Design a sacrificial piece that fits closely but not too closely to the inside area that needs supported. There are plenty of models to download that have support structures as part of the design, with just the right gap between their top surface and the underside of what they're supporting so they'll easily come off and leave a good surface.
Make it solid with several internal voids that have a pointed top at the angle you have set to not need supports. The walls can be pretty thin, I'd try for a spoked design sort of like a spigot handle. Then you'll have the upper surface solid and ribs on the bottom to grab with pliers. To figure out the space you need to not permanently adhere the sacrificial support to the model, make a simple model of an inverted U with a straight horizontal bar and a block that almost but not quite fills the center. No need to make it huge. Adjust the height of the support block until you get the results you want. A nifty thing that can be done with 3D printing is a light press/snap fit. On this thing the three towers fit firmly into recesses in the base while the thin gears used for adjustment thumbwheels are a perfect sliding fit so a few drops of super glue gel hold them. https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:1752729 I tried a few times to make a proper thread for the two adjusters but couldn't make it work so I went with a loose fit with two coarse spiral grooves and a pair of pins on the rotating part. Inspiration was early rifled cannon that used lugged projectiles. I've also used a fit that uses the layer lines to snap together but not so tight they're inseparable. Works well for jigs that need to hold together for things like holding pieces into 3D printed knobs filled with resin while the resin cures. On Tuesday, July 21, 2020, 11:18:06 PM MDT, Gene Heskett <[email protected]> wrote: Greetings all; And had a hell of a time removing the internal supports, which probably out-weigh the gear, digging it out about 1/4" at a time until I was able to actually get a grip on the edge, at which time the last half of it popped right out in one piece, clean as a whistle. But it seems like there ought to be a way to pop it all out in one piece as opposed to a couple hours work with a miniature back hoe in the form of the e. tech's ever present 5" flush cutters. Looks good, meshes well and walks around the ring gear like it should. 2nd one building, be done around a late dinner time tonight as its an 18+ hour job. Don't know if theres enough PLA on that spool for 3 of them. With all the support structure it uses a lot of PLA. Cura estimates it but I've forgotten now. But is there a support removal tool that isn't radioactive? _______________________________________________ Emc-users mailing list [email protected] https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users
