3D Printing Basics: Understanding and Managing Support Material
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- čas přidán 22. 06. 2023
- Learn how to maximize efficiency and cost-effectiveness of your 3D prints by minimizing the need for support materials. We dive into crucial 3D printing topics such as why supports can be problematic, how to design your parts for minimal support, and how various design solutions can eliminate the need for supports altogether. We'll explore the role of overhangs, commonly found in box designs and other parts, and how their typical requirement for support material can increase costs and decrease manufacturability.
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Sometime could you show the tumbling to rid the support? I'm fascinated how this can be done with out any marring of the part?
Yes please, this would be great to see - I haven't heard of this idea before.
Another option for internal gaps, saving material, is to make the supports an integral part of the design, with no intent to remove them, ever. Make a grid/lattice with gaps just wide enough to support bridges without sagging. Looks cool, improves strength, saves filament and possibly print time.
Another solution is to reorient the part, if possible. If there are holes in a flat panel, have it largest surface area down.
Me screaming at the screen to just flip the part lol knowing full well he’s just using the part as an example.
At first I thought it was printed upside down, looked liked elephants foot on that top layer.
I was screaming also lol! A simple 90⁰ rotation on the y axis would give you the same part with 0 supports and 0 adjustments to the part. I've watched several of these videos and I'm constantly disappointed that rotation is never mentioned as an option. Years ago, someone actually did a video devoted entirely to rotating pretty much any part to keep supports at an absolute minimum. I can't find it now, but I'd love to be able to revisit it.
Rotating would be the preferred way to make that part but he mentioned auto eject of the parts where they use the print head to remove the parts from the printbed onto a conveyor or bag and auto start next print
Rotation isnt always the answer. Sometimes you need the layer lines running in a certain direction so you can't rotate it or it'll lose strength and separate along the layer lines.
Mental midgetry to tell us to delete holes in our models. They're there for a reason FFS. I didn't just magically put a specifically dimensioned hole in the middle of my model for shuts n groans. Unsubscribe lol
For my own personal use, I will sometimes use a half-chamfer / half-fillet so that there is still a nice looking curve, but it doesn't go beyond the maximum safe angle for printing.
Can you show an example?
@@krayfox He probably mean a beginning of fillet until it get to 45°
The last example, teardrop inside model, looks like it was drawn in CAD with a slight gap between the bottom of the teardrop and the inside of the model. What size gap did you draw for that? 1 layer thickness so it would drop down and not stick so much to the model? Thanks!
Including support into design is a great solution, you should have mention that also breaking objects in multi-part that that can be clipped, sticked or screwed easily can be a good solution in some situations, this is something I often use and it really make life easier.
Is what I did for my cable holder on my Valve Index. I got a clip part and a spinning part(like a winding snake with the cable in the middle). Could not print them in the same orientation or some parts would break on use. Like the lips on the clip or the spring not being printed in one continuous line.
The concept of designing for the manufacturing process used is very powerful.
A suggestion for horizontal overhangs is to use a 45 degree belt printers; however they have their own disadvantages. Adam from PowerBelt3D has a good video on this
Wow, I had no idea about conveyor belt printers existence - but I think I get it how they can print "horizontal" bridges. I figured you can go that on regular printer by tilting part 45 degrees and mounting it (in CAD) on 45 degree wedge raft
This video is fantastic! After watching your video, I made some slight modifications to a model I made and printing with TPU and I was able to eliminate supports completely with very minimal impact to my design. This is important because I was getting ready to mass produce this part and I was dreading the post processing required to clean the TPU supports! Thank you!
Absolutely love your videos. This was exactly what I was looking for. Thank you.
your video is really helpful thank you
This mode of design engineering reminds me of when I worked adjacent to a tool & die design team. The constraints were different but the goals were the same: take a part and transform it into something that's cost-efficient to manufacture.
Is there a market for design engineers who work with clients' designs to make them 3d printer manufacturable? I have some CAD experience, I'm a software engineer, and I'm getting into 3d printing as a hobby. This seems like a really cool space to work in.
I used this tip on the project I was currently working on and it solved a problem I was having. Thank you!
Glad it helped!
I would like add something that I do for my built-in supports is that I try to make them only 1 or 2 walls thick for easy removal and the least amount of material wasted.
Absolutely
I was thinking the same thing. If you're using Fusion 360 the "shell" feature is very useful for that. This allows modeling a wide base in cases the support gets too tall and you don't want it to get knocked over.
