In this 3D Printing 101 I'll show you how to generate the strongest, most reliable support structures around! But be warned! These supports are only for models that need it... because they're incredibly tough.
The Ultimate Book of 3D Printing Tips and Tricks (FDM/FFF) - www.makersmuse.com/3dprinting...
Example project files available over in the Maker's Muse Community - www.makersmuse.com/maker-s-mu...
3D Printing Quick Start Guide - www.makersmuse.com/fdm-fff-3d...
3D Printer Buyers Guide - www.makersmuse.com/purchasing...
TIMESTAMPS:
0:00 Intro
1:00 What's wrong with default support material?
3:56 Improving snug supports (Prusaslicer 2.6.1)
11:48 Improving snug supports (Bambu Studio)
13:32 Warning. Don't use this support setting for everything.
14:15 Final result!
One thing I would like to see in the organic supports is automatic cross-support between the pillars. If the pillars could "hold" eachother up in the lower sections they would be much sturdier. Also it would be nice to have a seperate support brim that would try to connect remote support pillars together with the others on the support plate. That would already cover 80% of the fail cases I'm encountering.
I've been asking for truss-like structures since I've seen them generated for SLA prints...
You can actually sort of do this in cura. The combination of a large "join distance" for supports and conical support with a negative value. For tall supports in general, I find that -5 to -10 degrees on conical supports helps a ton. If I need more, I'll use support brims and a larger join value to get mich more stable areas.
Or add a “root” to the structure to hold it steady on the build plate.
Tree Support Bridges. I never understood why a bunch of small towers were used insted of bridging them to give each of them more stability as it goes taller. it wouldn't need to be much, like every 5 mm make a double layer bridge connecting the supports at that layer height.
@@MMuraseofSandvich those truss like structures are not good for FDM. To print them you have loads of thin rods that need printed individually. If you think about what the layers are, with truss like supports, the support structure will be loads of small circles and ovals every layer, that isn’t good and will fail a lot more often than regular supports, with normal and tree supports the lines it needs to print are much longer and hence more reliable. SLA printers can use truss supports since there isn’t really any force on the print other than the lifting motor and gravity and SLA printers can print thin objects like that well since it is just curing it with UV not squeezing molten plastic out of a nozzle like FDM. The two printing methods, FDM and SLA are very different, hence the supports needed are different. Edit: on top of that voronoi or lattice prints are similar in structure to those truss supports and they are difficult to print, generally seen as torture tests.
Solid advice! I'd like to point out that if a print uses more material, but succeeds 100% of the time, it technically saves you filament compared to another print that uses less per print but succeeds only 80% of the time. PS: First time I'm hearing about "removing supports with a hammer" though 🤣
rubber/resin/rawhide mallets are wonderful for breaking off support material since they dont mar the surface its more likely to break off the support than crack it
I should get into that mindset more, it also makes sense for designs. A chunky print could fail less often.
This preset does not work for me. You printing only PLA?
It would be a great option if slicers had a “paint on brim” option. Just like painting on support, but paint the areas where you want a brim. You could paint the whole base, or just little dots around specific areas. Would be easier than adding mouse ears manually and give you a lot more control.
You could import a model of a thin circle into the slicer and place it wherever you need on the model's edge, no?
@@shnethog I already mentioned mouse ears.
@@c0mputer ah my bad, by “manually” I thought you meant designing the actual part with mouse ears baked in, didn’t realize you meant exactly what I said lol
Paint on brim has been an issue in both cura and prusaslicer for ages, definitely would be a very nice thing to have. I think cura has brim only on sharp edges now, that gets you there as well.
I clicked this video for stuff about 3D printing and I was not expecting to see a really big 3D printing youtube holding a part of a fursuit head base. You just earned a sub Maker's Muse!
Is that a fursuit head base? Don't ask me how I know...
>implying there's more than one way to know this no but yeah that was my first thought too lol.
Inquiring minds would love to know
shhhhh! xD
@@toxithot It isn't? It looks like one. If it isn't than what is it?
