Proper Orientation?
Hi, I'm trying to print a belt-driven z axis mod I found on Thingiverse that adapts the 80T/16T Z-drive of a Voron DIY printer. It can be found here: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:4243512
My question is, what orientation should I print the top brackets that hold the 608 bearings/smooth rod? I don't know if there's something up with my support settings, but it seems to lift/warp as soon as it starts printing on top of the supports that hold up the center section. I am currently using bobstro's support settings, using eSUN Fire Engine Red PETG at 240C with a bed temp of 90C. for some reason, the layer adhesion in the center section was also so weak that the part snapped in half at its narrowest part. I have been printing the other parts for this upgrade with largely the same settings and have had no issues with layer adhesion or strength of any kind. After I fine tuned everything and adjusted my z-offset, everything was coming out really clean. I stacked a good half of one of the parts on top of the bad print for comparison:
As you can see, all goes well until I reach the second side of the bracket, then I get lots of lifting, stringing, and blobs. In the documentation for this upgrade, the author says that you don't need supports on any of the parts, but I simply cannot come up with an orientation that would allow me to print this part without some sort of support.
You can see that I used support enforcers rather than just automatic supports, as there were a few spots with screw holes that I didn't want to have to pick the interface layers out of. Here are the settings I used.
If anyone has run into a similar issue before, I would really appreciate the help. It's not like I'm in a huge hurry; I'm still waiting on the smooth rods, bearings, and other parts to arrive from AliExpress, so it may be a month before this is all ready to assemble. I just keep running into weird issues like this with supports in PrusaSlicer, and I'm starting to get tired of it. I honestly prefer Slic3r or anything resembling it to using Cura or S3D, but if this continues I might have to just rule out PrusaSlicer for anything that needs to be printed with supports.
Best Answer by Baklin:
I would print it like this.
Maybe it will even print without supports in this orientation, but I wouldn't do that. The Overhang is to big on the part that attaches to the frame and that needs to be of good quality to be useful. And the holes for the bearings need support to get them to fit the bearings properly.
The orientation you used should work great to get good fitting bearings, but you need a lot of support and figure out what is causing your problems. I can't help with that as I have no idea what is happening there.
RE: Proper Orientation?
I would print it like this.
Maybe it will even print without supports in this orientation, but I wouldn't do that. The Overhang is to big on the part that attaches to the frame and that needs to be of good quality to be useful. And the holes for the bearings need support to get them to fit the bearings properly.
The orientation you used should work great to get good fitting bearings, but you need a lot of support and figure out what is causing your problems. I can't help with that as I have no idea what is happening there.
RE: Proper Orientation?
Baklin is right on the best orientation. Thats what I would use. I would disagree about the support though.
Without the support you will get a minor bit of sagging at the very top of the bearing holes. But that will be easy to fix with a round file. The other holes for mounting to the frame you just run an appropriate size drill bit through by hand to ream them out. Where it attaches to the frame will be plenty strong enough if you use 4 perimeters.
RE: Proper Orientation?
Ok guys, I will give it a try in that orientation and report my results back here.
RE: Proper Orientation?
Looks like it worked. I still had some sagging on the top of the bearing holes even with supports, but I was able to clean it up fairly easily with a hobby knife. Thanks!