I like the noise texture trick. Maybe a dive into all of the ways “surface finish” can be modified in FDM production would be a good topic
A good solid video topic that is hard to find is improving tolerances like the ones in different size peg bench tests where some fuse and some print loose enough to spin in place.
The obvious way is to lay the object on its side. The best and simplest solution.
this channel is fantastic
never thought about designed supports before
Thank you for the designed support idea, seems so simple, like duh. Don't know I didn't think about it a long time ago, thank you very much.
Thank you for useful information!!!
Glad you enjoyed
Usually supports aren't very dense, while a modeled support prints with the same settings as the part. Did you weigh the supports to check which one is actually using more material? I know the standard supports can be harder to remove, but they might use less material.
Labor is more expensive than material. A minute of labor it worth far more than the cost of a gram
@slant3d I'm sure that's true for what you do, but not for me. This is just a hobby for me. That's why knowing the weight is important. I would rather save the plastic than a minute of work for just a handful of parts, but yes, in large-scale commercial production runs, the time would increase the labor cost.
You can use different settings for the support geometry to minimize material use. Set it to no infill and a single perimeter for example and the material used would be very minimal.
Material usage in the showed use case would probably be lower and it would print faster and with better quality: No additional ringing, thicker corners, ghosting, stringing, blobbing and raised edges - as well as less line starts and ends. Failure rate would also be lower. You have to consider that when you produce unnecessary holes, it will replace the saved material with at least two additional outer walls which have usually multiple perimeters, thus not saving any material and potentially even using more.
The hole needs to be significant in size , before it actually makes sense to add it, unless it is needed anyway.
@@slant3d Wastage is a serious issue. Please don't advocate for poor and unsustainable practice.
This is the second video I have watched on your channel. I am very much impressed with the valuable insights you provide in such a simple way. Your videos have helped me break that inherent mindset gained from older manufacturing technologies that make us always design a part with features not required at all. For example, it should have been a common sense to avoid gaps in the part as you have pointed because you are anyway saving material in 3d printing. Those gaps were meant for saving material in sheet metal parts for example. So thank you.
I would like you to discuss the design of 3d printed parts for speed. As I am new to the channel I don't know if you have already covered the topic. 3D printers are considered inherently slow mostly because of the limit on the extruder extruding the filament. Since, you have a deep insight into the constraints of the old technologies that are no longer a hurdle with 3D printers I believe that you must already be having a design solution for speed or you can come up with one. I also wanted to share my 3d printing experience that vase mode is fast and good for several non-load bearing parts (learnt from other videos. UPDATE: I have watched your video on Bene bFRIENDS smart use of vase mode. Another great video.) and that for industrial products 0.3 mm layer height is fast enough without compromise in strength. The latter experience supports your thoughts in your video on design on angle brackets for profile support. In essence if the amount of plastic required to extruded can be reduced the speed will automatically increase. May it be through design or by use of vase mode or by increased layer height.
Thank you once again for sharing your valuable insights.
Thanks for the feedback. Much appreciated
Do those designed supports offer enough... support? What is the limit for the overhang length before you need a designed support? Take that center hole in your example, you have one support. What length would require two supports? I understand it can be down to the filament, temperatures, etc. but is the only way to know trial and error?
Great video as always mate, I would love to see the ‘tumbling support removal’ if that is something you can show
Have you ever considered using reusable supports, maybe something fixed or clamped to the print bed for a production run?
Awesome advice thank you for taking the time to make this video, in fact, every comment on this video has excellent advice, what a great community.
Good information. Just curious has it ever worked out where you could use one part as the support for another part? Or maybe you could design the supports to be usable promotional/marketing products in some way?
That is a really good idea.
I think the Bambu slicer (which I haven't used) has an option to take the color-change purges and print a different part with those, which I thought was brilliant. You can print a purely functional part out of the waste from printing your decorative parts.
@@darrennew8211Prusaslicer can also do this; I believe it's called "wipe object" (using an object as the wipe tower)
Keep up the good work. Y’all’s vids are amazing
Thanks so much!
Great tips! Definitely better to design in supports in the modelling phase if they can't be eliminated
Very True
Hi Slant 3D! Just started 3D printing today and I've been doing a good month or research plus learning of the basics to have a good headstart.
I'm curious about the last tip you mentioned regarding the building of those manual supports. In the example if that large overhang where you created a block with a fine tip connecting to the overhang, how come that was a sufficient support? It looked like still most of the overhang was suspended in mid air and only a single point of it was touching the support.
