I wanted to try to breathe some life into the 3-D printing topic section here. I had a few thoughts and perhaps I’ll write some others but for now - in model supports.
Do you use them. I have explored some solutions with some success and some failures. If you have any thoughts please share
First to the successes. My PuzzleBank model - I wanted the dials of the cryptic to have a clicky / default position. The core around which they rotate has some tabs / fins that engage with the inside of the dials.
I was considering an Etsy venture with this model so wanted to keep the overall filament weight and print time down. Rather than use the tree supports of the slicer, i created little pillars that could be removed with snips. Shown here.
Reasonably simple to remove and seemed to provide a good enough support for a decent underside.
Another support I used on this project. A separately printed bridge insert.
These two highlighted parts are printed separately. The bottom one (in this orientation) is mostly for decoration although it does function as a support for the rear side of the coin entry slot. The second (higher of the two) is more important to the functionality. Slice generated supports here would have been impractical to remove.
I wanted the coins to have free movement so they could fall into the stacks in the core. Again this plate is pre-printed and inserted mid print with a pause. It supports most of the core structure.
One just has to ensure that they print fairly flat so they don’t impact the tool head when inserted.
There is also the benefit of switching up the colours, which if done during the main print with AMS (pre-tool changer for me) would have added lots of additional time.
Failures tomorrow perhaps.