No Support Magical Setting?

[tivowatcher]

I am trying to print some very small parts. Each part is printed on a small 4mm pin. The round base should be square, but it is not printing correctly since (I can only assume) it needs support. However, these are so small, I don't want/can't get support added.

Notice the artifacts hanging below the base section and further notice the angle at which the first base is being printed. Again, I assume this is due to no support.

Is there a magical setting in S3D that will help square up the round base at the top of the pin?

I am using an MK3 printer with the default .40 mm nozzle.

[batab]

I am trying to print some very small parts. Each part is printed on a small 4mm pin. The round base should be square, but it is not printing correctly since (I can only assume) it needs support. However, these are so small, I don't want/can't get support added.

Notice the artifacts hanging below the base section and further notice the angle at which the first base is being printed. Again, I assume this is due to no support.

Is there a magical setting in S3D that will help square up the round base at the top of the pin?

I am using an MK3 printer with the default .40 mm nozzle.

The layer where you see those artifacts is basically a huge bridge with no sustain at all. You can try a very slow speed with a lower temperature but I'm almost 100% sure that it will never print correctly unless you can somehow force the printer to make a concentric infill going from the inner surface to the outer or something similar. This would still give you a super small chance of printing it decently though.

This is not a limit of the material, the slicer or your printer. This is a limit of layered additive manufacturing technology. You should really add supports unfortunately.

[dkightley]

The only other option to supports is to print in zero gravity!!

Don't be afraid of using support material.....its had somewhat of a bad press over the past year. And if your experience of supports in S3D is purely based on pre-v4.0, then you may be in for a pleasant surprise....as that release had some nice changes that improved the performance of support removal.

I would add manual support pillars with a 1.0mm resolution around the circumference of each of the bases...go back to square bases if you want...and use support settings similar to:

Support infil - 40%
Extra inflation distance - 0.00
Support base layers - 0
Dense support layers - 2
Dense support infill - 100%
Horizontal offset from part - 0.2mm
Upper vert Separation Layers - 1
Lower vert separation layers - 1
Support infill angle - 45, -45, 45, 45, 45

Make sure you're not over extruding and not printing too hot or too slow.....and hopefully you'll get good separation.

And I wouldn't call what your printing here small. Small is my speciality.....here's an example photo'd straight off the print bed..in need of minor cleaning up!

The SD card is real!

[cairn]

I would print the hydrants (?) separately (with holes/sockets in their bases) then glue them onto the pins after.

[SweHogelid]

If you could consider glueing, I would split the model vertically and print two halves and glue them back together.