Stop Support Material At Certain Height?

Is it possible to stop the use of support material after a certain height? Either mm or layer height? I am even willing to splice together two different G-codes if needed. How would you guys (Slic3r Community) Handle this?

I am using Repetier Host with Slic3r to print. Marlin v1 / Sprinter grbl Mashup for gen6 Firmware.

Gcode is easy to edit. You could do 2 slices, one with support, one without and then copy the layers you want to replace, find the place in the other code and paste over the same layers. You can edit gcode in many programs including text editors and Repetier host.

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tmorris9
Gcode is easy to edit. You could do 2 slices, one with support, one without and then copy the layers you want to replace, find the place in the other code and paste over the same layers. You can edit gcode in many programs including text editors and Repetier host.

How would you identify the correct line of code? I'm assuming it's not the same line since I assume the support material would would add more lines of code than without support.

Well I have wondered this myself. In Repetier it shows each layer as a line number in light or dark green. So for instance layer 1 is all light green, layer 2 is all dark green then layer three is light, 4 is dark and so on. Also in repetier if you select lines of gcode in a layer it shows up on the display as yellow highlighted lines. It still takes a little work to get it right but this sure helps.

Also at the top of each layer you can see the "Z" movement like this:

G1 Z0.600 F18000.000

Notice the Z, it only shows up when the layer changes height. So I guess in a text program you could search for and count the "Z" to know the layer #.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/09/2013 10:34PM by tmorris9.

In the last version the option to force support up to a certain layer (and then turn it off) actually worked and did exactly what you want.

Unfortunately in the RC it appears to be broken. I can only get support by turning it on completely.

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swoozle
In the last version the option to force support up to a certain layer (and then turn it off) actually worked and did exactly what you want.

Unfortunately in the RC it appears to be broken. I can only get support by turning it on completely.

I have been told the support material is very buggy in the last release. I had a different issue, not being able to change overhang angle. All overhang values gave the same results. I tried 90, 60, 35, 0.... it seems the support material needs some work.

What version were you able to set the height limit for support? I may roll back versions to test it out.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/10/2013 11:04AM by Aberrant.

0.9.10b worked for me.

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Aberrant

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swoozle
In the last version the option to force support up to a certain layer (and then turn it off) actually worked and did exactly what you want.

Unfortunately in the RC it appears to be broken. I can only get support by turning it on completely.

I have been told the support material is very buggy in the last release. I had a different issue, not being able to change overhang angle. All overhang values gave the same results. I tried 90, 60, 35, 0.... it seems the support material needs some work.

What version were you able to set the height limit for support? I may roll back versions to test it out.

Sorry for the delayed reply, I just got around to looking at the version I am using, and it happens to be the 0.9.10b. However I do not see the option for stopping the support generation at a certain height. Are you talking about unchecking the "Generate Support Material" box? And then using the "Enforce Support For The First: __ Layers" instead of generating support material by threshold?

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Aberrant
Sorry for the delayed reply, I just got around to looking at the version I am using, and it happens to be the 0.9.10b. However I do not see the option for stopping the support generation at a certain height. Are you talking about unchecking the "Generate Support Material" box? And then using the "Enforce Support For The First: __ Layers" instead of generating support material by threshold?

If you leave "generate support" unchecked and check "enforce support", support is created for only the number of layers you input.

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swoozle

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Aberrant
Sorry for the delayed reply, I just got around to looking at the version I am using, and it happens to be the 0.9.10b. However I do not see the option for stopping the support generation at a certain height. Are you talking about unchecking the "Generate Support Material" box? And then using the "Enforce Support For The First: __ Layers" instead of generating support material by threshold?

If you leave "generate support" unchecked and check "enforce support", support is created for only the number of layers you input.

Thank you. It worked, next i will install the newest version of slic3r. I was told that feature does not work, so I'll test it to find out.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/18/2013 11:23AM by Aberrant.

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swoozle
If you leave "generate support" unchecked and check "enforce support", support is created for only the number of layers you input.

I gave it a try in the newest version 1.0.0RC1 and it did not work. The "enforce support" has no effect with the Generate Support Material checkbox. I sliced with and without "Generate Support Material" checked with "Enforce Support" value of 75. It will either generate support as normal, or simply not generate any support if Generate Support Material is off. It will not work like in the previous version 0.9.10b (as already stated in this thread)

Thanks for the help everyone, and hopefully this feature gets the bugs fixed soon. For me it is helpful, and until then I will have to try splicing two g-codes together.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/23/2013 12:14PM by Aberrant.

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tmorris9
Well I have wondered this myself. In Repetier it shows each layer as a line number in light or dark green. So for instance layer 1 is all light green, layer 2 is all dark green then layer three is light, 4 is dark and so on. Also in repetier if you select lines of gcode in a layer it shows up on the display as yellow highlighted lines. It still takes a little work to get it right but this sure helps.

Also at the top of each layer you can see the "Z" movement like this:

G1 Z0.600 F18000.000

Notice the Z, it only shows up when the layer changes height. So I guess in a text program you could search for and count the "Z" to know the layer #.

I am having issues splicing together G code. I cannot find any Z in my G-code. I copy pasted in notepad and searched for z and Z with nothing.

More information.

I am trying to splice 2 g-codes together and I noticed one major thing. The number of layers is DIFFERENT with and without support on the same exact model and scale. I do not know why there are an additional 900+ layers in the g-code with support. Each layer shows support material as well as the main print. Why would there be any more or less layers? More g-code makes sense, but not more layers.

I was able to find the correct layer to start / end on by finding the Zheight. Due to the difference in layer numbers, I was not able to easily find the correct layer. Thanks to Nophead for the tip. I then had to insert a T0; command after pasting the rest of the other g-code because it was trying to use T1 the second extruder.

Now my issue is turning off or setting the extruder temp to 0 deg. I know M103 turns off all extruders, I only want to set the second extruder to 0 while continuing to print with the primary extruder.