Building Bridges - well, in your 3D prints anyway!

Disclaimer: I'll be candid with you up front, I'm not a big proponent of letting the slicer deal with bridges and other model features that would best benefit from support. And, to take it one step further, I greatly prefer to design support into a model (or add it to an existing model) rather than let the slicer take guesses on how best to support a printed feature. That said, let's look at a bridge example that I printed earlier today!

Here's the setup: I needed to print a case for a 5" PanelDue to test fit. It has one "window" but otherwise is a standard, very printable, part. Being stressed for time producing YouTube KISSlicer tutorials I decided to forego dropping into CAD and designing a support. So I thought "let's see how it goes".

Here is a screenshot of the annotated window opening. It's a 13.5mm bridge, challenging for any printer and slicer.

I used my "tusk" part cooling setup on an UlitBots D300VS delta printer. This device directs focused beams of cooling air exactly where they are needed immediately around the nozzle opening (E3D V6 hot end with a sock). Printed with black PETG (Hatchbox) filament. Here are the results:

This is an as-is photo with no touch-ups, taken right off the printer. The stringing is from a mounting post inside the part and will not be visible once the PanelDue is installed. I hadn't spent much time tuning to correct that stringing as I was focused on a quick print.

If you enlarge the photo (click on it) you will see that there is no noticeable sagging on the overhanging top part of the opening - none! While you are looking at the enlargement, notice the remarkable layer registration and surface quality of the vertical walls. This printer has the new beta Ball Cup Arms upgrade.

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