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.

7 thoughts on “Cura Plugin Offers Custom Support

  1. If you spend $150 on Simply3D now, you’re a sucker. The vaunted “5.0” release is over a year overdue with no details and there hasn’t been a bug fix in just shy of 2 years. It’s a shame because it was a rockin’ product and now other open source efforts are leaving it behind.

    1. I paid for it a few years ago and used it for all my slicing up until about a year ago when i switched to PrusaSlicer.

      Still think it was a worthwhile purchase but as you say, open source slicers have caught up and surpassed it now.

  2. The article motivated me to install Cura 4.8 since had downloaded, though didn’t bother trying out since wound up installing Prusa3D 2.2.9 and have been using the last week or so.

    I’ll read into some more and most likely download the plugin and try out when I get around to. Literally, had thought about similar and maybe even wrote that somewhere regarding, manual making standoffs at critical control points like bends under overhangs or starting points in free space.

    Thought I’d wait to see what others think and read into more regarding, the paint support functionality in Prusa3D 2.3.0.

    Neat all the different options for the range of processes.

  3. If you like custom supports including custom tree supports look no further than IceSL, you can paint them on or add/remove with selectable boxes.

    I’ve used all the major slicers and IceSL has won me over, second is SuperSlicer.

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