Enabling supports suddenly makes everything unprintable
I have been using Slicer for years and am generally familiar with how it works... One feature I don't use as often as some is 'supports',but when I do, they act as I expect.
This weekend I had to do quite a fine print with an overhang, so used the paint on support feature.. The Sliced view looks fine, but when I printed it the printer started behaving really weird, by under extruding and doing odd travels to the left or front of the bed. The travels didn't look anything like the sliced view, atleast I didn't think so.
If you are interested, you can see these movements here:
Anyway.. I started looking closer at individual layers and noticed that the supports and models alternated between layers.. So on layer 2 for example, I had support but no model.. And layer 3, I had a slice of the model, but no supports.
Further more, the layer thickess seems irratic.. And not the 0.2mm that I specified.. Its almost like teh supports are printing at a different layer height..
I don't believe this is normal.. But to be fair, never looked before that closely.. So perhaps it is.
I did a quick test (3MF file enclosed).. And you can see a few things:
1. The layer count starts at 250 and when you add supports it increases to 408
2. The model is sliced at 0.2mm but, the layer heights are 0.0, 0.2, 0.4, 0.45, 0.6, 0.7, 0.8, 0.94, 1.00
3. If you look at the individual layers you see
Layer 1 (0.2mm) - Object and Support
Layer 2 (0.4mm)- Object NO Support
Layer 3 (0.45mm) - Just support
Layer 4 (0.6mm) - Just Object
Layer 5 (0.7mm) - Just support
Layer 6 (0.8mm) - Just Object
Layer 7 (0.94) - Just Support
Layer 8 (1.00) - Just Object
Could it be this is normal? I guess its possible as I have never looked that closely, but it does seem odd....
It looks like the support material is printing at a different layer height to the object.. But I can't see that its a config issues as it does the same on both my MK3 and Mini Priner profiles. And its the same irrespectice of whihc Filament I set.
Does anyone have any thoughts or experience in this area?
Jon
RE: Enabling supports suddenly makes everything unprintable
They do print at different layer heights. They have always done so in all versions. Except when you have 'synchronise with object layers' enabled and that can only be turned on when contact z is set to 0.
RE: Enabling supports suddenly makes everything unprintable
I just went back to the only other version of Slicer I have whihc is SuperSlicer (based on 2.2) and thats exactly the same... So perhaps this is entirely normal and just how supports work..
If thats the case, why am I struggling to print this so much with supports.
https://cdn.thingiverse.com/assets/1b/43/42/89/3d/quest_left_bottom.stl
When I print, the lines are stuttering and underextruded and the printer spends much of its time going to the left or front of the bed.
RE: Enabling supports suddenly makes everything unprintable
They do print at different layer heights. They have always done so in all versions. Except when you have 'synchronise with object layers' enabled and that can only be turned on when contact z is set to 0.
I guess I just spotted something I had never noticed before.. So I need to review my original problem.. When I print this with supports its makes a total mess..
I have a feeling that this only happens when I print at 0.1mm.. So for now I am printing without supports (I have redesigned the object so its not needed) and later I will do some tests to see, and upload a 3MF file incase someone can help.
RE: Enabling supports suddenly makes everything unprintable
@jweaver
Post your project file. Its the only way to debug issues properly. Stuttering is often a symptom of throughput, ie the board cant handle the rate of gcode being sent.
Also what version firmware are you running ? Are you printing from the sd card or via an external source like octoprint ?
There were certain firmware versions that had issues like that in the past (around 3.5 iirc) but its always possible one of the new updates has a similar issue.
General tips to reduce throughput are to NOT use gyroid infill. The constant changes in direction cause a much greater % use of the serial and also results in larger gcode files. Consider cubic infill instead unless you need gyroid for artistic puposes, its almost the same strength wise and uses less gcode. Doesn't make the printer rattle around as much eaither.
RE: Enabling supports suddenly makes everything unprintable
@jweaver
Post your project file. Its the only way to debug issues properly. Stuttering is often a symptom of throughput, ie the board cant handle the rate of gcode being sent.
Also what version firmware are you running ? Are you printing from the sd card or via an external source like octoprint ?
There were certain firmware versions that had issues like that in the past (around 3.5 iirc) but its always possible one of the new updates has a similar issue.
General tips to reduce throughput are to NOT use gyroid infill. The constant changes in direction cause a much greater % use of the serial and also results in larger gcode files. Consider cubic infill instead unless you need gyroid for artistic puposes, its almost the same strength wise and uses less gcode. Doesn't make the printer rattle around as much eaither.
I don't think its infil.. It doesn't even get that far.
I can print this fine with no supports.. But as soon as I enable supports, it can't even finish the first few layers.
I will do some tests again later and this time create some 3MF files when I do so...
RE: Enabling supports suddenly makes everything unprintable
Ignore this for now. I resliced again and now it prints fine..
When I was debugging this I observed the behavior of supports and put 2 and 2 together and assumed it was the cause. .But its now clear that it was normal behavior and my problem is something else.
Annoyingly I deleted the "broken" file so i can't even prove whether the issue was caused by Slicer or the Printer.. So I just need to keep an eye on this to see if it happens again.
Thanks for your help