Did I mess up bad?

OK Guys here is my question.... I found a really cool thing i wanted to print. I found it on www.thingiverse.com. I went on the site and typed in Smurf. I thoght it would be cool to print my 13 year old a smurf. They had a cool on so I went in and got the parts files. I started to print it and it was just not working.... mind you most of the part was not in contact with the table. Unsure how to rotate the part so more of it touched the table, or how to do it otherwise, I just found a box that said "Support Matterial or something simillar. I clicked it. Is that going to be easy to clean off the back of the smurf or did I just create a large blob of smurf? And yes I know that hey are blobs to begin with. If it can come off the model what is the easiest way to get it to clean off. I want my daughter to clean it then paint it. She is really into smurfs and she helped me put my printer together. Since she has told me she does not know what I would ever use it for and I think this would be something cool to get her interested, and then get her to learn the modeling part. She is not bad messing around autocad so I thought she could do the tutorials and learn 123d from autodesk and some of the other programs they have.

If it is this Smurf: http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:15093/#files

This one is going to be very tricky to print. The support material is going to be rather ugly and difficult to get off of the part when it is done.

It is this one

http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:158164

I am doing the main body part without eyes, and it is about 68% complete. I am just going to let it run and see what it comes out like.

What slicer are you using? Slic3r since MakerFarm includes it as a download? What version? Did you set any of the support material options, or just run with the defaults?

I'm no expert, just starting to delve into support material myself. I quickly aborted my first support material attempt with Slic3r, and I'm reading a lot about how slic3r doesn't do well with support material, how the support material part was revamped from scratch in version 1.0.0, and how you need to know how to set up the configuration options for it. For now I'm focusing on prints that don't require it.

Maybe my statements will bring out contrary input on how slic3r has worked just fine. I'm listening.

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Originally Posted by printbus

Maybe my statements will bring out contrary input on how slic3r has worked just fine. I'm listening.

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Not exactly 'contrary'...

Slicer does a really good job at doing support material for parts that you design with Slicer in mind. But I've had bad luck with just telling Slicer to do its automatic support generation. Knowing the different forms of support that Slicer can generate is beneficial. This Smurf is going to be very difficult to print nicely with support material. But if I was using Slicer to do it, I think I would start with a honeycomb pattern... Probably at 1.5 or 2.0 mm in size. You have to try different things and see how good or bad they work.

Slicer is starting to support different regions. I haven't used it yet. But you can set different regions to have different types and levels of infill and layer levels. What I would love to see them do is give me the ability to say "In this little area I want to use pillar support. And over here, I want to use rectilinear support." Because if you could do that, your Smurf would not be too difficult to make print well.

So far I got the body printed. I set it to run last night and then waited up till it got done. I still have problems getting it to come off the glass. I liked to never got it to release. Then when it did, it left the support material on the glass, or most of it anyway. Very little support material to clean off. I set it at 2.0mm and honeycomb and just let it do its thing. I am still learning all this and yes I am using Slic3r. I will get the second file printing tonight when I get home, and will try to take a picture of the part when I get home and post on here. I am really getting more and more impressed with what this printer can do!

Hey! I have a roll of Blue PLA! Guess what my printer is going to do today?

If you do not mind, would you post a picture of the top of the body when it is done printing before taking it off the bed so I can compare how mine looked?

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Originally Posted by Tachout

If you do not mind, would you post a picture of the top of the body when it is done printing before taking it off the bed so I can compare how mine looked?

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Sure... That isn't a problem. But I just sliced mine at 50%. I didn't want a full sized one.

Oh! And they pretty much look the same... But I'm printing the link I found in my first post up above.