How to support a large base - 3D Printing

Base from: Victoria by CREATIVE GEEK MB
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[@moonjam]

I've just started out 3D resin printing and I have to say that your written guide and your videos have been an absolutely god-send. Cannot thank you enough for spending the time on these, it's such a huge help!

[@J3DTech]

Thank you! I'm happy to hear that it's been of help.

[@hothmobile100]

This is quite possibly the best single video on Lychee supporting on the internet. Thank you, from Rick.

[@J3DTech]

Thanks Richard, always a pleasure interacting with you.

[@brentcox6201]

always great info, even after years of resin printing I find your guide and videos always have information or insight that I didn't know, thank you brother

[@J3DTech]

Thank you for your kind words

[@MikkeyFacts]

Great stuff man

[@markferrick10]

Fantastic video. For a noob, it gives me the knowledge to do my own supports. Thank you.

[@J3DTech]

Thank you! Also be sure to check out the Lychee Slicer KZbin as well. I recently did a live stream going into some supporting tips as well

[@jacobl2222]

If you select only three supports at a time and hit "parent", Lychee will usually neatly parent the middle support to the other two. You can go along a chain of supports like this, doing three at a time, and it winds up slightly faster than manually placing every middle support with ALT. .

[@J3DTech]

I also do this it's a very handy trick. Especially if it's supports that are buried. You can move the camera to look at the bottom for easy selection.

[@wildguardian]

This is the best channel on resin 3d printing properly that I know of, you really helped me out. One thing I want help is to understand the best possible ways to print.. hard surface objects that are even.. flat.. or circular. like.. I'm helping a friend and I'll print a vase, a cup.. for clay/ceramic molds.. and I still don't know how I'll orient the objects and avoid suction cups.. I guess I'll simply add holes.. patch up.. and print 90 degrees straight in base without supports.. and pray. but some shapes won't allow that.. (concave lips at the bottom) so I'm at a loss..

[@J3DTech]

These types of shapes are very hard with resin. You do need a hole at the lowest part of the hollowing and it has to be big enough for resin and air to flow in and out during the print to avoid the suction cup.

[@carlhewlett]

Thanks, this was really helpful

[@J3DTech]

Happy to hear!

[@SliverCreations]

Great stuff tnx!

[@J3DTech]

Thank you!

[@davesenor3146]

Agree with @moonjam below. Absolutely a must have for anyone new or experienced!!

[@Barak621]

God Dammed... Iearning so much. I love you again.., even that I don't have any M3 Premium XD

[@tantaluss68]

Have you ever tried lychee support at its highest level knotted stick is level but the most amount of supports because it puts a ton of support on the model

[@J3DTech]

I have and the new Lychee Projected Supports make this entire workflow MUCH better!

[@ItsBrody]

Great tutorial! On your guide your medium tip length is 2.0mm. Reason for 2.5mm on this one?

[@J3DTech]

Nope, I'm often playing around with settings often and trying to make sure I like what I have. For this I changed it and forgot to change it back. The 2.0 is a better setting even for this video as it would make parenting easier.

[@axlns81]

Thanks for your video. I'm trying to do parenting, but I can't get them straight, I mean when I add new support in between two existing with Alt button pressed and connect it to existing - it makes it orthogonal to the base, not like pillar support and for you it seems that your supports are pillars and parenting supports are pillars too in the way they connect to the base (e.g. straight vertical). hopefully I made myself clear.. what is the trick here?

[@J3DTech]

Make sure your support tips are about 2.5mm long. And that you have enough space between the two other supports. Finally try placing the base of the parenting support lower in the shaft.

[@monkeydad47]

Do you know how to turn off the setting where if you make your support preset either too big or small, it'll automatically switch to either the medium or heavy profile? It's pissing me off, quite frankly.

[@J3DTech]

It's not switching, it's just a feature of the UI and yes. If you look at my shorts you will see I recently added two videos on this very topic.

[@erin.anderson]

I have yet to have this method of support work usably; the flat bottom never remains flat. Every place where a support is touching the surface is a raised area on the surface of the model, so instead of a flat surface I get a field of hills. The model prints successfully, but is unusable.

[@J3DTech]

This has a lot to do with the type of resin you're using. The cause for the bumps is called Z-Blooming. Resins like Conjure Rigid Gray, or Navy Gray have less Z-Blooming then most. I would suggest trying these resins or adding an additional 5-10% tilt to your object to help mitigate this.

[@pelecyphora1]

I'd make bracing a bit more uniform

[@J3DTech]

Soon that won't be an issue. ;)

[@MetalHead15074]

Does this method work with a large cube shaped base?

[@J3DTech]

Work on anything really, even more complex shaples.