@@toxithotthere are direct and not-as-direct ways. Sometimes you don't find out someone is a furry until after you've gotten close to them. Don't ask *me* how I know *this*.
Very informative and ive just done it to a specific print that failed on me twoce and third time with custom support that you've shown has made it a success. Thank you!
I see a Kemono fur suit in the making :) Thanks for the hints, I'll try to incorporate them into the slicing profiles for my colleagues at work
YES OMG SOMEONE ELSE WHO RECOGNIZES. i make kemono bases all day and i know one when i see one.
@@thecaptainplus They are a torture for the wearer, but they look awesomely cute. My suit has a foam base with mesh eyes but i desperately overheat after more than half an hour. Some days I can stretch it to one full hour but then reeeeally need a break.
Interesting, these are the things I changed but had to learn myself middle of last year when I was doing a print with very little contact, massive overhangs with sharp edges. Painting on supports was a game changer for me and not wasting time with failing prints. Great tips as usual.
Thanks for the tips! I've never understood how you get such clean prints where the support is. On mine whatever the support is supporting looks terrible. Stringy like I can see the string of filament the size of the nozzle and the layers aren't bonded well in the X-Y directions. For this reason I really hate support of any kind.
My X1-C arrived less then 5 hrs ago, and was about to do mess around with supports to get them close to my flashforge. Then your video popped up and i couldn't ask for a better timing lol Awesome video, keep it up!
Why do you want to get them close to your flashforge? Why not just make the supports as good as you can instead of trying to get them similar to other printers?
@@conorstewart2214 did u ever think that my flashforge has the best support I can ask for. So I'll refrize. "..mess around with the supports to be as good as they can like my flashforge printers.
I wish I knew this stuff a couple weeks ago. I've been printing my first ever cosplay helmet and getting it to succeed with proper supports has been a headache and a half! Still very helpful, thanks!
Thanks!! I've struggled with supports for years!! Gonna try your settings right away!!
I was hoping the interface layer gap would be covered. It feels like I have to fiddle with that value for every material I use.
Same. I’m dying to know what the interface settings are.
OH MY GOD. The interface layers come off sooo much easier when you use rectilinear grid supports! I'm going to be doing this on all my supported prints from now on!
You printing only PLA? Because this setup just fuses everything together for me. Print, support, print surface.
@@Paradox1A9B2w7 your printer has some detail issues then, maybe you are overextruding a bit?
As a long time subscriber who watches the video because it's good, not because of the thumbnail/title, I find the clickbaity things absolutely hilarious! Neat tutorial as always, supports are such an annoyance in some way or another so it's great to have little tips like these to help.
One of yhr most useful and concise tutorials for 3d printing supports. Thank you mate.
I needed this video last month. I was printing some scanned models with this same problem of failed prints with organic supports. I will be trying this tonight.
Thanks for the hot tip! I'll be checking my settings for future prints!
Thank you so much for including instruction for the Bambu slicer since that is what I use exclusively. Can't wait to give it a try!
Amazing video - simple change and much better results. I have to test this - so far I am avoiding any support as much as possible, as it always fused so far, but with this and better layer separation...
Thanks for the video Angus. In addition to being informative, it was very satisfying to watch.
@10:13 A BRIM! YES! Brims are the unsung heroes man.
When in doubt, gluestick and brim EVERY TIME 😍
great advice, as always. this works even on industrial FFF printers, with no cooling fans and complete chamber temp control.
Thanks Angus this is great. I love the tips n tricks in Prusa Slicer and Bamboo Studio. Just got my X1 its amazing but did have a spaghetti failure on a thin part. Great to see ways to better use these tools.
The most useful vidoe I've seen on 3d priting in Months. Solves exactly a problem I'm having with a helmet.
