Make: Volume 75

negligible, as the material is always suspended

from the fresh filament being pushed out of the

print head. But with resin printing, this protrusion

may be too much.

There’s much less of a problem where

horizontal surfaces straddle a cavity with no

supports in between, like a bridge. For example,

the Benchy cabin roof can be printed without

adding supports because it’s not very long.

Islands

When models are sliced, some layers may contain

parts that aren’t connected to anything else in the

layer, or to the building platform (Figure

C

).

Without supports, these islands are doomed to

fail; they’ll remain stuck to the bottom of the

container. You ...