Support is very important in 3D printing, as it is inevitable to encounter models with large overhangs. Bambu Studio is equipped with rich features of support.
For a quick start, please refer to these videos.
According to the parts formed during printing, filaments can be divided into body filaments and support filaments. The body filaments include PLA, PLA-CF, PETG, PETG-CF, ABS, ASA, PC, PA, PA-CF/GF, PA6-CF/GF, PAHT-CF/GF, PET-CF/GF, etc., and the common support filaments include Support W (renamed Support for PLA), Support for PLA/PETG, Support G (renamed Support for PA/PET), PVA, HIPS, etc. Generally speaking, the body filaments can be used to print both the body structure and the support structure (but in this case, the support structure of some filaments will be difficult to remove), while the support filament is only suitable for printing the support structure (if it is used to print the body structure, the quality and strength of the prints will be low). And the normal combination is to use the body filaments to print the body structure, and at the same time use the corresponding support filament to print the support structure. For example, if the body structure is printed with PLA Basic or PLA-CF, the support filament may be one of Support W (renamed Support for PLA), Support for PLA/PETG and PVA, or other suitable support filaments; If the body structure is printed with PETG Basic or PETG-CF, the support filament may be Support for PLA/PETG or other suitable support filaments depending on the situation; if body structure is printed with PA6-CF/GF, PAHT-CF or PET-CF/GF, the support filament may be Support G (renamed Support for PA/PET) or other suitable support filament. Please do not use support filaments and body filaments that do not match each to print a model the same time, such as use Support for PLA to support ABS, ASA, PC, PAHT-CF or other high temperature filaments, or use Support for PA/PET to support PLA, PETG or other low or middle temperature filament, otherwise extruder clogging or nozzle clogging could occur.
Bambu Studio has a full page of support settings, as shown below.
There are 2 basic types of support: normal and tree. The main difference between the two types is:
nodes
, each node is represented as a circle. And then the nodes are propagated down to the heat bed. During propagation, the circles may be enlarged to get better strength and may be moved away from the object so the supports are less likely to collide with the object.On the support page, we can select 5 types of support, which are variants or combinations of these two types:
normal(auto)
: normal support with automatically detected overhangs.tree(auto)
: tree support with automatically detected overhangs.hybrid(auto)
normal(auto)
tree(auto)
normal(auto)
tree(auto)
normal(manual)
: generate normal support only on support enforcers. For manual setting, please refer to the Wiki Support Painting Guide.tree(manual)
: generate tree supports only on support enforcers. For manual setting, please refer to the Wiki Support Painting Guide.Both normal and tree supports have different styles to further adjust the final support structure.
Normal support has two styles:
Tree support has three styles:
The threshold angle is the maximum slope angle that needs support. If a surface's slope angle to the horizon is less than this threshold value, support will be generated when the support type is auto.
The larger this angle is, the more supports will be generated. The default threshold angle is 30 degrees. For most materials, this is a safe angle to print without support.
Raft is a type of support, which is used to generate support at the bottom of the model to lift it up. Usually, when printing materials such as ABS that are prone to warping, then you can enable the raft.
The raft contact Z distance represents the distance between the top of the raft layer and the model.
The first layer density means the density of the first layer of the raft and the support.
The first layer expansion can be used to expand the first raft and support layer, improving the bed adhesion.
Support is composed of two parts: base and interface. Interface layers are the layers touching the object. The rest of the support body is the base. Both parts can use different filaments than the object. Default means no filament is specified and the filament printed at the current layer is used, so filament switching time is minimized. Usually, we select specialized support materials such as support W as the support surface material.
The z distance from the support top to the object, as shown below. When setting to 0, the support filament is assumed to be support material, e.g. Bambu Support W.
The XY distance between the support and the object, as shown below.
Tree support has more options.
For large planar overhang, Normal supports usually give better surface quality than tree supports. That's why we propose hybrid support. So it's safe to choose hybrid(auto) in general, since for these cases hybrid(auto) will degenrate to normal.
For objects with complex structures and most of the overhangs are small, non-planar surfaces, tree or hybrid(auto) supports give stronger support structure, less material, and less time cost, while keeping similar surface quality.
Detecting the overhangs is the first step for support generation. The usual method is simply taking the difference between the current layer's polygons and the lower layer's polygons. This is far from enough. Some special cases need different strategies.
The overhang is so small that needs not to be supported at all. Below is an example.
The overhang is only supported by one end, while the other end flies in the air. This type of overhang must be supported, even if it's small.
The overhang flies in the air and far away from other parts. Only supporting the bottommost tip isn't enough. Instead, the flying part needs to be surrounded for a larger z-span.
These 3 types of special overhangs are called critical overhangs. Now we can detect them and generate suitable support structures for them. Below is the result of the model “unicorn”.
We also have an option to support only the critical overhangs.