1 Topic by tdd

  • tdd
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Topic: printing with supports?

I am brand new to this entire 3D printing enterprise, so I apologize if the answer to this question is common knowledge.  I am pretty close to buying your Solidoodle 4 for my son (he's 14).  He has taught himself to use Blender and has generated a variety of figures he would like to 3D print.  However, I am worried that some of the figures will not be printable.  For instance, he has created a rather intricate model of a dragon’s head in which the mouth is open and is bearing teeth.  Can the Solidoodle machines print the open mouth, particularly the upper teeth — don’t they need some sort of support structure?

Is he supposed to CAD in a support structure, or is this sort of issue something that the printer software identifies and deals with automatically?

Thanks for any answers you can provide.

2 Reply by Tomek (edited by Tomek 2014-02-28 02:05:35)

  • Tomek
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Re: printing with supports?

Software can deal with support, and there's additional software that can do more effective support in some cases (meshmixer 2.0)

But typically support can effect the surface finish of the final part and may require a lot of brushing up to make nice. So often we work hard to avoid support if possible smile.

it is however the case that routinely what seem "unprintable" are printed with automatically generated support structures.

If you want specifics for your case, post a picture of the file or something

3 Reply by tdd

  • tdd
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Re: printing with supports?

Thanks, Tomek!