Your videos are always very interesting to watch and extremly informative. Thanks for all the time and effort you put in to make these informative videos. I wanted to let you know that one of the old videos of yours where you showed and used the G10/Garolite sheet as print bed has helped me tons. I use a Ender 3 Pro and have switched to G10 instead of the default magnetic sheet that comes as stock.after watching that video of yours and I should say, its an superb print bed option and super cheap as well. I print PLA, PETG and sometimes ABS as well and ngetting the prints off the bed has never been so easy. Its like magic... the prints just come off the G10 bed after its cooled a bit like they were just kept there. However I request you to re-visit the G10/Garolite bed but this time with the possibility of using it on the Bambu Labs X1C and the A1 Mini and share your findings. If they G10/Garolite can even be used on these printers or not and what were the challenges to use it and is it worth using the G10/Garolite on these highend printers instead of the stock beds or the coated PEI sheets.
always dropping wise words, angus. great job !
I needed this video a month ago.. had exactly this problem and it gave me a ton of postprocessing work.
once again a valuable tutorial with great information and explanation, Thanks Angus
Outstanding technique! Thanks a bunch Angus.
Omg thank you so much for this tutorial! Watching this before bed but I will definitely be trying this on my Bambu P1S tomorrow!
Beautifully done Angus!
I like to use S3D supports that are rectilinear but shift 90° after every X layers. This not only made the structure rigid but also saves me more support material and printing time. Maybe it's possible with the other slicers. I also combine or discard very thin supports.
4:17 I used to do this with Simplify 3D I would do a 90Degree shift in the support every other layer and it was super strong. I did it for all the reasons you highlighted.
Very informative. I have a printer on order and have never printed before. Great video!
Awesome Thanks for that! The Print time even went down with custom supports.
Thanks for the tutorial. Is there anyway you can tell the equivalent settings for Cura slicer?
I love how this video, beyond its excellent general applicability, also apears to be a little nod to a very specific audience. xD
Super helpful information, and excellent tutorial. Thank you very much.
Really loved this educational style video, I learnt a lot. Thanks for sharing this technique. 😃
I used organic supports on a petg print with a 90 degree overhang. It was a tool holder for the prusa mini. 5.86g of filament vs 18.20g for grid. Also saved 42 minutes of print time.
Really thorough video! Great Tips .......... You should do more clearly explained slicer videos like this in the future very helpful
Omg thank you. I am new to printing and I am using a delta printer fl sun v400 for printing large pieces. This so exactly what I needed
I'm happy the classics like rectilinear grid support still work. I remember you making the same suggestion almost 7 years ago for Simplify3D when that application was still relevant.
This is so.ething ill have to consider in future large prints. Thanks for sharing this info.
Very interesting topic, thanks for covering this!
I almost always use that method - It proved perfectly reliable even in serial production without a single faillure. Printing the interface in a minimum adhesive material (object PLA, interface PETG or vice versa) finally makes the breakaways perfect
tree supports should have canopies too, to save material but also support the print as good as possible... plus you have cute little trees with foliage at the end of each supported print 😂
You can essentially create this by tweaking the interface layer and other organic support settings. You could accomplish similar results to this video with organic supports, but it takes a lot of tuning.
For tree I found giving 2 walls has helped their reliability significantly, 0.1mm gap between model as well has helped a lot too.
Good job Angus. You are awesome!
For the same reliability and filament use, but lower time, i reduce the support infill density (this is because the effective support infill density increases greatly with the 90 degree grid) but then increase the support extrusion width so the layers join together better for more stiffness/strength, and at small layer heights you aren't close to your extruders limits either. Some slicers support combined support layers, i do this too sometimes as its "uglier" but it doesn't matter if you're going to throw it away
Thx for the hints!!!!
I always love your videos , always great information.
Good tips in this video. The snug supports don't work for anything tall without warping. That led me to using Organic supports mainly.
Those release so clean. Awesome
Great Video. Nobody appears to talk about different support interface settings. I have tried changing these but none make any difference to how hard it is to get the supports off. Can you do a video on this if you have not already done one. And where to use different settings in different places including the default settings that need to be changed for different slicers. Thanks, keep up the good work, I watch every video you have made and really enjoyed you sulfur crested cocky puzzle videos. (I now tell tourists I serve that we call them "flying bolt cutters")
Great! Like the bambu slicer info …
Have you tried increasing 'tree branch wall loops' (Orca/BBS)? This will increase the wall loops to all the branches making them stronger for tall prints.
