RE: 3D Printed Dinner Plate
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I am curious about something. I understand support material is necessary because of the overhanging edge of the plate. It looked to me that the support material was printed as a separate piece. The question that occurred to me was whether when the print was finished the plate could be removed and the support material left in place, and another plate printed using the original support material.
Unless removing the plate could not be prevented from disturbing the bed level and home position, it seems to me, in my absolute ignorance of 3D printing realities and operating on theories I've only read about, that this should be possible.
I'd appreciate any comment regarding this you are able to offer.
Thanks!
The brilliance of your out of the box thinking has me in awe, truly. I have never even considered this.
In theory I believe this could be possible but only with some custom macros and a high level of expertise in the field.
In current practice/configuration wise, it's not very possible, and I will explain why.
The primary aspect is removal of the support material. It requires some force that would be rather difficult to achieve with keeping the supports attached to the bed plate, but it's possible to reduce the support adhesion to the part through the slicer rendering software. I'm not well adept at this currently.
The other considerable aspect is travel moves. Although generating this model with no supports will remove the travel moves for the printed support areas (which would be a must to make this possible) it would require some kind of custom macro to raise the print head higher than the supports during the initial "primer" move, (from home position) which starts at the edge of the bed plate. This can also be modified and it's possible to even remove the primer travel altogether, but I am not sure how, and think it might require custom macros.
A pause macro could be utilized to place the support back on the plate after the initial travel move as well, but this would require some kind marking on the bed plate, and precision with re-placement would be a must. I am not sure how to attach an already printed support piece. Glue of some kind would be necessary, and I am skeptical of how effective it would be.
Thank you for this amazing thought process you've shared. I hope my answer clears up how difficult this would be to achieve, but indeed I do think it's possible.
Have a great day my friend.