Hello,
I have printed a lid with an edge for a box for the motherboard that drives my plotter and since the power button is lower than the other parts I had to print a part of the lid lower and since I printed the lid with the surface facing downwards so that the whole lower surface does not need support structure and this lower part of the lid is effectively hanging in the air when printing, I have provided a support structure (default in tree form) for this part. Since the side with the support structure is on top, the surface is not smooth after removing the structure.
How can this be prevented? Should I have proceeded differently?
Kind regards
Proape
You cannot prevent this because the surface is printing upside without a hard surface blow it for the material to create a flat surface.
The built plate is a flat surface that provides this quality finish.
Support will not as if it did, it would be fused to the model.
Mitigation.
If you have an AMS your choices increase.
You could use the support material that came with the AMS or one you purchase. By denoting this as the support interface and not the support body, only the surfaces that touch will use the support material, the rest of the support will be the same as the main filament.
This can increase the quality. The support material is designed not to fuse with the related main filament so removal is easier.
If you use PLA, there is Support for PLA, PETG, ABS and others use their own Support materials to make sure nothing fuses.
You could use PETG as the support interface if the main filament is PLA as they do not fuse well, and the same in reverse.
You can also buy the (expensive) water soluble support material, when you finish printing, you immerse the entire model in water and the support melts away.
