Support/Rigidity help

Hi,

I am building myself a small helical vertical windmil at the moment on my Ender 2 Pro. I am slicing with Cura 4.8 (1.2 mm line width) and PrusaSlicer 2.5 (0.8mm) which are both giving the same results.

https://3dprintboard.com/attachment....9&d=1665051055

My first attempt is much too heavy so for the Mark II I am trying to reduce the weight as much as possible. The support structure was fairly easy to fix but the problem is with the foils. I originally printed them as a 'normal' print with a low fill % so for the Next attempt I decided to try Vase mode which worked great until suddenly the print head started catching on the sharp corner at the rear of the foil:

https://3dprintboard.com/attachment....0&d=1665052640

As you can see this cause the layers to seperate so I tried adding a few base layers to hold it more firmly and then tried printing in 'normal' mode with just a single outer perimeter and no infil but the results were the same. It seems to foil without infill or supports is just too springy and after a certail height the bouncing is enough to start catching.

Next I tried adding a traditional support which allowed the print to finish but the surface of the foil was very scarred after removing the supports which was obviously no good. I then tried keeping a single perimeter shell and adding a little infill to give it some strength and at about 15% this was enough to stop the bouncing and delamination but I was back to it being too heavy again.

My most recent attempt has involved adding a curtain by hand from the trailing edge down the base in the model itself which then prints as a single permiter shell. I couldn't find any way to make either slicer create a support like this.

https://3dprintboard.com/attachment....1&d=1665053383

https://3dprintboard.com/attachment....2&d=1665053721

This worked well with the trailing edge of the curtain suffering some issues but the foil itself intact. I was able to remove the curtain with some scissors and get a reasonably clean trailing edge.

My question is: How could I do this better as I am using a lot of extra material and time and the curtain doesn't easily seperate from the trailing edge of the foil?

Your method of adding the vertical manually created support is the right direction, I believe. In order to get it to work, you'll want to ensure that the thickness matches your nozzle diameter. The other aspect is to ensure that you have "thin walls" enabled in your slicer. I'm not sure where such a setting is located but a search with "enable thin walls [slicer name]" should give you the answers.

I would expect that the foils should be designed so they are hollow with a wall width that of your Extrusion width and the sharp points should be of an ending diameter of the nozzle/Extrusion width. Asking a 3d printer to print threads smaller than the extrusion width never works well.

You may want to redesign this so it is in multiple parts and glue them together after they are finished rather than trying to make it on structure..