Supports are necessary for printing parts in a majority of cases, as overhanging features on your part won’t print successfully without them. 

Make sure you position and scale your part as intended before generating supports. Rotating the part or scaling your part will force the regeneration of supports.

There are two types of supports available to use in NexaX 2.8: Pillar Support and Scaffold Support.

Users of NexaX versions earlier than 2.8 that might be more comfortable with Scaffold Supports, which were the only style available in pre-2.8 releases. Additionally, some more viscous materials such as xFLEX475 may print more consistently using Scaffold supports since they are stronger than Pillar supports.

Pillar Support

Pillar Supports generate faster than Scaffold Supports, allow for easier part cleaning, and are designed to use less material due to their lightweight structure.

Scaffold Support

General Support Presets

In the Support menu, you’ll find options to change the Strength and Density of your supports.

• Strength entails the thickness of the beam and size of the touch points. The Default setting will vary depending on the type of material you’re printing with.

  • Low will make the beams thinner and decrease the size of the touch points relative to the Default settings.

  • Conversely, High will thicken the beams and increase the size of the touch points relative to the Default Settings.

• Density entails the amount of supports generated. As with Strength, the Default will vary depending on the type of material you’re printing with. You can adjust the Density to High, Medium, and Low to adjust the amount of supports generated.

In most cases the Default presets will work fine for both strength and density. However, you may want to modify the strength or density in certain cases.

Auto-Generate Supports (to All)

Clicking this button will automatically generate the scaffolding for your part based off the presets defined above. 

Edit (All)

When you click Edit without any parts selected, the Edit (All) Supports sub-menu will appear. This sub-menu allows you to add, replace or modify specific support points for your scaffold.

The user can add/adjust contact tips with a left click or remove contact tips by right clicking while the toggle is set to Contact Tips.

Cone Supports can be manually added when the user toggles to Cones in the Support menu

The Tip and Base diameter sliders can be used to manipulate the size and shape of the cones. Click apply to save the changes. A left click will add a cone contact point or adjust an existing one, and a right click will remove the cone contact point.

The "Show Support" switch will visualize where the cones will exist in the support structure before applying the changes when toggled on.

Brush Remove Tool

The Brush Remove Tool allows the user to drag the cursor over the part and delete all support points within a certain radius of the cursor. The radius of the brush can be modified with either the slider or text field under Brush Tool Radius. 

Clear

The Clear button will clear all supports on the selected model. If there is not a selected model, the clear button will clear supports on all models in the build area.

Settings

This button will pull up an advanced support settings menu that will present different support parameters for desired results. There are two separate sets for Pillar and Scaffold Supports, so be sure to have the desired support style chosen before making any changes.

For more information on the each support parameter, take a look at our Support Generation Settings Glossary.

Click Apply to finalize changes.

Managing Support Profiles

User can create custom support settings and save them as profiles to use for future prints. To do so, open up the Support menu in the left hand toolbar of the NexaX window, and choose the settings button in the bottom left hand corner of the menu.

Choose the support type (Pillar or Scaffold) using the drop down menu, and the setting drop down will be set to default. If any changes are made to the sliders on the default setting, applying those changes will automatically create a custom profile.

The user can also name the profile before applying changes by using the plus button next to the Setting dropdown.

Once the desired changes have been made, click the apply button to name and save the profile.

When saving the changes users can click Yes to save, No to abort the changes and close the custom support menu, or Cancel to go back to the custom support menu to continue to make changes.

The custom support profiles can also be managed from the profile library. To access the library, click on the gear icon next to the Setting drop down menu at the top of the Support Settings menu.

This will bring up the profile library. The pencil icon that appears when hovering over each custom profile allows the user to change the name.

Custom profiles can be removed in bulk by checking the boxes that appear next to the custom profile when hovering over the profile. A remove button appears in the top right hand corner of the library window when custom profiles are selected. Click the remove button to delete the selected profiles in bulk.

Click the X in the top right hand corner of the library window to close and return to the Supports Menu. Be sure to click apply in order to save any changes.

Updated May 02, 2023 14:00