Cool technique and great results! I've been using tree supports in Cura (I need the slicing tolerance setting that's not available in other slicers yet). The "branch diameter angle" setting helps me avoid issues with the branches falling over.
what "setting" do you use for what tree support?.. Like what angle do you use for what?... which is best for what?... I dont know if i worded that correctly? thank you
@@Vaporweasel751 I use "branch diameter angle". The exact setting is case-specific though. I just increase the value until the bottom of the branches looks like it's attached well enough.
@@Vaporweasel751 also worth noting: the channel "uncle jessy" did a video very recently on tuning settings for tree supports. His technique is different from mine, but it should also work fine.
Brilliant guide. Lots of good tips for better quality prints. Going to give your settings a go soon and see if it helps.
Wonderful! Thank you for doing this.
I contacted you about print supports in TPU, you shared your MK4 profile with me but as far as i could tell it was just stock support settings. (nothing was really transfered) I would love to see a video how you were able to get thos TPU supports to come off so easily. there is very little to no info online except. "dont do it" but your video proved its quite possible. Hopefully its not limited to the Mk4 as i have a p1p and mk3s+
Thank you. I have had a hard time with this exact thing printing a Magneto helmet. I still haven't gotten a successful print, so I will try and figure out how to do this in Cura.
What I did to solve al the stability issues you mention is to add 5 to 10% infill to the Organic Supports, zero fails since then. and the interface to 60% and 2 layers of gap in my crappy extruder.
Thanks for making this content!
I’m gonna have to try out that cupping technique, looks awesome
That support removal is so satisfying!
Super helpful, thanks!
Great suggestions, Angus! Will definitely try it soon. Can you show what the past actually is?
Holy that's amazing!
Great video, also love the kemono base :p
You could speed up those columnar supports by modelling a hollow column that ends in a dome-like surface near where the supports are really needed. It's much faster to print some kind of circular path than a whole load of zig-zags because the amount of acceleration and decelerations requried for zig-zagging keeps the print head speed low.
Make a larger cursor for video recording, and make it inverted color so you always can see it.
not a bad idea, I'll investigate it!
I liked the black cursor from my Mac days so I changed the windows one to black, but I didn’t like the default black ine in windows 10 so I just selected the colored one and changed it to black.
@@d.m.rleenen6918 Posy (KZheadr/music producer) has some quality mouse pointers.
You probably use more material for support rather than part but for this kind of shape you are right there might be no other way to print it. I hate supports like everyone else does. But some parts dictates the use of them
Yeah, some shapes are a real challenge. I tend to use these stronger supports to avoid potential failures and have to reprint, wasting even more time and material.
When TimeIsMaterialIsMoney you tend to pay closer attention to "what works". A big one for me was turning off M413 (power loss recovery) in the g-code as I was getting surface blobs & imperfections every time my Ender 6 would record on the SD CARD the position for M413. Minus the M413, I just have the Ender 6 connected to an APC UPS (Uninterruptable Power Supply) so if there is a power line burp or hiccup, the UPS smooths things out. Heck, there was even a mains line power outage where I had to use the UPS, attach another TAD5000 (EGO Brand) Battery Inverter Unit, which gave me just enough time, 20 minutes or so, to get my gasoline generator up and going, which I needed to anyway.
that moment when you just started printing your final attempt at a 3D printed rubik's cube that is for a final in a class and already failed once, and you're watching this video thinking: How did I not see this 12 hours ago???
That Brim Gap caused a lot of headaches when I was still a noob, especially when nobody ever mentioned it. Most people just assumed that I hadn't leveled the bed yet, and ended up causing more problems along the way. Not sure why Prusa set it 0.1 gap as default.
With a dual print head you can use PETG as a dense support layer with a PLA Part. And no gap between the support and the part... works great...
