How can I increase the support contact area when using support enforcers  

RE: How can I increase the support contact area when using support enforcers

I did another print and left the support material in place. I get the support material generated for the recess on the bottom.

However, from the top / side view, I don't see any support material contacting the part.

I was expecting it to make contact up to the widest part of the curve.

Does anyone see a setting I have that would cause the lack of support material on the curved sides or could this be a bug? I'm still pretty new to 3D printing so I'm leaning toward the first explaination just not the cause. Thanks for any suggestions.

RE: How can I increase the support contact area when using support enforcers

When I zoom into your object in the Slicer, the support is printing vertically aligned with the outer perimeter of the object.  Any more support would print outside the perimeter which would not be that useful.  Is there some reason you feel it should be more supported?  It's almost a vertical wall at that point...

RE: How can I increase the support contact area when using support enforcers

thanks. look at the first picture in the original post which shows the problem I'm trying to solve. I want to get full support for the underside to get a clean print. The edge has a continuous curve. Here is the part and the support enforcement cylinder which goes up past the widest point of the curve.

RE: How can I increase the support contact area when using support enforcers

I'm hoping some of the more experienced can chime in, but it seems to me that a nearly vertical surface is supported well enough by the previous layer and shouldn't need supports.  The more vertical the surface, the farther apart the contact points of the support will have to be, which would make it look rougher I suspect.  Honestly I would try less support rather than more - just up to where it hits 40 degrees from horizontal.  But, I'm very new at this so I'm not bringing much experience to help you...

RE: How can I increase the support contact area when using support enforcers

Early attempts had no support which gave the same poor printing on the lower curve. As the print progresses from the bottom there isn't enough support for the next higher layer which is why I was trying to add external support.

The layer modifiers were from a very early question I had because I never could get the rest of the part printing without slumping.  Swiss_Cheese, The Filament Whisperer helped with the initial settings. As I learned more about why he made changes to specific layers I was able to make changes to get a better shell result everywhere except the lower outside curve.

RE:

You may already know this, but in general a chamfer is better than a fillet for applications like yours.  A 45 degree chamfer would not need to be supported at all.

RE: How can I increase the support contact area when using support enforcers

@jimd

I don't believe you found my advice worthy last post, perhaps though you will feel differently this time. I don't own an MK3.5 or 4 and never will, however this printed as good as can be expected on an MK3, I'm going to offer you the file and wish you luck. Keep in mind that Supports, unless "soluble" will always effect the texture, ABS and ASA unlike PETG and PLA are extremely easy to remove Supports from.

When Sli3er asks if you want to "Detect bridging perimeters"

Select No.

Sole Plastic_new_v3_ASA_Snuff.zip

Regards

RE: How can I increase the support contact area when using support enforcers

Snuffleupagus, I did try to run it but it is for the mk3s not a mk35 and wouldn't load into the printer. I apologize for not giving feedback earlier. I'll have more time this week to get screenshots of your print and filament settings to make sure they are set correctly for the mk35 printer profile. I just figured out that the snip tool and a word document are great for recording settings in slicer.  I don't multiple printers so I have no experience on taking a project and changing just the printer type. Things like what values get kept and what values revert to the default for that printer type.

RE: How can I increase the support contact area when using support enforcers

I agree a chamfer would probably print better but aesthetically it needs to be rounded. This is the lower end of a highland bagpipe practice chanter sole so that is what I was shooting for.  

RE:

I saved all the parameters from the project file you sent, all 25 pages of them. I'll start with the mk3.5 profile and add your changes. In looking the screens over I saw several that were considerably different than the screen from your profile. 

For now, how did you figure out the speed value for the GCODE M106 commands at1.60 and 3.40?

.

The M106 is for setting the fan speed. For those few layers I increased the speed of the fan from 20% at 1.60 to 50%. Then at 3.40 I returned it to 20% for the remainder of the print. the fan speeds are set from 0 - 255, with 128 being nominally 50% speed. I did this to help with the cooling on the overhanging areas.

I had made an .3mf file for your MK3.5 with all the settings I changed in it, but had some concern about the speeds you had set for print moves, they seemed a bit high to me. The file I printed on my MK3 took about an hour and 40 min, and printed quite well. With your speeds slicer says it will print in 49 min. I don't own an MK3.5 so I'm prepared to be wrong, but that seems like recipe for print failure.

