My wife is currently being fitted for dental implants. When we were last at the prosthodontist’s office, the subject of 3D printing came up (no, I didn’t bring it up). He seemed intrigued by it. Then, while perusing thingiverse.com, which I do occasionally, I spied this: [U]https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3741674.[/U]
I immediately thought of the prosthodontist & decided to surprise him. Soooo,
[ATTACH=JSON]{“data-align”:“none”,“data-size”:“medium”,“data-attachmentid”:5783}[/ATTACH] [ATTACH=JSON]{“data-align”:“none”,“data-size”:“custom”,“height”:“328”,“width”:“340”,“data-attachmentid”:5784}[/ATTACH]
Now, I have to tell you, this has been the most difficult thing I’ve ever printed. What you see here is either the 5th or 6th attempt. I tried without support of any kind. The roots broke free from the table before they were an inch high. I added small supports around the legs, similar to the ones you see in the left photo. The roots again broke free. I zoomed in really closely in Cura and could see that the supports didn’t actually touch the roots.
I decided it was time for some research. That’s how I found out about the XY Support Distance feature of Cura. I played with the values and finally got to a point where the supports were either in contact with the roots or very, very close to them. I then decided not to take any chances, so I added a raft as well. And, it worked. Yay.
So, when we next visit the prosthodontist, I’ll give him the vase (or whatever you want to call it). I look forward to watching his face