SoliForum - 3D Printing Community — Creating custom supports ON THE DESIGN DRAWING

Re: Creating custom supports ON THE DESIGN DRAWING

2016-03-10T20:16:14Z

Many ways to design in your own support. If on a horizontal plane you can cut out a layer height between the part and the support. On the vertical you can cut out a nozzle with or even 2. The other process is use a thinner width, even though a .4 nozzle normally produces .48 you can ask it to print a part that is thinner. Ultimately it will reduce flow to print parts that are close to half (.24) and that is very easy support material to remove. Over several years of designing and printing I can't think of one print where I have used the support feature of the slicer.

Creating custom supports ON THE DESIGN DRAWING

2016-03-10T19:40:24Z

I've heard of people doing this but have never tried it.

How do you create supports as part of the drawing (that can be removed after printing) vs using the support feature sach as is part of Simplify 3D where you create supports in the program that creates the GCode files?

I would imagine part of the secret is to leave a very small gap between the main part and the support? But how much gap?
My printer has a .4 nozzle and uses 1.75mm filament.

Is there more to it? Simplify 3D for example uses a mesh for supports where you choose the angles and density. How would you duplicate that if you incorporate supports into your design drawing during CAD design?