Cura Plugin Offers Custom Support

[Chuck] likes the ability of Simplify3D to add support to parts of a model manually. However, not everyone wants to spend $150 for a slicer, so he’s shared how to install a plugin that allows you to do the same trick in Cura.

The plugin is “Cylindric Custom Support.” That doesn’t sound very exciting, but you get five choices of shapes you can create custom supports easily. There are also size and angle parameters you can use to customize the effect.

The cylinder and cube choices are pretty obvious, but the explanation of abutment support is useful. [Chuck] shows how this can be more efficient than the default support.

Of course, the proof is in the print, and the model looked pretty good for a first attempt. [Chuck] mentions that he should have made larger supports, which is possible, of course.

We liked his earlier video on tree supports, which also talks about support in general, so if you aren’t doing much with support in Cura, you might check that one out, too. It explains a lot of the support options you can tune.

We used to think we really wanted water-soluble support, but modern slicers do a good job of making support material easy to remove. You can also try providing a release agent. If you want some more background on support, here you go.