Need advice on my support and raft settings

[jason128]

I'm finally starting to get some reasonable prints, after chasing around loose delta arms ( which seems cnc kindly replaced) and struggling to get the bed up to temperature (which the light bulb on the 5v rail trick fixed)
My abs prints are now pretty strong between layers- but things seem to turn ugly when I need support.
I'm currently just using the support settings in mattercontrol, but wonder if I would be better using mesh maker.
Basically the support gets ugly, and ends up dragging the layers around the print, I think?

Settings are:
Support type : LINES
Amount: STANDARD
Pattern spacing:3mm
Infill angle :45
Interface layers: 2
X any Y distance 0.7mm
Z gap 1mm


The other challenge I'm having is the raft sticks too well- I can't get the print off it!





Any suggestions, or other comments based on these images is greatly appreciated.

Cheers

Jason

[eigenbot]

For the raft there is a setting in matter control you can change called 'air gap'. It basically defines a small distance between the raft and your part - too small, and the part is difficult to remove; too big and the part won't stick to the raft. I think I read somewhere that you should start with half the nozzle height and tweak from there? I mostly print with PLA, but find that something around 0.22 and 0.25 has worked well (in my limited experience).

Were you printing the support and raft together? I've only used support a couple times, but had a hard time with pieces coming loose from the bed and getting dragged around until I added a raft under it.