Love your channel and videos! Definitely my go to to learn :)
The last example with the teardrop shape in the middle of the model could actually be even better if it would not touch the bottom of the actual model and instead be built like a bridge itself (either coming from one side at a 45° angle or from both sides at an even higher angle up to 90°). Similar to how tree support would do it but with more control. There even some sagging is acceptable when the interface is around four or five layers thick. This kind of built in support can still be very minimal. That way it would touch the model in only one place as well.
I would not go so far and say a fillet should not be used, but instead a combination of filet and a chamfer is acceptable. Whenever the filet exceeds 45° to 60° (depending on the printers and the stability of the material itself) the chamfer should take over.
When printing filaments with e.g. carbon fiber or glass fiber in it, the material tends to be more stable with overhangs, because the chopped fibers stabilize overhangs noticably. In these scenarios you can usually go quite far beyond 45° of overhang.
One very common problem, that hast been mentioned here is, when round holes (e.g. screw holes) are featured at the sides of a model. In that scenario a hole could be made to print better in different ways: Make it slightly oval at the top and expect sagging a little bit or even make the hole itself teardrop shaped with a top angle between 30° and 135° - depending on how much space you have, how big the hole is and how much deviance can be accepted visually. Not doing that will not result in perfectly round holes anyway, so there is little argument not to do it - unless sagging and undersized holes are fine in the final print.
I hope this helps anyone.
Why teardrop shape over just a chamferred edge leading up to the apex point?
Excellent video; design for the manufacturing process!
for your starting part just lay it horizontal boom no overhangs. but to say just fill the holes and chamfer all overhangs is way over simplificated... not every design allows that
Thank you friend!
Chamfers! I hadn’t thought to try that like this. Good to know.
As somebody is designing a product, this is great info.
Glad it was helpful!
For a well set up printer using most filaments, bridges arent that much of an issue, unless they are extremely long so adding chamfers and fillets probably isnt necessary.
If you have an overhang or bridge then you probably have it for a reason and in a lot of cases changing the shape isnt an option.
Nice.. Ive been using this technique for almost a year now but a lil bit different.. from bottom start with a (not that big) block, then halfway add a 45º to the top (Like a Y shape) the block doesn't need to be thick everywhere, waste of time and material
The using interface material for easy support removal can help a lot. Especially with flat or 90 degree support removal
I've actually been trying to design my stuff for printing for a while now, sort of ads and extra challenge to be able to produce something without any supports (less time to print, less post processing, and less waste). Good tips for if I do have to design in any supports though, will try to keep them in mind if there's ever a time I can't avoid supports
Sometimes you can't get around it like with two halves of a cylindrical object with end caps, when separating the end caps and glue them is not an option for high stress parts.
For mass production I think nesting of a part can be a way to remove overhang need but I don't know how to do it in a slicer. Is it possible?
tengo un problema estoy diseñando un porta servilletas de papel y en la parte de abajo tiene un clip a la hora de imprimirlo la única forma que veo viable es de costado, el problema está en que cómo queda en forma de U , es muy poco el contacto que tiene con la cama de impresión, y a la hora de imprimir hacia arriba creo que tiene wobling , por qué las paredes son de 1.5 mm de grosor y cuando está muy alto ya se empieza a ver que la pieza vibra y tiene unas letras logotipo , en las paredes externas del servilletero
Are you THAT guy that cleans the pipes??
also, thanks for these informative videos!
@Slant3D - What bridging distance can you do easily/reliably/without lots of tweaking? 25mm?
I keep wondering why dissolvable filament didn't caught on on multimaterial 3d printer, wouldn't that cut post processing?
Well technically it would cut down on "manual" post processing vs what he mentions in the video is trying to not use supports at all. The whole goal is to get a part from the build plate to a box to ship. No processing required. BUT, if your part NEEDS to be printed at a certain orientation for strength or something, then dissolvable filament is a very doable solution (but you would feel it in cost of production).
Edit: I would think that if you HAVE to do supports, dissolvable filament is not the best idea because that's an extra step in manufacturing vs. designing it so only a little piece of support needs to get taken off.
one issue is that the solvent you use becomes industrial waste (even if your solvent is just water, it is now water with a bunch of plastic dissolved into it). this adds a lot of time and expense as you now need to deal with the safe handling, storage, and disposal of that waste. there are some situations where the benefits of dissolvable supports outweigh those costs, but in most cases it is just easier to use other support techniques.
@@ERTWaero Sheesh, didn't even think about that!
Dissolvable support is often more expensive than the functional material in the print.