I wish non planar slicing would be a thing, that mask could probably be printed basically without support then, and the layers would follow the curveature of the mask instead of just being ”flat”
I've only recently started using the paint on feature for supports in Prusa and I didn't realize about the auto fill feature lol. I've seen it but never played around with it. The supports were something I always hated in Prusa compared to Cura but overall I prefer Prusa slicer for everything else, I always found the supports in Cura easier to remove but I will be changing my settings and see how this compares and I've started to dabble in Orca slicer as I really like the multiple build plate option for larger projects but will have to see how it compares overall.
so I tried this suggestion and the supports were still just as hard to remove as they were before so I came back here to see if I had missed something and I changed the settings you specifically mentioned but the one thing that I noticed different in my slicer profile was the "Top Contact Z distance" was set to .25 (a setting I never changed that i recall but who knows lol) and yours is set to .2 (detachable) so I'm going to see if it was that...I also had to update the infill to be "Snug" instead of Grid which I had noticed and changed.
@@roll4stealth671how’d those changes affect it
@@marcusluna4026 I'm not sure yet, I do have a print on the bed right now that I haven't taken off yet and I'll check it tonight.
I checked the print and they were mostly easier to remove but I did have a few that were stubborn so I may have to do some further tweaking. This video though was larger print area's with supports whereas my print was smaller sections.
Great one advice, can you also explain what settings are you using for middle-layer between supports and model to click-off it so easily?
Looks good, shall try that. What is your everyday support setting, particularly interface settings? In Orca slim tree with 2 interface layers 0 16 distance seems to work well, but always looking for better. Thanks for sharing Angus
00:29 "...as satisfing as THIS" liked already. I don't need anything else
That support removal scene though... Serious ASMR
Learned a thing or two there, thanks Angus :)
thank you for this, been trying to print something for the last week and the supports would get 85% to where the model and the support would finally touch and then fail.
heck yeah... another AMAZING setting I just found out about in Orca Slicer is "Make Overhang Printable" - it modifies the model geometry to help drastically reduce supports. Not great for all models but fantastic for some organic prints
That also exists in cura. Sometimes it is really useful and I also use it. In both slicers the results are really good
@@santiagopostorivo I couldn’t find it in Cura. Where can I find that?
@@UncleJessy Make overhang printable inside the experimental category. Maybe it is hidden by default
@@UncleJessy You can also adjust hole area and model angle like you can do in Orca Slicer
thanks! apparently I just needed to keep scrolling 😂@@santiagopostorivo
Absolute legend! 🎉
thank you for a very useful and clear explanation, i don't own a printer yet, but have learned a lot. may we know what you are making?
Definitely going to try this next time I need supports.
I want to thank you for this info. I just printed a dragon that’s 10” across and used “tree” supports. Boy when I was done after 13 hours I could NOT remove supports by hands alone. I needed pliers , needle nose pliers just to remove the tree supports. I can’t wait to try Prusa slicer with those settings. On a side question: how do you keep your filament dry?
Good advice, thanks. I would also be interested to know what interface settings you use.
Thanks! That was very helpful
Glad it helped!
boy I hope Prusa team is watching and making these improvements
I'd love to try this, as I do a lot of Cosplay prints, but I'm have a hard time setting up PrusaSlicer. I have a Tronxy x5sa, and adding a printer that is not on the list is not very intuitive.
Use PET-G rafts for PLA prints and PLA rafts for PET-G prints !!!! Didn't test with ABS & other popular filaments but I'm quite sure some other combination will be good enough. Way easier than classic supports.
Whaaat you didn't even show where you use the finished object! 😱- Thanks for the tutorial, I think I have use for these settings! Btw is there a way to mix different support structures on one print? (I mean without exporting and reimporting the sliced model...)
fantastic tips
Not sure if you've done this previously but can you make a similar(ish) video/lesson on 3d printing silicone, not just the basics but things like multicolour. E.g. if you had a clothing label which you wanted to make (beyond the print one colour then another on top), what things would you need to set, practice or test.
You are such a superhero!
I'd say the inside of the print has a smoother finish than the out. But the settings for the supports work great.