Transcript:
Hey, guys, back today. With an in-depth tutorial on support settings with Kyra, I’ve pretty much dialed in for what I like to have for standard support settings, and I figured I would make a full detailed video on how to choose the right support settings for your 3d prints. When working with dissolvable supports, there are other techniques and settings that. I’m not gonna cover in this video to start off. I will go over some basics on Kyra ever since. Kyra updated their software a year or two ago, they now allow for a lot of support tweaks. First you need to see what overhang angles you are able to achieve with your particular material layer, height, speed and temperature as I went over in a recent video, titled how to achieve steeper overhangs, depending on your printer setup, including cooling potential, You should be able to get up to around 55 degrees with standard PLA material. That is what I keep my PLA print set to and less working with the very large nozzle and large layer Heights next up is support pattern and density. This makes a very big difference in your supports if you do not use support interface when you are using support interface as I do, you will only need a percentage high enough, so that the interface prints. If you’re printing without support interface, you’ll likely want a percentage higher than 15% But since I do not, I go with 10 to 12 percent so long as the support interface can print properly and your support structures do not get knocked over. You can go as low as possible. I use a zig-zag pattern since it’s basic, but you can also use probably any pattern you prefer since the interface is what’s going to be touching the underside of your print before going over the gaps that are required. I will show you exactly what support interface is. If you are not aware, essentially, the interface works as a dense couple of layers separating your support structure from the underside of your print. This interface is meant to allow you to have a large surface area be below the print to give it a clean underside without wasting material on the rest of your support structures. You could think of the support interface similar to a raft for the underside of your overhangs. It should allow for the support structures to pop off with ease and keep the prints underside from looking ugly and droopy. I’m sure many tweaks of these settings can work, but I personally like a very dense support interface. I go for 80 to 90 percent density with these tests being at 80% the thickness should be enough so that it actually does what it’s trying to do while not wasting material. I go for between point 8 millimeters and 1 millimeter on the majority of my prints. I also have my support interface. Pattern set to concentric other patterns may work just as well, But this is what I have it set to when I was first testing this a year ago and it’s been working great for me thus far, I’m gonna skip down now to experimental. I’ve come to use conical supports for almost every print now, and while this does not affect the quality of the underside of your print nor how easy it is for the support structures to be removed, it does reduce the time and amount of material required to print so long as the conical minimal support width is large enough to not get knocked over having this on will be beneficial. And I’m not sure. If any other slicers offers, you can see on the screen now how this reduces your support material? Just make sure you go into layer mode before printing to make sure there’s a large enough surface area touching your build plate. As to not have the supports knocked over and now to the part that matters the most for getting good quality and supports that are easy to remove and that’s support in the Z distance. The XY distance is not as important and as long as the gap is large enough to allow for easy removal and not too far as to create bridging. It should work fine. I use a point Eight millimeter gap for my point, four millimeter nozzle prints and increase it from there for larger diameter nozzles, the support Z distance on the other hand is completely dependent on what your lair? Heights are set to if you had no gap for the Z distance on your supports. Then your support structures will actually be impossible to remove. They will be welded to the underside of your print, just as every other layer is on your print. The gap is essentially saying how many layers will have no material between your supports in your print. I think it would be easier to understand if Kira had said layer gaps, but since it doesn’t just know that this has to be a multiple of your layer height. If not, Kira will just round it up to the nearest layer gap. This means when I have the numbers set to 0.2 millimeters on a point, two millimeter layer, height print. There will be one layer between your support structures and the underside of your print If you set this number to 0.15 millimeters in the Z gap while still printing at point two millimeter layer Heights. Kira will just round this up to 0.2 millimeters. This also means it would be impossible to have a point three millimeter gap on a point two millimeter layer height print since your printer will be forced to round up to point four millimeters or a two layer gap. This means that your support settings are entirely dependent on your layer height. I found that my favorite Support Settings are when I have a point. Two millimeter layer gap on a point four millimeter nozzle. This means that the majority of my prints are standardized to either be point 1 millimeter or 0.2 millimeter in layer Heights. Since that’s a multiple of point, two millimeters on the screen now are the prints with those settings. I will include the settings in the description down below. You could see and hear just how easy it is to remove these support structures and how the underside of the prints are still of decent quality before moving forward with further tests. I’m gonna talk a bit about my first sponsor, SD 3d printing. I worked as the operations manager for SD 3d for two years, and they taught me everything I know about 3d printing. While this video may be sponsored, I always refer to those looking for 3d printing help to them. Regardless, they also have professional designers that are able to manufacture parts on a large scale meaning. They can help you bring an idea to production. While many of you watching this video are looking for help on your own 3d printer. You ever need help on a project You’re working on, make sure to visit. SD 3d comm. Everyone who goes to them and either mentions 3d print general or enters it a check out on their auto. Quoting tool, will get 15% off their first order. It would mean a lot to me. If my first sponsor gets shown some love, so make sure to check it out in the description down below, but let’s get back to the video. Let’s see how these supports can be drastically changed, depending on your layer height. I like printing at 0.16 millimeter layer Heights, but unfortunately, it’s difficult for me to dial in the proper support settings on the screen. Now is a point one six millimeter layer high print width 0.16 millimeter. Z support distance that small 40 micron difference in gap for the support structures makes it far more difficult