support structures

hello i am wanting to buy a 3d printer. the shapes i need to bring have a horz surface (a vert tube bending 90 degrees into a horz tube for 15mm or so). i believe i will need to add some additional plastice to support this :
1, do i have to manually add a support structure to my part (in solidworks) or
2. does the CAM software (rapsnapper or skeinforge, etc) know that the bit is horz and adds it automatically (have lloked at these programs and the option seem to not mention bridge, etc).
3. i think the support structure plastice is different so that it can be broken away easiey - how / who specifies this
thanks
roger.

can you show a picture. Im having trouble seeing your description. there is a feature in slicer programs called 'support' and rotating objects to make print friendly helps. provide a diagram of what you are trying to do. thanks.

hello james,
i have since found out on another forum that the slicer programs slic3r and skeinforge have a support option.
and also can use repitier to look at the suuport when added - see picture.
have ordered my 3d printer and will be 2 weeks to get it.
it uses pla plastic - do u know how/if you can glue parts of pla together?
thanks for reply
ta roger

How accurate does the part have to be?
FWIW I find Kisslicer has the best support of the slicers I've used.
The problem with support in PLA is it can be a pig to remove, though you're picture looks like it wouldn't be too bad.
With ABS for the most part I find suport just peels off, with PLA I find I have to use a razor blade, and it can only really be cleanly removed where is'd accessible.

polygonhell,
the inside of the tube can be a bit rough as it is a fluid running thru it but the outside will have to
be pretty good as it rotates inside another part - see attached
thanks for the info regarding Kissslicer - what difference is between them all, is it just ease of use or do they generate different g codes
roger

Slic3r, Skeinforge and Kisslicer as far as I can see all use different algorithms for the actual slicing, so they result in different GCode.
Slic3r and Kisslicer are on the simple to use end of the spectrum, Skeinforge isn't really all that much more complicated, but it's really just a plugin host, it's not clear as a new user which plugins should be enabled, and the defaults are often just insane for historic reasons.

I haven't tried Slic3r support recently, it didn't work well im 0.72 the last version I think is usable.

... I've tested support with Repetier+Slic3r recently (could be Slicer version 0.91), what worked with some 'glitches' in the viewer (not in the produced G-code) - but this was not for FDM-printing, so no experiences with printing quality.

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Viktor
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rogerw Wrote:
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> it uses pla plastic - do u know how/if you can
> glue parts of pla together?

Superglue works fine for me,

Andy

ah thats nice and simple - thanks you andy

I have used KISSlicer's support to great effect. Here is an example: [kisslicer.com]

I used ABS so I can attest to the support being easy to remove, especially when you decrease its flow rate to 70%.

How do you decrease the flow rate?