9.4 Printing of non-standard models

Slic3r helps you while printing the non-standard models as models with overhangs and/or models larger than a printing bed.

9.4.1 Printing with support material

When you print models you can find special cases different from common printing. First case is printing with support material.

If you print an object with a gradient lower than 45° the material overhang would be preventing the object to be printed correctly. Slic3r allows you to print such objects thanks to the Printing with support. Support material is an extra structure printed as scaffolding for the object - you can remove the support material after the printing is finished.

Choose the Print Settings tab (1) and click the Support Material option (2) in left column. First you have to check the Generate support material box (3). Next item - Overhang threshold (4) lets you set the minimal angle for printing the support material. Setting this item to zero lets the printer detect problematic parts automatically and print support where it’s needed.

Enforce support option (5) is used mostly with small models or models with small base to prevent the object from breaking or tearing out from the bed.

Obr. 13 - Print with support menu

9.4.2 Large object printing

Other special printing case is a printing objects larger than a heatbed. First option is to resize the object to a printable size. Right-click on an object in Slic3r opens a menu with the Scale… option, then you choose Uniformly, if you want to scale down the model evenly; or you can alter the size of a model along the one of the axes: Along X, Y, Z axis…

Pict. 14 - Size change of a printed object

If you need to print an object what doesn’t fit the printer, you have to cut using Slic3r. Right-click and choose Cut… option in menu. You can cut the object horizontally - if you need to perform a cut in a different axis, use the _Flip..._option in the same menu.

Pict. 15 - Cutting the object with Cut option