to remove the supports no longer just pop off and require me to get a razor out. Even after all that some support structures were just too hard to remove without a lot of elbow grease. You could see that where? I was able to remove the support. The underside of the print is quite clean, but I just think the struggle is too much because of this. If I want to increase the support Z gap, I have to go up to 0.32 millimeters and here is that on the screen? Now this gap had the supports essentially fall off. There isn’t really a need for pliers That said the underside of this print are far uglier than the previously shown print on the screen. Now has this point three two millimeter layer gap on the left and on the right is the point two millimeter layer gap. I think it’s fairly clear that the underside of the point two millimeter gap is much cleaner having a point. One six millimeter. Z gap is possible to remove the supports. But going to be a lot more work on your end while point three two millimeter. Z gap is a bit too much for a clean underside. This is why I prefer to standardize two point one and point two millimeter layer Heights for prints that require support structures. Now let’s show some more tests on the Z gap. Here is a print with 0.2 four millimeter layer Heights and a point two four millimeters egapp supports popped off with ease and don’t leave an extremely ugly print that said the 0.2 millimeter gap is definitely cleaner printing with 0.2 4 millimeter layer. Heights is possible to have support structures. Here’s the largest gap. I do on these early tests, which is a two layer gap on a point. Two millimeter layer height print this point. Four millimeters egapp makes the supports the easiest to remove. But you can see. They also leave the ugliest underside on the screen now are both of the point. Two millimeter layer height prints with every setting the same, except for the 0.2 millimeter. Z Gap is on the left and the point four millimeters Egapp is on the right. I then print at point Three millimeter layer Heights and a point three millimeter gap for support. This is a bit too large of a gap for a clean underside and since it’s impossible to have the gap smaller than this on a point, three millimeter layer, high print, it will be difficult to achieve successful support structures. You can bump up the support interface to around a hundred percent density to improve this quality a bit, but there is no avoiding that point three millimeter gap, causing some droopiness on the screen. Now are these tests with a point four millimeter nozzle. Your results may vary depending on your printer setup, active cooling fan. And if you tweak the rest of the support settings that I went over earlier when analyzing these prints, it seems that a point two millimeter gap is the ideal gap when it comes to having a clean underside and supports that are easy to remove. This can be reduced to around point One six millimeters. If you use a lot of elbow grease, but anything lower than that, and you will have support structures that are far too difficult to remove. It seems that up to around point, Two four millimeters in Z gap can allow for an acceptable print, but anything larger than this will result in far too droopy of an underside. While all of this seems to make sense the thing that doesn’t quite make sense to me is how this all changes when you bump up your nozzle diameter and line width. I noticed that when I was printing on a point. Eight millimeter nozzle with 0.3 millimeter layer Heights 0.3 millimeters egapp resulted in support structures That were impossible for me to remove. I don’t have the exact print recorded, but it was for the base on the Captain America with me on air print. This didn’t make much sense to me considering that the point three millimeter gap. I showed earlier with a point. Four millimeter nozzle and point three millimeter layer hides came off too easy and resulted in a slightly droopy underside on this print, though it’s as if the support structures are welded to the underside. I just can’t get the support off of the 90-degree angles Because of this. I bumped my Z gap all the way up to 0.6 millimeters since that’s the next possible number when printing at point three millimeter layer Heights. As you can tell, it’s a bit easier to remove, but still requires the use of a razor. I would normally consider a point Six millimeter gap far too much, but when using a point eight millimeter nozzle. It seems to be required. The underside is still quite ugly, but I was just unable to remove the supports when the gap was only 0.3 millimeters. I then did the same with a point. Four millimeter layer, height and gap and you could see similar results while I was actually able to remove the supports. It took a very long time. The one, with a point eight millimeter gap basically fell off and was far too much of a gap for a normal print. This means that for large prints with large layer. Heights and nozzle diameters. You will be in a bit of a conundrum. Having your Z gap set to your layer. Height can result in some really difficult or impossible to remove support. But going any higher will leave you with the ugly underside. You definitely don’t want. These tests. Lead me to believe that you will want to have a smaller. Z Gap when working with a smaller nozzle and line width, I’m currently running an e3d volcano whose smallest nozzle diameter is 0.4 millimeters. So I didn’t do a test on this video, but it would only make sense to me that if you use a point, two five millimeter nozzle and 50 micron layer Heights, you would likely want to decrease your Z gap for support structures from what I’m suggesting out 0.2 millimeters, just as I was forced to increase it for larger nozzles and larger layer Heights well. I hope this video helps you out a bit. I have a link down below to my current settings when running point to millimeter layer Heights, which you could try out for yourself, Your results may vary since I am using a fairly modified direct-drive CR 10 but it should be a good starting point for PLA prints. When using different types of materials, your support settings are going to vary drastically. These settings work for me when I’m using pet G or ABS. But other unique materials they don’t. While the Z cap will have the same effect on other materials, their layer adhesion will cause you to use different numbers when I work with flexible materials, their strong layer adhesion causes me to increase the Z gap or to not use support interface. Some flexible materials are so difficult to dial in support settings that I’ll have to redesign the model to not have such a steep overhang. The same is true for many nylon mixtures. I’d love to hear from the community down below. If any of these tips improved your supports, or if you have any tips to give yourself, I also would love to hear from anyone. If they have an explanation for why, using a larger diameter nozzle requires a much larger Z gap. I’ve heard that simplify 3d allows for some great supports as well. But I feel that these tweaks in Keira. Allow for something just as good. Make sure you check out SD 3d in the description down below. Thanks for watching guys. I will see you all soon with further tutorials, reviews and fun prints.