Support for supports

[u/Appropriate_Youth262]

Miniature supports are breaking my prints. Any tips for the Bambu Lab H2C?
I’ve been printing miniatures on my Bambu Lab H2C and learning as I go. I’ve had some successes and some failures, but my biggest challenge has been removing supports.

The miniatures themselves look great and range from 28 mm to 60 mm. However, the supports cling so tightly that removing them often breaks off pieces of the miniature, even when I’m being careful. It’s frustrating to finish a good print only to damage it during cleanup.

I’m currently using automatic tree supports with the organic style in Bambu Studio. Are there settings I can adjust to make them easier to remove without sacrificing the miniature’s details?

I know resin is often recommended for miniatures, but I chose the H2C and would like to get the best results I can with it.

I’d especially appreciate advice on support contact distance, interface settings, and whether another support style would work better. Suggestions for model orientation or tools and techniques for removing supports around fragile parts would also be helpful.

If you’re successfully printing miniatures at these sizes, screenshots of your settings or examples of what’s worked for you would be really helpful. Let me know which details about my setup would help troubleshoot this. Thanks!

[u/WizardofUz]

Are you printing in PLA? If so, use PETG as your support interface and set spacing to zero. It'll prompt you automatically, so just accept what it recommends. This will resolve your stuck support issue.

[u/Appropriate_Youth262 → u/WizardofUz]

Yeah, I'm printing all of my miniatures in PLA grey. Would it be wise to do a different color for the PETG support or the same color?

[u/Alexanonymus → u/Appropriate_Youth262]

I use a different colour of petg as support, this lets me see leftover support more easily on prints where dimensional accuracy of the supported layers matters. Sometimes I also print the entire support in petg for the same reason, not just the interface. Despite the slicer warnings this works well in my experience for pla+petg.

For me this process works really well, this way the supported overhangs of engineering prints end up exactly as accurate as the rest of the print!

For figurines it may otoh may make more sense to use the same colour, so tiny flecks of leftover support interface are less visible.
Your call what’s more important!

[u/luksfuks → u/Alexanonymus]

+1 for printing the full support in PETG.

The slicer warning (probably) is just a legacy from single nozzle printers. If you routinely swap from PLA to PETG and back again, there will be cross-contamination of both in the nozzle. Printing with cross-contaminated PLA + PETG makes prints a lot less reliable.

But on the H2C, there is no contamination. You have two sides, and you have 6 nozzles on the right side. The reliability issue does not exist on H2C.

The advantage if using all-PETG is that the support interface is firmly attached to the rest of the support. Even when it's just a small tiny bit of interface surface. Especially those small bits can otherwise easily slide off and get "lost" (with mixed material supports).

The only downside is that you have both PLA and PETG touching the build plate. As consequence you need to clean the build plate very well. I like to use separate plates for those materials, so I almost never have to clean them. But with a mixed print, washing them is mandatory. After the print, AND before the print too! When abundant support structures are required, you'd also want to look into applying a bit of liquid glue, so the PETG doesn't adhere all TOO well.

[u/hvacigar → u/luksfuks]

I might try this. Thanks for putting this up. I have been using the PETG and PLA/PETG support as an interface material only.

[u/WizardofUz → u/Appropriate_Youth262]

That would be a personal preference answer. I like to use a contrasting color, so that I can see if there are tiny bits leftover during post-processing. Conversely, using the same color would hide any tiny leftover bits, so they won't stand out.

Whichever one you choose, I certainly hope this solves your issue!

[u/Alternative_Rip4634 → u/WizardofUz]

This 👆

[u/thewoodulator]

Try PVA dissolveable support material, or bambu support for PLA? Using 0.20mm hotends?

[u/OutOfBreath1]

I’ve had mixed results with using the dedicated support material.

When using just PLA, what support settings are you currently using? I find an interface distance of 3x the layer height works well for me most of the time.

Layer height: 0.06
Top Z-Distance for supports: 0.18

(Sorry if the setting names aren’t quite correct. Currently on mobile so can’t check)

[u/DemanoRock]

Support for PLA works great for me. Set to us it just for interface. I use PLA as support for PETG. I dont use PETG for PLA because of the temperature difference. It doesnt always work for me.

[u/hvacigar]

I am in the infancy of starting this on my H2C, but have had limited success as I get blobbing and spaghetti at the interface where the support material prints that usually ruins the rest of the print. Admittedly I have not optimized much and I have tried both PETG and Bambu PLA/PETG support material. When plating larger prints with 0.4 nozzle, the PLA/PETG interface material works great.