@@ERTWaero Not only that, if you have even a tiny hole somewhere in your part you now have a part that is filled with water that takes ages to get out.
the new organic trees are extremely nice for this.
Hi, I’m loving your design videos! I’m a designer in the gift industry and want to use 3D printing at my work.
What is a solid online (paid or free) resource to learn fusion360 for mass manufacturing 3D printing? I currently use blender, which is not ideal for the accuracy of designing parts for 3D printing. Thanks !!
We do not know of a class that teached design for mass production 3D Printing. That is kind of why we do this channel
@@slant3d Yes. you're the only channel I have found so far that covers this. I'll just do the general Fusion 360 tutorials online and apply what I learn from your channel.... As someone who sees a lot of disposable junk made in the gift industry, I feel you are onto something with 3D mass manufacturing printing! Thanks and keep up the good work!
I haven't really found a great solution for a power supply cover with a switch hole... The part can't be rotated becaus the sagging of the bridge would mean the cover doesn't fit the power supply and the power switch might not fit. I've been liking the organic supports in prusa slicer which has limited the amount of support material needed to be removed. Doing so means limited support material and limited cleanup and everything clicks together.... I'll have to try the teardrop though and compare.... That's a great idea...
is it better to have 2 parts and glue them together or persist in doing it in just 1 print?
Did I miss something? In the last “solution”, I get that the solid is structurally supported, like a bridged buttress, but there are still massive spans of horizontal, unsupported surfaces that will simply sag and not print. Right….?
Slant told me there we to busy to deal with small start up business!
or you can use arc overhangs
This shit is fire.
Thanks
How would you mass print a sphere?
Some times if it needed, great video!
Inside if part cooling fan blowing have a concerned sucking that blow is adjusted as the filament goes from one point to another. This idea is to suck the filament up just enough to overcome gravity...
great video!
So, your 'Slant' on the subject of supports is; design the original piece to not require them? That would never have occurred to me. TY.
I've found a lot of success with tree supports if I can't reorient the part to avoid support material. Less plastic waste and they come off relatively clean and easily. I use a little monoprice bed-slinger so tree doesn't require a large amount of resolution either.
Rotate it 90 degrees on the x axis?
Cool dude, thanks.
You missed the simplest solution. When you can just rotate the part into an orientation that eliminates the need for support. All the other options are good but you cannot forget to think about orientation on the bed. All the examples shown you could have gotten away with printing them on the side.
That was what i was thinking aswell, but i guess this was more for examples on models you can't rotate
@@glowpipe but the simplest solution is important enough that it should have at least been a first mention. See if a rotated position will work. If not, then look at the other solutions.
You tumble parts to remove supports?
I guess another solution could be to make slots like a dovetail and print the parts seperate and slot them togheter? Wouldn't that work? But i guess that could require more post processing and good tolerance on the printer
Needless to say, Im new to both cad and 3d printing
I typically try to design my models to not need supports or orient them or slice the model to remove the need. On the rare occasion I do need to support an area I like to use custom tree branch supports integrated into the model to save material and print time. I also model internal voids strategically into the model to save material and maintain strength. I always try to design with post processing in mind. I hate using supports I don't even like using brims or skirts. IMHO Its better to print a model in pieces that need final assembly than to waste material on supports unless you have the means to recycle your wasted material into new filament. Smart design saves so much time, money and frustration. I'm cheap & love the DIY process so I typically use free models as reference but build the design from the ground up with post processing in mind. I typically run into issues if I just try and print most free models without any kind of inspection or pre print prep.
One other thing: Slicer default settings for automated supports are wayyyy too aggressive, imo. Increase the distance between supports and object, space the supports more (i usually use 2-3 mm), and increase the interface distance so they are easily removable.
This is interesting, we went through this support angles and optimal print orientation starting about 5 years ago. Now, we are going through the second wave of this in a design direction. Before, we had an existing file we had to orient and support and now it is in the creation of a file to be printed..... same but different AND we are WAY further along with what we can actually bring into our 3D environment from the digital realm. With this the Artists and designers are getting more detailed and more expressive. We still have our limitations on What is possible and what will be a perfect representation and what is repeatable but it sure is exciting to watch the supports get better, the models get better and reality get better from our imaginations!
why not just change the orientation?
Soooooo, am i crazy for just leaning the printer over??
just used less support with no infill or used an idex printer if focus is quality like petg and pla as support. In that example is way to much support.
Maybe just print it upside down???
I was surprised that the option of rotating the part 90 degrees so no supports are needed wasn't mentioned. Too obvious? Too much surface area on the print bed for a now much shorter part so it doesn't auto eject easily?
