Custom Supports 1 - Save time & Money with Creative Support

This video is part of my ongoing series to help people get the most out of their printers. If you have watched my videos before, you will know I HATE waste! So support material is not something I am a big fan of.
In this video, I show you one of the custom / manual support techniques I use to save heaps of support material and of course, print time in the process.
Like many things in life, if you can think outside of the box a little, you can often find a way to make things more efficient.
I hope you enjoy the video! Smash that like button.
As always, feel free to share your own approaches and comments down below since it may help other people.
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[@jeroeneeuwes]

Great idea! They should put it in the slicers as an option ☺️

[@CallumColes]

Thanks! Yes, support material generation is definitely an area where slicers could still see a lot of improvement

[@jeroeneeuwes]

@@CallumColes are you going to show where you would use the circle for? I'm not that experienced as you but couldn't you save even more with less triangles in your example? Say only a triangle every 3 or 4 cm?

[@CallumColes]

Yes I will indeed show about the circle, this will be a mini series! You could further reduce the triangles yes, it’s the same as having lower support density, but having a few extra there does help with the structure if any were to fail. I also wanted to have a similar level of support to the 10% standard support I was comparing to.

[@jeroeneeuwes]

@@CallumColes Thanks, looking forward to it! You could also create "holes" in the triangles (like an infill grid, but then turned on its side) to save a bit more material, but I guess you already got the big savings done.

[@CallumColes]

Great idea, that’s the point of this video really, supports can benefit from a bit of creativity too!

[@semihoz4760]

It's really great way to add manuel supports and saving lots of material ! But i just have one question , wouldn't it be better to add supports and unite it to finish product in tinkercad or something rather than trying to add them in slicer?

[@CallumColes]

If you had already designed the product in a CAD package then you might be better off to try and think of ways to make it completely support free! But if not possible then yeah for sure it would make sense to design directly in the CAD package. The benefit of this method is that it can be done with pre-existing files, so things off Thingiverse for example or parts print service customers have sent over.

[@semihoz4760]

@@CallumColes oh yeah , you are right. Usually they only upload .stl files so it's hard to make changes in CAD programs i didn't think that part :)

[@frostbiteminus2799]

First 👊🏻❄️

[@FilamentStories]

Callum, this is brilliant! Thanks for the great tip tip and tutorial! Looking forward to meeting you at Formnext in a few weeks. You're coming to Formnext I think, right?

[@CallumColes]

Thank you:D, I'm not sure if I'm going to be able to make it right now, everything is up in the air at the moment with a house move, which keeps being delayed!