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I have been working hard the last year on the model below. I am new to everything 3D that is modeling and especially 3D printing. I have however successfully concluded quite a good number of 3D prints which I created in blender with my Creality Ender 3 Pro so I have a bit of experience.

All this new experience for me started with the desire to do this project I have been working on for all this year. A complex 3D model of a knight's tomb which I would like to print.

enter image description here

As you can see Cura is clearly indicating that there is a need for supports in these red areas. The model will be printed in a 15 cm size. I have also managed to resize the model from a 22 million face mesh full of holes to a 900k manifold model.

However, when I slice it I get this.

enter image description here

As you can see supports are only generated for the outer column part. None are generated for the arches which are totally absent when the model is sliced.

I have tried to alter the model's orientation but with no result. I will try to separate this mesh in parts but it would mean restarting all from scratch since I found no good software to slice it precisely.

I am quite sure that the main problem lies in the fact the Ender 3 pro is an FDM printer an that the vertical lines of the arches are too thin. Since I tried to upload my model on 3D printing services to see if it could be printed in other materials and could be printed in finely detailed resin.

I would like at least to know if I am right in my problem spotting or if there could be any solution to the present problem so that not to go wrong if I will redesign this part.

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    $\begingroup$ If the pillars of the arcanes are at least the width of the nozzle of your printer (typically 0.4 mm) it should be printed. You could buy, mount and slice for a smaller diameter nozzle, e.g. 0.2 mm. $\endgroup$
    – 0scar ♦
    May 1, 2020 at 12:17
  • $\begingroup$ You can slice for 0.2 mm line width (just for outer walls) even with an 0.4 mm nozzle. $\endgroup$
    – R.. GitHub STOP HELPING ICE
    May 1, 2020 at 12:41
  • $\begingroup$ You can, but that does not make sense to print it. Your method will show the pillars if they are smaller than 0.4 mm though :-) $\endgroup$
    – 0scar ♦
    May 1, 2020 at 13:08
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    $\begingroup$ the problem is partly that the top of the arcs has not enough material above. $\endgroup$
    – Trish
    May 1, 2020 at 13:27

2 Answers 2

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There's a setting in Cura to Print Thin Walls. It's turned off by default, and IIRC correctly there's a good reason it's off by default. But for this item, you should turn it on.

Cura Screen Capture

Update

Looking again, I see this is vertical, so I'm not sure how well this setting will help. Even if it does create the gcode to include the walls, this would be a tough print. If possible, you may want to rotate this 90° for printing, though I also see the gap on the right that would become a long bridge.

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Why there is no support on the top is, that the top of the model, over the gothic arch, has not enough thickness to have any layer laid down there. Because it is too thin, it gets omitted. However, since the area that needs support is only very very small, this area technically doesn't need support and could be printed with bridging alone. Yet, you need to add at least 1 layer thickness to the height of the model by extruding the top surface in blender to make this area printable.

Another way is to knock down the layer height.

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