How to support this?

I want to print this. I have spent at least two days each on Skeinforge, Slic3r and Cura and cannot get satisfactory results.

If I don't use support then the ceiling of the cut outs flops down, if I use support then I end up with the whole thing encased in plastic and no way can I get it off. I have to drill the holes, I may as well start with a blank billet of plastic and cut it by hand.

All I need is a vertical blade or two inside the cut out only. It seems that you have support everywhere or nowhere.

Any suggestions of what to slice it with and how to get really minimal support

I am by far no expert, but could you model the supports? Draw in what you want in a super thin support that you know you can remove that you can control?

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Originally Posted by Tachout

I am by far no expert, but could you model the supports? Draw in what you want in a super thin support that you know you can remove that you can control?

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Yes I can do that but it is a lot of work and this problem is not unique, I often meet the need. If I could get the printer to work sensibly with the other extruder for support I could use my spare Stratasys support which is really brittle and easy to remove but none of those three slicers will behave sensibly when using two extruders.

Slic3r 1.2.0 looks very promising but it is currently too bug ridden to be used.

Slic3r and Cura are only good for print plate touching supports. They cannot effectively model in support within your model. They do it but it's not great.
The only solution is to model in your own thin supports and I don't see how it would take you more than 10-15 minutes to do that. You have complete control over the type and location of the support.
Your model is not that complex and I think I could get a reasonable result from my printer just bridging the slots. the curved face of the slots will be a bit ugly but I think it would be functional.

I might print it tonight just to see. :)

Have you tried meshmixer's supports ?

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Originally Posted by LambdaFF

Have you tried meshmixer's supports ?

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Don't do Windo$e or Mac. :)

I'll do it by hand I suppose. Seems to me it shouldn't be hard to write a slicing programme where you just draw support verticals and the software works out precise start and stop points from the surfaces above and below your line. The small pillars that Skeinforge makes are excellent.

The choice of slicer is really difficult. Skeinforge works way better than the others off the shelf but Slic3r and Cura are both easier and will do as well as Skeinforge once you have devoted several days and half a roll of plastic to getting some settings that work. It seems Cura has the same bug as Skeinforge related to extruder changing whereby it extrudes a blob related in volume to the amount that was extruded by the other extruder when you change extruders.

They all work way better than anything I could write to do the same job though. :)

how big is the model.

I've had no problems bridging gaps as large as 5 cm. You might have to drop your extruding temp slightly. That gives stiffer plastic and makes bridging gaps easier.

Also might try cutting it in half vertically, and printing them laying down, then glue the halves together.