the same filament that it will come in contact with. There's not a significant amount of infill or I would consider doing that as well.
The wipe tower is unavoidable and it doesn't hurt my feelings because it has a purpose. But using expensive material for a support when any material could do it is wasteful.
RE: PrusaSlicer: Use cheaper material for supports
You can separately choose, which filament to use for supports and their contact interfaces under "print settings > multiple extruders".
Default is 0 (whatever is loaded) or 5 (default slot for solubles).
Set them to whatever you like or need.
RE: PrusaSlicer: Use cheaper material for supports
I took a look at this cause it sounded like a great option but enabling it kills the wipe tower which isin't an option.
RE: PrusaSlicer: Use cheaper material for supports
As of now, PrusaSlicer only supports the fixed extruder for the support base if the support layers are synchronized with object layers, and that is currently only supported for printing with soluble interface layers. Sorry. We may one day enable synchronization of support layers with object layers in general case.
RE: PrusaSlicer: Use cheaper material for supports
I took a look at this cause it sounded like a great option but enabling it kills the wipe tower which isin't an option.
Sorry, I was not aware of this issue.
RE: PrusaSlicer: Use cheaper material for supports
All good 🙂 It was worth the try
RE: PrusaSlicer: Use cheaper material for supports
Thanks for the heads up it's good to know that it's just not there at the moment instead of spinning my wheels trying different things.