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We’re putting our PolyPrinter machine thru its paces and having it print some difficult and huge parts. The prints are coming out nicely as we are changing some of the support generation, but we’re finding that it’s difficult to remove a lot of the support material due to the Taulman nylon material being so strong….go figure! Anyway, I was curious if there was a way to modify the GCode for the support generation to where the last layer of support gets intermittent material added, something like one side of a zipper, so that the support strength is still there but it would be easier to remove. Ideas? We’re currently using Cura and Ponterface.

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Hi Jory!

I don’t know, if the following settings are available in Cura or Ponterface, but they are in Simplify3d.

You can use the extra inflation distance value to print support that is expanded by that value. So there is some support structure pointing out so you could pull it out from there, another possibility would be, to seperate the support and model by some layers, I mean that there is for example one layer clearance between model and support. Then there wouldn’t be such a strong bound.

-Marius

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Would the extra distance between the model and the support cause any warping? It seems like the part would drop down to the level of the support because the filament would be extruding into thin air. I’m probably wrong, but that seems like it would be the case. We also do slicing with KISSlicer but Cura seems to be a little more user friendly. We just export to Pronterface for printing. I’d like to try the Simplify3d, but we don’t want to drop money on software we aren’t sure we need. I wish they offered free trials.

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The printed line might drop down a little bit, but if you select just one layer as clearance it will (depending on layer height) drop just 0,1mm which isnt really much, there’s another value called horizontal offset, this determins the horizontal distance between support pillars and the outlines of the model. It might help too. You should barely see warping problems with taulman filaments, even if they are printed in the air. You have to test and see what works for you. Another method that you could try is, to remove the supports by heating a soldering iron to the printing temperature and then cut through the support structures. Dont overheat and be carefull as hot temperature and long heatup time (when you hold the soldering iron to one spot for too long) may cause damage on your print.

Do you have a dual extruder? If you print with taulmans nylon then most other filaments should work as support, for example PLA and ABS. Nylon doesn’t stick to other plastics that strong and especially Polyesters like Colorfabb XT and PET don’t. I’ve printed large parts in XT with PLA support and the support structures just dropped down after barely touching them, so maybe you should try this.

Also switch the orientation or something like that, overhangs of 50° or more should be printable and don’t require support. Last but not least use a drill/saw/file or any other cutting tool. Nylon is usually described as too soft for mechanical cutting operations (as the ones listed above) but it should be ok to remove the supports like that. Maybe combine the heat from a soldering iron and a cutting tool like a knife. I know there is a variety of heads that you can mount on a soldering iron, maybe a blade-like disk or panel is one of those.

-Marius

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Our PolyPrinter uses a single extruder at this point, which limits us with support options. That is the only thing about the machine I wish was different at this point.

We are looking for a good tool to use for support removal and I’ve seen a few out there. Something like this would be nice.

http://3dprint.com/54395/retouch3d-kickstarter/

Know of any alternatives?

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Does the Simplify3D software also have profiles set up for Taulman nylons? We’ve printed ABS parts, which are easy to remove supports…but those same settings make it very, very hard to remove supports with nylon. We are still playing around some with support settings and getting some improvement, but it’s still rather hard and time consuming to get the support removed cleanly. I still think my “zipper” idea would work amazingly well for nylons and make removal/cleanup much easier. I just need someone skilled enough to modify g-code for me or to incorporate it into their software.

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If you can make your own tips, any temperature controlled soldering iron will work. Best ones with digital temp readout will run about $100, but you can get them for as little as $20 with shipping( http://www.amazon.com/Temperature-Controlled-Soldering-Iron-Watt/dp/B0072HZ1T4 ).

Find a small rod that will fit in the soldering iron and using a torch, hammer, and dremel…“blacksmith” your own tips :slight_smile: