Are you WASTING TIME Supporting 3D Prints?

[@tabletopmika4349]

You can make your auto supports peal off easily and don't create any pock marks by using light supports, and then manually add medium/heavy supports in places that carry most of the model's weight while printing. I only use Lychee to support my models, because it comes with a function to check for (still) unsupported islands and place additional supports there. Before Lychee, I used Prusa slicer to orient and support the model and exported the supported model as STL.

[@RisingApe]

For sure, the engineers I spoke to suggested that is why they ship models with lychee files too. I am always hunting for the balance between limiting clean up and time spent on supports. Blueprint is another step closer for me

[@WhiteWulfe]

My only issue with having to lean in on autosupports is because far too many providers unfortunately don't really provide any pre-supported files for 75mm or even 150mm scales, although I have noticed this has been changing over the past six months.

[@RisingApe]

All the models in my Patreon including the 75mm and more versions are available as pre supported files if that helps

[@fluxcapacitor]

I've just purchased a HeyGears UltraCraft Reflex RS and in the meanwhile I am learning their slicer, Blueprint Studio. I am very puzzled by one thing that currently makes my main 3D model unprintable on this printer (or possible, but at the cost of hours of labour with manual supports - but there is no island detection either!) due to a software limitation that does not exist in Chitubox or Lychee slicers i.e. on any other printers: When a 3D model is hollowed in Blueprint with a sparse lattice infill, there is no setting in the app to prevent the automatic supports from growing, not only from the build plate to support the exterior wall (this is expected) but also from the inside of the hollow model! Therefore, the interior of the model (although it has already a lattice structure) gets entirely populated by dense supports that completely fill the inner cavity, making the supports there unremovable, difficult or impossible to cure, which also makes it impractical to ballast the model by pouring plaster into it afterwards. Sure you can select the supports and delete them one after the other, but doing it for thousands of them?

[@RisingApe]

I saw someone talking about this the other day, it’s not something I have run into but have you raised it as a ticket with the HG engineers? They usually respond very quickly

[@fluxcapacitor]

@@RisingApe Yes, I submitted a ticket indeed. They replied quickly that they were working on adding such feature preventing supports inside hollow models, which is planned for a future update of Blueprint Studio :) However then I asked for an ETA even approximate for this update, this time their answer was a bit more vague and theoretical and seems to me as being further away down the road: "We are conducting technical pre-research on hollowed-out self-support and lattice connection of the lowest point. Once the research is completed, we will integrate these technologies into our printing process as soon as possible." So they seem to want a more intelligent lattice infill structure when supports are prevented in such a situation, which is a good thing. From a timeframe point of view however, the key word is "pre-research".

[@RisingApe]

for sure, I have chased them on this too, there is nothing on their latest update release schedule yet though. the lead time is usually a month or two for issues in the works though, so fingers crossed.

[@fluxcapacitor]

@@RisingApe I asked them and they replied it was scheduled for a future update. Then I asked for an approximate ETA, and their answer this time was more elusive. because they say that lattice infill does not act like supports, so they are "conducting technical pre-research on hollowed-out self-support and lattice connection of the lowest point". I understand this as "intelligent infill" but notice the wording "pre-research".

[@davidpowlina3922]

New to 3d resin printing. Your video is super helpful. Just recieved my Reflex RS and will start printing soon. Thanks keep up the good work.

[@RisingApe]

Excellent, hope you like the RS it’s a great machine

[@bloodravenice8182]

Can you use Blueprint with a elegoo Saturn 4 ultra?

[@RisingApe]

Yes, but you can only export as an STL then slice in Chitu, I printed on a GK2 and Mars 2. I may well follow up with more tests on my S4U in time

[@JohnSmith-rt5yq]

Wait so, in theory, if i take blueprint, and export an stl after auto supporting.... i can print that on a non heygears printer? Withh all the "autosupport" benefits? Or do they only "peel off so easy" because of the heygears resistance checking and monitoring features???

[@RisingApe]

Yes, you can support in Blueprint and export the STL to any slicer and you can then get the better auto supports from Blueprint for other machines. When I did this they peeled off nice and easy (they were still better on my HeyGears machine) but they were excellent on my GK2 too.

[@thebritishengineer8027]

I will take a look, the leg assembly of my latest model took 3 hours to support. Yeh, my stuff is pretty good but still very much under wraps.

[@RisingApe]

Let me know how you get on

[@thebritishengineer8027]

@@RisingApe Reworking one of the body sections due to bad topology causing faces to disapear on the prit file...AGAIN. Should not model main assemblies at 3am.

[@thebritishengineer8027]

@@RisingApe I will send you a pick, I hope to impress you.

[@veratitin-d9o]

Can I use this software if I don't own heygear printer

[@RisingApe]

Yes 👍

[@savoy9611]

Well done. Appreciate your effort on this subject. I use the auto support function on my RS and have had one failed print. Prior to printing, I looked at supported item and knew a support should of been added but said lets see what happens. Print failed. Tried again with auto support once again area was not supported so I just added a manual support and no issues. So now when I use auto support I verify supports and if in doubt I manually add supports.

[@RisingApe]

Yup, auto supports are awesome but don’t trump knowing what to do

[@matthewpinder7967]

Great video James, interesting topic. I personally go for pre-supported when possible assuming the creator knows what they are doing. If not available I use auto support on Chitubox adding supports manually after I've had a print issue. I will definitely be trying Heygears Blueprint for my next project. The Mammoth Factory minis look awesome, will for sure check them out too!

[@RisingApe]

The minis are awesome, and one of them is free on Patreon (so you have access) thanks for your help in the video, *I used Matt’s Mars 2 for the video!

[@scottturner864]

I tried to sign up to your newsletter and the webpage is blank, is the link viable? Thanks

[@RisingApe]

The link is definitely working, click on the link on the main site and then it will redirect you, sometimes this is a bit slow but it does work

[@ducpham1920]

Can i use this method with FDM printing? It look awesome.

[@RisingApe]

No blueprint is just for resin, there are FDM options but I haven’t done the research yet.

[@phanron8382]

Not wanting to support models myself is a huge reason why my motivation to print has diminished in the last months. It can take me around an hour to support a model, especially when they come in multiple parts. I have so many stls but no motivation to support them all. I'll definitely check out the auto support feature.

[@RisingApe]

Yup, I’m at a place where any little barriers can be a complete block, glad you found it useful

[@Grave79]

Hmm, I wonder if even more failures can be eliminated by using the HeyGears resin in the 3rd party printer since the autosupport profiles in Blueprint are defined by the resin you tell it you're using when you start the project. I guess I'll test that since my RS is turning out to be a dud and I have open bottles of HeyGears resin I can calibrate on an Elegoo Saturn 3 Ultra.

[@RisingApe]

It's possible but the other thing that dictates the success of the supports is the sensors in the Heygears printers. Why did you reflex turn out to be a dud? I love mine

[@Grave79]

@@RisingApe I wrote a really long reply about my issues on a different channel, but to recap: same issues as other premium products sold by overseas companies, which is poor after sales support and poor quality control. HeyGears is pretty good on the former except that their "global 24/7 support" (which is great Mon-Fri) doesn't seem to include weekends. And on the latter, after 2 weeks mine has developed an issue where it stops projecting new layers after ~1000 layers for 50um prints and ~2000 layers for 30um prints. Lift and retract still keep going like it's printing, but no new layers get added. It's not a fail, because there's nothing stuck to the vat. Of course this happened over the weekend (see point 1), so I burned through half a bottle of PARP10 before deciding the issue is the machine (confirmed by printing the same file to an Elegoo with no issue) or the firmware update pushed late last week (again, not a fan of this because of point 1). I was totally onboard with the closed ecosystem, proprietary resin, and forced slicer for the promise of always available support and far less waste (time and material) vs cheaper open printers. But I'm seeing experience become no better than just using my Saturn 3 Ultra (well worse actually since I can get successful prints on the Elegoo). This is after getting the machine with a damaged FEP and having to wait for the heated vat add-on to arrive just to be able to print because replacement FEP isn't available (not even as a repair part from support). I've been burned to some degree by these very amazingly engineered oversees products (Rokid, GPDWin, Onyx Boox to name a few), but HeyGear's pedigree in the industrial space meant I trusted things to be different. The cost is too high and the lock-in too forced for me to keep on with it. It's a great idea with a lot of potential. My successful prints were amazing and took almost no work to prep and send to print. I will either hope for Chitu/Lychee to get their autosupports closer to HeyGears (or use your trick in this video) or wait on HeyGear's next prosumer/consumer printer.

[@yagsipcc287]

Nice I will have to check it out :-) I have been using Chitubox and honestly it is great I just made my base layers a bit heavy to make sure it sticks and have a good clustic of very thin light supports. But I will have to check this out :-)

[@RisingApe]

I really like Chitu particularly the latest updates

[@GinjaBadger]

I mainly print Blood Bowl and one of the Patreons I sign up to makes really nice models but the presupports are terrible, so I usually just support them myself. I'd like to think Ive got pretty good at it as I very rarely have any fails. I'm going to have a look at the Heygears programme as I've found Chitu and Lychee Autosupports to be pretty useless. Maybe this programme will be better and faster.

[@RisingApe]

Let me know how you get on! I am a big fan of

[@TheRealOzWookiee]

Just wanted to pass on a tip someone once gave me about lychee and “fixing” files. Don’t. 😂 The best way is to import the file into MS 3D Builder, fix and export as STL then import to lychee. Bloody great tip about Blueprint though. Going to try that tonight.

[@RisingApe]

Cheers for the tip about MS 3D, I will try THAT tonight!

[@languin12]

"how do they know? they are professionals"... not a great answer lol. Now there are some problems with auto supports mostly its either bad placements or islands that never got recognized by the algorithm.

[@RisingApe]

Possibly not worded well, the point I made next was that professionals have spend hundreds of of hours working with supporting miniatures. And absolutely there are some issues with auto supports, I points out both the islands and the placement issues in the videos, I hope the video was of some use regardless

[@languin12]

@@RisingApe As a guy who had to do "professional" supports in a dental manufacturing lab. Its kind of annoying monkey work. You just have to follow certain rules that anyone can learn quickly we really cant put that skill on a pedestal. Its easy to learn and master, yet it is a real chore. I know a lad who does this as a service and his real value in this is that he spends the time to be thorough so artists who make minis save up valuable hours where they can be designing instead.

[@ghostrangerp.8819]

Not every printer is built the same....for instance my M3 max is 5x better than all my Elegoo printers....and i use less supports than ever on it as opposed to my Elegoo which require more support because of the lack of understanding of how technology in 3d printing can work better and function much better...

[@RisingApe]

For sure the printer and the environment make a huge difference, this is why pre supports are designed to be used on as wide an array of machines as possible. It’s also why i tested the auto supports on a much older machine too, because those machines do not have the fancier features that make it easier to print with.

[@ghostrangerp.8819]

@@RisingApe the majority of pre-supports don't work for major projects in professional fields....their designed for amateurs that need something quick and easy to go and print....that's the real and only necessity for pre-supports. . For lazy people....