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This isn't ENTIRELY in jest.

I have been playing around with (the outline of) a long skinny part.
It is almost 10 inches long and with perimeters it gets WAY OUT THERE into "the dreaded weird Z0 behavior zone" if I lay it flat.

So,,, I have played around with the idea of maximizing use of the build cylinder by leaning it over
at various angles, e.g. at 60 degrees a 10 inch long part has a base 5 inches long, nowhere near the dreaded weird Z0 behavior zone - HOWEVER the support material needed for that is HUGE.
OK, at ONLY 10 inches I could stand it on end, but then I worry about it toppling over.

"Guy wires" every couple of inches would be kinda nice, but I don't think I can add anything like that to the part itself and expect slicers to handle it sensibly, i.e. they would probably need their own support material while being built.

Q: Could guy wires be implemented as a form of support material ?
I am thinking that single strands of 0.2 filament would be strong enough to prevent toppling.
What I don't know is whether they would droop in free air so much that they would be useless.
Some limit, probably not above the point at which a 60 degree wire falls just inside the base of the build cylinder ?

Crazy ? Maybe.
Desirable ? Yes, in SOME cases.

I modelled four quadrant, one or two wall thick "rocket fins" onto the sides of a tall skinny part I produced early on and they worked great.

A work colleague with a much smaller printer than the RMax printed something too big for his bed by canting it up at 45º. Worked great although the layer lines were a little weird and yes, he blew as much filament on support as he did on the part.

Dunno about the guy ropes though - great principle but I do recall seeing missed layers (too thin + fast extrusion etc) on the rocket fins. Yes, it recovered afterwards but it wouldn't have without the blade instead of the wire.

Here's my patent pending method for making tall skinny parts without them toppling over:

I created the part and then I surrounded it with a thin-walled shell. Basically a perimeter wall not touching the part that goes all the way up from bottom to top and I put the tall part inside the perimeter and printed it with no retract and random starting point in Slic3r.

By dialing back the retract and setting the random points option, I get a nice strong support wall around my object and plenty of "hairs" that support the object at random points inside the wall. Wen finished I cut the perimeter wall off with scissors and trimmed off the hairs.

This idea spawned another idea which eliminated the hairs and tried to eliminate some warping in the part that I noticed. I essentially printed a wall around my part and as it printed the free standing object surrounded by the wall, then I occasionally dumped some fine play-sand inside the perimeter wall filling the gap between the object and perimeter wall (when the extruder was busy on the opposite side of the wall). My perimeter wall filled gradually with sand as the print progressed, which supported the part inside. Granted, it was manual work, but I would not need to fill it constantly. I would do something else and let it print an inch in height and then I came back to add sand to support that inch and then I would go do something else again and let it go and print the next inch, etc.

I was worried the sand would thermally shock the part, so I pre-heated the sand to 90 degrees and left it on the heated bed so it would be the same temperature as the bed. It may actually have helped with keeping the part straight as it cooled.

If this was something I did a lot of I would think of a way to automate it.

Do it long and skinny and add some support fins with a large raft, otherwise it will almost inevitably fall over once it gets to about 6-7 inches in height.

Thanks guys
I had considered "rocket fins", but didn't know what to call them without creating a lot of guffaws - maybe guy wires is guffaw worthy enough.

I really LIKE the idea of back filling with warm sand, I could even do that in a prefabricated cardboard tube and it would (help to) keep everything warm. Funnel details TBD, etc.
I can watch a few dry runs to figure out the needed clearances, but this might be a case of bigger being better - more thermal mass, etc., so a LOT of clearance could be good.

RegB wrote:Thanks guys
I had considered "rocket fins", but didn't now what to call them without creating a lot of guffaws - maybe guy wires is guffaw worthy enough.

I really LIKE the idea of back filling with warm sand, I could even do that in a prefabricated cardboard tube and it would (help to) keep everything warm. Funnel details TBD, etc.
I can watch a few dry runs to figure out the needed clearances, but this might be a case of bigger being better - more thermal mass, etc., so a LOT of clearance could be good.

I didn't think about it at the time because I thought of making a cardboard or some other vessel to hold the sand would interfere with the extruder movement. Now that you mention it again I just realized you could make a large "vat" big enough to contain the extruder extents and print on the bottom of the "vat" and just pour the sand in around the perimeter any time you wanted to raise the level.

I think the warm sand would allow very tall and thin and complex shapes to be created, and there would be no chance of the objects shape becoming a giant lever that is trying to rip the base off the build plate.