Prusa Slicer 2.6.0 and organic supports quick review.
I have been using PS 2.6.0 in beta and now the production. I have primarily been interested in Organic supports. I had a medium to large part that had failed with organic supports, but now works well with the production release.
Some notes on organic supports.
1. Organic supports are easier to remove. This is very helpul with PETG supports in my experience. I have found PETG supports much harder to remvoe than PLA supports overall.
2. Uses less material. In my part 31 meters of the parts 61 meters of filament was for traditional grid supports. This drops to 21 meters for organic support 1/3 reduction of the support material.
3. Timewise organic supports may not be faster. Time estimates show this. For an MK4 My part is 8.5 hours for the part. 15.5 hours with grid supports, 17.4 hours with organic supports. . In this case it increased support time 28%. Why? Very simple terms it is Acc/Dec, Acceleration/Deceleration. A long straight line is faster than a lot of circles. Even though the circles are less material/distance. A lot of small cirlce moves for 100mm are not as fast as a 100mm single straight move. The main difference between grid and organic. For an MK3s+ it is overall slower. 9.2 hours for the part with 17.5 hours for grid supports and 20.3 horus for organic supports.
Post processing time of this test part with Grid supports was almost 2 hours and gloves are needed. Very easy to get cut. There is a lot of supports to remove and they don't remove easily even in PLA. The longer to remove the supports, the more chance of damaging the part. Based on my experience with other parts using organic supports, I estimate the support removal will be down to about 5 minutes or less with organic supports.
I haven't run it on the MK4, I have made the part on an MK3S+ with grid supports. Once the Input shaper for the MK4 is in production, I plan on running the part and see how fast it is.
RE: Prusa Slicer 2.6.0 and organic supports quick review.
I just finished an 18 hour print using PETG and organic supports. I thought they were surprisingly difficult to remove. I'm hoping to find some support setting changes that will help them release more easily. Any suggestions will be appreciated, especially since I plan to repeat this print with Prusa PC Blend.
RE: Prusa Slicer 2.6.0 and organic supports quick review.
I've has a few occasions where the organic supports have detached at the base and spoilt the print. I feel the base could be bigger as the 'branches' can become quite widespread making it easy to knock over. Adding a brim doesn't alter the base of organic supports.
RE:
The base size of supports is controlled by a settings Called first layer expansion, not brim. Brims are for the models. It is located in Print Settings>Support Material>First Layer Expansion.
By default on most prusa profiles it is set to 3mm. Personally I set mine to zero as with a clean bed and proper live z on a mk3 smooth print surface there is no need to expand it. However if your first layer adhesion isnt good for whatever reason then just change the setting to suit yourself.
Dont bother with grid supports, snug is always better than grid. Organic is ok for some models but I still use snug for most things.