RE: How can I increase the support contact area when using support enforcers

I'm posting the file it might make things easier for you, it will print slower then the settings you had but it should print successfully, at least it did on my MK3. I did compare the machines and didn't see enough difference to make me think it should print that fast. However you will at least have the information.

Sole Plastic_new_v3_for MK 3.5_Speeds_Adj_Snuff.zip

Let me know how it goes.

RE: How can I increase the support contact area when using support enforcers

thanks for the file. I'll try it in the morning with the speed as is and with the default mk3.5 settings. I have noticed that it does print a whole lot faster.

RE: How can I increase the support contact area when using support enforcers

Snuffleupagus I ran your file unaltered, and it detached from the base plate at about 2.9 mm from the base plate. I also made a copy of the project and set all speed settings back to the mk3.5 defaults. When I ran that file I watched the progress of the printing and saw the outer ring (red and blue arrow) starting to lift off the plate and begam to rotate round the inner support material disk.

So I don't make the wrong changes, what sets the gap at the green arrow? I think it needs to be more attached to the ring (blue arrow) to help keep the outer rings from coming loose. Same question for the gap at the blue arrow. It needs to be less attached. In the test it was so attached to the inner ring that I couldn't break it loose with pliers.  Once I get the faster version printing I'll make  the same changes to  your original file so I can see the effect that printing slower has on print quality. Thanks again for your help.

RE: How can I increase the support contact area when using support enforcers

JimD, this sound like a bed adhesion issue, you may want to clean your platter really well, and add glue stick or Layerneer bed weld if you have that, other causes could be that you need to adjust the nozzle's distance to the bed a bit.

To answer your question, the Green arrow points to the Support enforcer called Generic-Cylinder, and the distance to the wall is controlled by its scale. This was done this way because the support enforcer that the Blue arrow refers to, called Tube needs to be closer to the overhang that is causing the trouble. In order to get this overhanging area to print well I scaled the Tube just under the first part of the 90 degree overhang of the first overhanging layer, then to continue support I adjusted the "XY separation between an object and its support" to 20% with "Top contact Z distance:" set to 0.1mm. I actually did a lot, I printed two and both printed nicely, the supports around the overhang were removable by fingernail they zipped right off, and the supports in the middle were removed easily with a pen knife.

I'm posting several close up images rotated and from several angles of the prints I did, so you can see that I'm not making this up.

These were printed with Prusament ASA

When we consider that this is ASA printing at 250C on a 105C platter with 0.1 detachable supports on a 90 degree overhang, I think its a very acceptable result, Also consider the amount of material present internally this can very easily be sanded and vapor smoothed. But we have to get you to this point. 

I really believe you have an adhesion issue first and foremost, and before changing the file settings I would look into that.

I'll be here waiting to see how things turn out, and to help if I can, and of course I can answer any other questions you may have about the file I posted

Regards 

RE: How can I increase the support contact area when using support enforcers

thanks, i'll look at the cleaning the bed and recalibrate the first layer calibration. I did have some trouble with that after I converted my mk3s to the mk3.5. If that fails I'll try the glue stick before replacing the bed. Your pictures show the print  I want. Rounded on both the top and bottom edges

RE: How can I increase the support contact area when using support enforcers

I'm going to stand down for a few days. I noticed that the insulation  on the hot end thermistor wire was very frayed so I ordered one along with a new bed. The one I had was the original one that came with my mk3s. I could tell the coating was messed up. I ordered Layerneer bed weld to give it a try. When everything  gets here I'll recalibrate the printer and try again.

RE: How can I increase the support contact area when using support enforcers

👍  Understood, you'll like the Layerneer. Also last night I created another more streamlined (relative to supports) version of the file, that uses only 1/4 of the original supports and prints much cleaner. I'll  pass it along when the time comes.

Regards,

RE: How can I increase the support contact area when using support enforcers

Everything arrived and is installed. For good measure I did a full calibration of the printer. The results with Layerneer and using your file were great. I did, however, set the speeds to the default 3.5 settings which only took 1 hour.  I did have a little problem removing part of the outer ring. Bottom support disk came off cleanly. Thanks for your  help.