I would have to assume it was not mentioned as the parts he is using are strictly for example purposes and were modelled to express the theories and reasoning for each modelling technique. The video isn't about get "these" parts to print clean, but to get "your" designs with varying overhangs and shape to print. Like he said ' this overhang could be a finger on your model' rotating my character so the finger on a hand is flat on bed would cause so much more issues with the rest of the model
we just need special fractal trees desitgned with ai that snap right off
That part looked like rotating it sideways would have also fixed the supports being needed.
Yes. But this video is about supports. Not every part can be rotated. So the information is for those cases
Why do people like you always miss the point of the video? It happens on pretty much every video where someone shows something like this. This is for a demonstration, yes there are other ways it could be fixed but the whole point is to show this technique for situations where this would be the best or only technique.
@@conorstewart2214 I'm not trying to be negative, I was adding a critique that adding in checking orientation is another viable way to sometimes avoid supports entirely. It can't always be done but it is nice when it can. Take your grumpy pants off and chill. It's the weekend.
@@byroboy you added an unnecessary and obvious statement that wasn't really relevant to the point of the video. There are always people making comments like that on any video of this sort and it is usually because people missed the entire point.
@@conorstewart2214 I see you're just here to troll. Go away. What's obvious to you isn't obvious to all. I had to explain layer lines and print orientation theory to a colleague last week.
Add supports in the design so you turn slicer supports off. As stated in this video
You didn't mention print orientation which can eliminate the need for supports completely.
Sometimes structural requirements dictate the part to be oriented in a way that some features require support
3D printing isn't good for mass production
It's existed for decades now, and time testing has shown that it's valuable for prototypes and fast production of totally unique parts.
People don't make holes for no reason - for example, to reduce cost or weight of a part, or to make it possible for a part to interface with another.
Saying to fill in those holes is just another reason why 3D printing is awful for mass production. Die casts and extrusion processes are much faster and cheaper and suffer none of these limitations.
Please take some kind of a serious design course that covers more than 3D printing, because your narrow field of expertise in only 3D printing is making you come up with legitimately bad ideas.
”If you are going to produce hundreths of thousands or millions of this part”… you probably shouldn’t waste time and money 3D printing it, cheaper to injection mold at those volumes.
Incorrect
@@slant3d how?
Say the amount of plastic costs the same for both processes.
Say the mold costs 10 000 dollars, the injection mold machine costs 20 dollar/hour to operate and produces 50 parts per minute. That’s around 0.007 dollar per part + 10 000 dollars/ total number of parts.
For 3D printing, say the only cost is unloading the prints from the machine, minimum wage is 7.5 dollars, say it takes 10 seconds to unload each part, that’s 0.02 dollar per part. 10 seconds is very unrealistic tho, since you can’t pay someone just for the literal time they handle the part.
In this scenario at around 900 parts it’s cheaper to use injection molding.
How would you make 3D printing cheaper than injection molding on a large scale (especially 100 000’s of parts) and why are companies wasting their money on injection molds if 3D printing is cheaper?
@@slant3d How much does your farm cost per piece/kg? :S
So if we take this video to its logical conclusion...
Don't 3D print at all, then you won't need supports.
If you are making 1000s of something you shouldn’t be using 3d printing. You should be injection molding. At a certain quantity 3d printing is no longer economical.
Sure. If you are making over 100K go ahead and "consider" injection molding. Anything less than that printing should be part of the decision.
Love the data, but can you please fix your mouth? The white spittle is unwatchable to me. I realize I'm picky, but it's very easy to just have some water before you start filming.
This video was completely worthless. There's a reason there is an overhang. Otherwise why not just go straight to the bottom. It's like designing your house with no doors. Because doors cost money. So architects should design houses with no doors for now on .
Not really - they say as much somewhere in here ("if you need it you need it and that's *fine*"), but sometimes folks make holes thinking they're saving material, and they're not - that's what they're getting at.
If you want to produce hindreds of thousands or even tens of thousands of a product why would you wantto 3D print that part?
Extremely expensive, slow, error prone, labor intensive and worse quality - for what?
Oh of course - when you are selling 3d printers, parts and services - aka getting people to waste money so you get some.
We operate one of the largest 3d print farms in the world producing 100,000's of parts per year. You are simply incorrect
@@slant3d "you are simply incorrect"
After precisely confirming my point.
Thanks for showing so clearly that your claims about printing are to the detriment to the people actually producing products.
Your "tips" profit you by harking other people.