New resin printer-Support settings

[Gipper]

Well I must have been good this year cause Santa brought me a new Creality resin printer! I installed chitubox and started looking at some files and had a question about support density. The default is at 70% which to me looked a bit excessive. So question is what are you guys using for support settings? I need to go out tomorrow and pick up a few things but plan to be printing something tomorrow for sure😁

Thanks - Brian

[Barc 1]

Support structure depends on the orientation of the model on the build plate and the model itself. It is generally better to have too many than not enough . I typically run the auto support and then delete the ones that look like they will interfere with the model itself by melding with the parts being printed. Any failures I have had are the direct result of insufficient support. I would say 70% is not unreasonable for most models.

Merry Christmas and have fun with this printer.

[Kevan]

After some success and some failures I read an interesting post by an experienced resin maker. He created a resin validation file that takes about 10 minutes to print but you get to zero in on the best settings without wasting time and resin.
After that I realised I was wasting more resin in failures trying to save resin with less supports, now I only use heavy supports and add more on the first layers.
So the biggest gains for me are, validate and proper supports = more successful prints and less thrown in the bin.

[HO RacePro]

I'm not using a resin printer yet, but I have been trending towards creating my own support structures.

For example, when printing a part with a large vertical hole in a wall I will design in a thin circular web to give it support while printing. Once the part is printed I can knock out the web with a circular punch and hammer. I find I can get a cleaner finished part this way than by using the slicer's automatically designed support structures.

Same with adhesion structures. Rather than use the slicer's automatically designed brims I'll often design my own. I can avoid attaching a brim to a section of a part where it will be hard to cut off. I can also create a brim that is only attached to the part by a few widely separated tabs, so it can be easily and cleanly cut away.

I know that there are slicing programs that give you extensive ability to tweak their support-generating features. Someday I'll take the time to learn about all that. In the meantime I have my work-around. And I suspect I'll opt to use that work-around even once I've learned how to tweak the slicer's designs. All design is compromise, and occasionally wetware can make better choices than software.

Ed Bianchi

[Barc 1]

In addition to Ed’s suggestions, I do something similar to objects I am printing directly on the build plates, in that I design an inverse 45 degree angle to the part that sticks to the plate. This does two things. It reduces the elephant foot created by the burn in layers, and leaves you an edge to put a scraper under to help remove the part from the plate at time of completion.

Cheers

Dan

[Gipper]

Thanks for the responses. Am running first print now. Decided to start with a set of wheels. Pics a little later!

[Gipper]

1st print well am happy with this, and this is at lowest resution. Printing Lola body next. Pics tomorrow most likely as it is a long print.

[Gipper]

Lola Body. Quite happy with my first attempt with this printer.

[4424ever]

Man you should be happy that looks great

[Gipper]

Yep pretty stoked about this, and this was at the lowest resolution of .05mm. Printer capable of .02mm

[Kevan]

Is that a resin mix? i.e. grey + tenacious

[Gipper]

No. The color is Sky Blue and the brand is Inland from local store here called Micro Center.....or as we refer to it Nerd Heaven! It is just their basic resin which so far has worked good. Nice to have a local source. I like the color and am tempted to just clear coat it.

[Barc 1]

I started adding 25% tenacious resin to my base Anycubic grey. This has improved the properties of the resin immensely. I.e you can press fit in bearings without the chassis cracking. I started printing bodies with this mixture as well as the plain base resin is almost like glass. Seems tough, but it just cracks on impacts.

These resin printers are fantastic. I just keep getting one successful print after the other. I really have my base layers dialed in so the builds stick to the build plate, but pop off with little effort. I was going to get a flex plate, but the release I am experiencing now has stopped me from wanting one.

I printed out 5 chassis and 48 wheels yesterday, and I have built a resin mold for casting my own urethane tires complete with raised lettering. I am loving this. Right now I have a Proxy Can Am Ferrari 612 printing out that just happens to be 64 mm wide<grin>

[chappyman66]

Yeah, that 612 is really a monster......