Hollow vs Solid

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1

I have a best practice question.

I have some terrain that I am designing and printing. Imagine a general shape of an inverted bowl with detail on the upside requiring it to be printed at that orientation.
Would it be better for the STL to be solid - closing the bowl off at the bottom like a half sphere and use infill OR would it be better to leave it as a bowl shape and rely on supports?

Thanks!

2

If no one is going to see the underside & the angle is good…
just support at the top should be enough…so, hollow.

But you could always upload both & let the user choose. :grin:

3

Consider enabling variable layer height to make it as smooth as possible.

4

I would do hollow and even try to make it printable without support. E.g. by adding a cone at the top of the inside instead of a completely round shape.

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5

For anyone else who is looking into this, I will share my experiment.

In my case Solid is better for the following reasons:

  1. 1/3 less fillament. The support filament was much more than the infill.
  2. Faster print as well.

Thanks!

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6

Did you think about ways to print hollow without support? I think that would be the most material efficient way, but it depends on the actual geometry.

If you share a picture of the model, it would be easier to explain.