Nearly every printable thing on Thingiverse adheres to the “45 degree rule” for MakerBotting. There are some very clever ways around such problems – such as Zaggo’s treasure chest with a snap-off support for the chest’s lid. However, Skeinforge actually includes a “support cross hatch” option that will create a fibrous sort of netting around your object upon which other parts can be printed. Allan Ecker’s Thingiverse blog post on skeinforge crosshatch support covers this feature in detail.
Until very recently, not many people had posted their experiments with Skeinforge’s support feature. Frankly, I was put off by Allan’s description of the support removal process and instead either designed parts that adhered to the “45 degree rule” or could be assembled from multiple parts to avoid the issue altogether.
Then Rick Pollack of MakerGear posted some details about his orange cat, printed with support material. The cat uploaded by i.Materialize includes a number of features that violate the “45 degree rule.” The head, tail, and entire body of the object essentially have nothing underneath them.
Cat with support
Cat with support
Rick’s post indicates his first attempt, pictured above, at printing this object with support used an older version of Skeinforge. Apparently his second attempt using a newer version of Skeinforge was a lot easier to clean up. The newer version of Skeinforge gives the option of slowing down the extrusion rate, which leaves a thinner support webbing, which makes for easier removal.
Have you tried printing using Skeinforge’s support features? What was your experience?