[@Gromic2k]

Flex plate and print directly on the build plate. Maybe add an extra layer that you can sand off. Why are people wasting material and time for supports?

[@brunolopes9900]

98% of the bases can«t fit flat on the plate!

[@brandonb417]

So if the supports have little round bases on each of them, by the time you're done supporting a raft is formed by the supports, so why do you do a full raft also?

[@J3DTech]

Good question, thanks for asking! 1.The raft has a lip that makes it easier for the scraper to get under it. 2. Significantly less complex from a polygon structure than a bunch of feet squished together. 3. It's easier to adjust the thickness or type or raft then altering the feet of the supports when I do want something different.

[@brandonb417]

@@J3DTech Since the raft will cover the entire footprint of the part, do you need to turn off the support bases so they don't extend past the raft or will the software do that automatically?

[@J3DTech]

@@brandonb417 Lychee Slicer will auto replace the feet with the raft.

[@brandonb417]

@@J3DTech awesome, thanks.

[@zaelu]

what's the reason of not printing flat on the bed besides the elephant foot? artefacts?

[@J3DTech]

Quite a few issues, elephants foot is one. 2. Cant hollow as there is no way to add drain holes. 3. Z crushing. These printers are not as accurate on the Z as we wish. Prints printed flat on the plate often suffer from being crushed a little. 4. Stepping, the Z will show more stepping then XY. Items flat on the plate will often have very very bad geoperical patterns on the top and look very ugly. 5. Can be hard to remove. - I hate mag plates for a host of resin and so won't use them. A large surface like this "can be" a little hard to remove and sometimes damage the corners.

[@zaelu]

@@J3DTech Thank you for the answer. I sked because I a beginner and I saw your movie just as I was waiting to finish a print I started just last night... a 17cm Liberty Statue that I hollowed after fixing it (it is a free model) in Blender a little over one hour lol and it came out very well on Z no artefacts but the horizontal drain hole I had placed in such way that it will cut all the way through the squared base like a trench didn't worked out as intended. In stead of a trench I got a normal tubular drain hole.. a double as I had a second one a little bit above of the first for same purpose. The trench I was planning to be used to avoid the suction cup created by the base... but the print succeeded. (printer is a Saturn 3 ultra btw).

[@J3DTech]

I have another video on how to hollow that should be a good one for you. @@zaelu

[@zaelu]

@@J3DTech thanks. found it.

[@Hateweek1984]

I feel useless.....struggling supporting an stl...this helped... but something isn't right...2 x failed...

[@J3DTech]

Reach out to me on discord and send me what you have. I can look over it to see what's happening. You can find me in the Lychee discord

[@akarca]

hi. why don't you press it straight?

[@J3DTech]

What do you mean?

[@akarca]

@@J3DTech For example, if I want to print a flat coaster. does it make sense to press straight or do you angle it and press it with supports? I'm getting pressure to make more patterns. what is your opinion?

[@J3DTech]

​@@akarca That depends, if you want to hollow it, it's best to lift it off of the build plate so that you can add holes. This will also lift the model above the burn in layers. Burn in layers can create what we call elephant's foot. There are ways to get around the effects of burn in layers, I cover some of them in my guide. docs.google.com/document/d/1Z8fkzOxEgI9sOTwDKI6CeblpnuP4V8ayYVwZrYGmo44/edit#bookmark=id.2yykdplen3v7

[@akarca]

@@J3DTech Our first 2 weeks in 3d printers were unsuccessful. we wouldn't print complex models, just mold. we couldn't solve the raft first, the supports were insufficient, we forgot to drill a hole, the fep stuck to the film.. what happened to us :) I will examine the document. thanks.

[@J3DTech]

@@akarca If you need any additional help, reach out to me on Discord. I'm most active there and can help you through some of your troubles.

[@cryskilljoy]

lychee pro is actually a thumbs down

[@J3DTech]

Yeah? Did you have an issue? Happy to help!

[@Rod_Zaramella]

For Christ sake, just put it directly on the plate! Then, come back and thank me. The way I calibrate my LD-006 is simple: first, I calibrate the level of the plate with VAT ON IT, setting the HOME position. Second, I elevate manually the plate until it is slightly above the film, setting the Z. Now I have a ridiculous micro elephant foot, if any.

[@J3DTech]

Definitely a great way to do it! There are several successful methods to removing the elephants foot. The method you described, burn-in layers compensation, some printers allow for variable layer settings to set a very long rest time on the burn in layers while keeping TSMC enabled. However there are many situations where printing on the build plate isn't ideal such as. Hollowing, more complex objects, or larger objects that need to be tilted to fit in the printer's LCD space. They are all just tools to be used to fit the job.