Support/Bridging Test

thingiverse

I've been having problems with my support structures, so I designed this test piece to see how various shapes are affected. It includes several features to test for supports, bridging, drooping, and print quality in general. These features include a large chamfer from the build platform, a large fillet from the build platform, a large fillet from the print surface, small rectangles, two through holes (5mm and 10mm), a long thin rectangle, an ellipse, two large rectangles, a large diamond on a filleted edge, and a large arrow to show print orientation. When testing supports, keep an eye out for these things. Note that the features mentioned here are in reference to Simplify3D. The distance between the supports and the print affects both print quality and ease of removing the supports. You can change this by adjusting the number of separation layers above and below, as well as changing the horizontal separation distance. Smaller distances/layers result in better print quality above the support but make it harder to remove - be careful not to reduce it too much, or the supports may become part of the print. The density of the supports is crucial for several reasons. Increasing it improves support print quality by providing a more uniform base to print on, but it also increases print times and material usage, making it harder to remove. Adding dense layers on top of the support enhances print quality significantly, but this may make it difficult to remove if there are no vertical separation layers. For smaller islands of support, the strength of infill is essential; otherwise, features above them may fail. You can increase support strength without changing density by adding support angle offsets of -45 and 45 degrees (credit: MakersMuse, thanks Angus). The resolution of support pillars can have a massive impact on what gets supported and what doesn't. Using a 4mm support pillar resolution means smaller features may be neglected and fail without support. By reducing the resolution to 1mm (the minimum value), it's more likely that auto-generated supports will be placed where they need to be, but be cautious as slicers can sometimes put supports in unnecessary locations. A heated chamber increases the chances of good layer adhesion and decreases warping due to fast cooling of ABS, but it can have a detrimental effect on unsupported features. For example, I had trouble printing the 45-degree chamfer from the build platform (sagging) due to heat in the chamber. I solved this by turning the fan up to a maximum value of 50%. While this doesn't provide active cooling like you want for PLA in a non-heated chamber, it moves the hottest air under the extruder away from the print and allows ABS to solidify faster. Printer Settings: * Printer: Prusa i3 MK2 * Rafts: No * Supports: Doesn't Matter * Resolution: 0.2mm * Infill: 20% * Notes: + Print with arrow pointing upward away from the build platform. + Print with supports to test supports. + Print without supports to test bridging and drooping.