Reinforcing protuding elements
Hi,
I have been looking for options to reinforce certain geometries with protuding elements.
Let me explain with an example. This is the same simple object: A cube with a cilinder on top.
The default slicing of such object leads to minimal contact between the border of the cilinder and the cube, resulting in a very brittle piece. You barely need to apply force to snap the cilinder off.
We can see this in the next image, at the transition layer. Box #1 is the default setting.
While looking for ways to improve the robustness of those joints, I saw some youtube videos where they where extending the walls of the protuding object inside the base (can't find the link atm) I'm having doing some tests with cutting out small internal segments to force the generation of walls that can support the external protusion. Here is that method in action:
Here, box #2 uses an infill modifier to add 100% infill at the joint point. The other versions add different internal 'cuts' to generate what'd call 'scar tissue' that should help supporting the piece. I don't have the fancy measurement equipment of youtubers to compare the infill method to the 'scar' method, so I just tried to break each one with some pliers to see the difference.
The default slicing is the weakest as we would expect. Then, I observed that the piece with the infill adjustment broke just beyond the infill modifier. All the "scare walls" pieces broke in a similar way. In hindsight, it looks obvious that they have the same geometry at the point of breakage and the internall support doesn't help much.
I did one more test by extending the infill all the way through the protusion and I couldn't break it off!
Conclusion: Use the Prusa Slicer's infill modifier at 100% and make it extend into the base object.
I found it an interesting finding and I wanted to share the results. Are there other tips that I could try out?