The first layer above the supports looks bad
Hi,
I'm completely new to the hobby, sorry if this is obvious I would be grateful for any tips regarding my problem.
Every time I print (large and small elements) first layer under the supports loos like this, almost like three were no supports at all.
I have MK3S Kit and this is filament that I received with the printer
Kind regards,
Michal
Best Answer by Eric S:
On the off chance you haven't got help elsewhere, this is pretty much typical of default support settings. Honestly, that looks fairly decent to me. When using supports it's a fine line you walk between having the support interface completely fused or difficult/damaging to remove, and having it remove cleanly leaving a decent part behind.
Without support I can assure you, those prints would look far worse 🙂
If you want to play with some settings in PrusaSlicer, you can change the "Contact Z Distance" under Print Settings > Support material > Options for support material and raft. This determines the gap left between the top of supports and the bottom of the part for removal purposes. It's an advanced option (yellow coded) and by default I believe is .1mm? You may be able to close that gap to .05 for some filament types.
All in all, a better option is to try and orient or design parts that can be printed with minimal or no supports.
RE: The first layer above the supports looks bad
On the off chance you haven't got help elsewhere, this is pretty much typical of default support settings. Honestly, that looks fairly decent to me. When using supports it's a fine line you walk between having the support interface completely fused or difficult/damaging to remove, and having it remove cleanly leaving a decent part behind.
Without support I can assure you, those prints would look far worse 🙂
If you want to play with some settings in PrusaSlicer, you can change the "Contact Z Distance" under Print Settings > Support material > Options for support material and raft. This determines the gap left between the top of supports and the bottom of the part for removal purposes. It's an advanced option (yellow coded) and by default I believe is .1mm? You may be able to close that gap to .05 for some filament types.
All in all, a better option is to try and orient or design parts that can be printed with minimal or no supports.
RE: The first layer above the supports looks bad
Maker's Muse has a good video on dealing with and avoiding the need for supports. Looking at your pics, the 1st part could be printed without supports if oriented on the print bed as shown, at least based on what's visible in the pic. The 2nd could be printed as shown with some support under those filleted edges, or better, redesign the part to use chamfers instead of fillets on the surface that will be on the print bed.
Supports, as @revenant759 notes, have to be removable unless you're using dissolvable support material. This means there's a gap between the supports and supported surface. The supported surfaces are literally printed in air, which means there's no squish to give that nice inter-layer adhesion. They come out looking stringy and often sag a bit. You can reduce temps and increase cooling to improve them, but they'll always look stringy. This is an unfortunate limitation of current consumer-grade FFF printing.
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