Support-Free Prints On Origin One DLP 3D Printers

Advantages Of Support-Free Printing

Printing without supports offers a number of advantages in situations where part geometry allows for it. When possible, support-free printing has the opportunity to simplify print preparation, reduce material usage, reduce post processing labor and increase throughput.

Support structures can take time and iteration to get just right. By printing parts directly on the build plate, this time can be eliminated from the pre-print and print qualification process. In addition to time required for generation and validation, supports use valuable material. While most support structures typically represent a small fraction of the volume of the finished parts, this volume is not always negligible. For serial production, material saving from the elimination of supports can be a meaningful cost saving.

Most importantly, printing support-free can drastically reduce the post processing labor required. Parts printed on supports need to be removed from these supports during the cleaning process. This step can be time consuming depending on the support styles used. Even for easily-removed supports, this time can add up quickly when printing large production runs. Supports also leave witness marks which may need to be manually finished in the post processing stage.

For low volumes, this manual labor may not be significant, but when part counts climb into the 100’s and 1000’s, this labor often becomes the primary driver of part costs. With support-free parts, you are able to eliminate these manual post processing steps, and get the most value out of batch production and post processing. As a result of these time and labor savings, cost can be reduced and throughput can be increased.