Newbie: Basic Printing w/o bottom layers

General Software
1

I’m a complete newbie. Just rec’d first 3d printer (LulzBot mini). I created a simple building w/ a Voxel creator and thought I would try and print it real quick. This might be just a basic “hey idiot, you cannot print something w/o bottom layers because the plastic has nothing to build from.” Anyhow, when I loaded my model into Cura it placed it flat (vs. upright). Here is the result after printing.

Voxel Building.jpg
Voxel Building.jpg1212×955 597 KB

This got me to try a few other items (i.e. a Voxel character). But, it was doing the same “string” thing again around his circular-ish head and extended arm.

As I was browsing the internet, I came across the below cube and was thinking it will have the same problem (that the top bars won’t print correctly and the plastic will just print weird strings). I’m about to try it out as I’m assuming someone has printed this in the past (so, maybe there is just a setting in Cura that I need to learn).

cube.png
cube.png910×820 27.8 KB

Any thoughts? Probably a 3d print 101 thing. Sorry.

2

You have the right idea. You need to add support to the parts that otherwise would try to print mid-air. The hollow cube is a good example of that. You have to have somewhere for the plastic to sit.

In Cura, there is a checkbox that says “Print Support Structure”. Try checking that. Test with a small part, as auto-generated supports can be irritating to remove. Simplify 3D is said to be better at that, but I haven’t tried it personally.

3

One additional note to ttabbal’s post: For the “hyper square” you will need to set the Support Type to “Everywhere” in order to support the upper horizontal bars. If there is an unobstructed vertical line from the bed to the item needing support you can set Support Type to “Touching buildplate”.

4

Thanks. I will give that a try right now!