Here it is, right off the printer table. It's filled with support material, a necessary evil for my machine.
After some patient cleanup work, here's the finished dome. Happy! :)
Not a great photo, but here it is on the partially-assembled Ideal Harmonic Transformer.
I've been wondering, which part of the toolchain produces the support material?
ReplyDeleteI ask because I have a homebrew 3d printer and I'm interested in getting this style of support material going.
ReplyDeleteMy machine has one nozzle, and one material. The "supports" are designed by the software as part of the print process, and there is a layer of very fine strands right next to the part itself. It works like perforated paper; if you get it separating right, it comes off pretty cleanly.
ReplyDeleteSo the software that came with the printer for converting the model into instructions for the machine adds the support?
ReplyDeleteYep, you've got it. :) Sorry if that isn't much help for your home-brew setup. I have had cases where I print "raftless" (telling the software not to make support), and I've modeled in a support in a small area that needed it. That worked fine too.
ReplyDeleteSkeinforge has a support option that achieves this. The resulting support material can be seen in this video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9RNwsbvn-3k
ReplyDeleteMine can be more like folds of stiff paper where there is a large volume of support, then swaps to the thin strands like in the video, close to the part. If that's what skeinforge does, then it looks like a good choice.
ReplyDelete