Support Structures

Support Structures hold up the parts of a model that would otherwise print in mid-air. This guide covers the whole topic for the Vision Miner 22IDEX: deciding whether a part needs supports at all, choosing between same-material, breakaway, and soluble supports, adding and painting them in PrusaSlicer, the handful of settings that decide how clean the underside comes out, running a breakaway or soluble support on the second toolhead without clogging it, and removing supports afterwards.

The slicer instructions assume PrusaSlicer with the Vision Miner profile library installed; see Slicer Setup if you have not done that yet. Dual-toolhead calibration and extruder assignment are covered in Multi-Material Printing.

When a Part Needs Supports

Every layer needs something underneath it. A wall that leans out gradually is fine because each layer still rests mostly on the one below; a surface that leans out steeply or hangs in free air is not.

• Overhangs up to about 45° from vertical print without support on most materials. The Vision Miner profiles start generating supports at 40° for standard prints and 44° for soluble support prints, measured from the horizontal plane.
• Bridges (a flat span between two supported ends) can print without supports up to a material-dependent length. See Bridging before adding supports under a bridge; a tuned bridge is faster and cleaner than a supported one.
• Islands (a feature whose first layer touches nothing) always need support or a raft.

Before adding supports, try to design them away. They cost material, time, and surface quality, and on high-temperature materials they are harder to remove.

• Rotate the part so the largest flat face is on the plate and steep overhangs point up.
• Add a 45° chamfer under an overhanging edge instead of a sharp 90° step.
• Split the part and glue or bolt it after printing when a single orientation cannot avoid large overhangs.
• Turn holes sideways into teardrops or diamonds so the top of the hole self-supports.

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Support Types on the 22IDEX

The 22IDEX has two toolheads, so you have three ways to build supports.

Same-material supports are the default and should be your first choice. Move to a second-toolhead support only when the surface quality or the geometry demands it: every tool change adds time and a purge, and a support material has its own thermal limits (see Running a Breakaway Support and Running a Soluble Support below).

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Adding Supports in PrusaSlicer

Support settings live under Print Settings → Support material. Switch PrusaSlicer to Expert mode (top right) to see all of them.

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1. Tick Generate support material.
2. Choose where supports may grow, under Auto generated supports and Support on build plate only:
   • Everywhere: supports grow from the plate and from the model itself. Use when the model has overhangs above other parts of the model.
   • From build plate only: supports grow only from the plate. Fewer supports, no marks on the model surface, but overhangs above the model itself stay unsupported.
   • For support enforcers only: nothing is generated automatically; only the areas you paint get supports (next section).
3. Set the Overhang threshold if the default does not match your part: a lower angle means fewer supports and more risk on steep overhangs.
4. Slice and check the preview with the Support material legend colour so you can see every support before printing.

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Painting Supports Where You Want Them

The Paint-on supports tool (left toolbar, keyboard L, Advanced or Expert mode) lets you force or block supports on exact areas of the model. It is the best way to keep supports off cosmetic surfaces and to add them under a single stubborn feature.

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1. Select the model and press L.
2. Left-click and drag to paint enforcers (supports will be generated here). Right-click and drag to paint blockers (supports will never be generated here). Shift + left-click erases.
3. Change brush size with Alt + mouse wheel. Pick a brush type in the tool panel:
   • Sphere paints everything inside the sphere, including hidden faces.
   • Circle paints only what you can see from the current view.
   • Triangles paints whole mesh triangles.
   • Smart fill paints connected faces up to an angle change: click once under an overhang and the whole overhang is selected.
   • Automatic painting lets PrusaSlicer place enforcers where it thinks they are needed; use it as a starting point and clean up by hand.
4. Use the Clipping plane slider in the panel to cut the model open when the area you need is inside a cavity.
5. Set the generation mode to match what you painted: For support enforcers only if you painted enforcers and want nothing else, Everywhere or From build plate only if you painted blockers to remove automatic supports from specific faces.

Painted supports are saved in the project .3mf, so save the project rather than exporting only G-code if you expect to reslice.

Settings That Decide the Result

The rest of the Support material page is long, but four settings do most of the work. The table lists the Vision Miner defaults so you know what you are changing from.

Other settings worth knowing:

• Pattern: rectilinear grid (default, sturdy), rectilinear (easiest to remove), honeycomb (strongest, hardest to remove).
• Support on build plate only: same as the generation mode above.
• Don't support bridges: leave off unless you have tuned bridging for the material; see Bridging.
• Synchronize with object layers: forced on for soluble supports with contact distance 0, so both toolheads use the same layer heights.
• Closing radius: merges support islands closer than this into one pillar; the 2 mm default is fine.

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Support Styles

PrusaSlicer offers three styles under Style:

• Organic (tree). Branches grow from the plate and reach under the overhang, touching the model only at the tips. Least material, fewest surface marks, easiest removal, and the Vision Miner default for standard prints. Weaker under large flat overhangs; use grid there.
• Grid. Classic pillars projected straight down. Most stable, most material, and the default for the Soluble Support profiles because a soluble interface needs a solid base under it.
• Snug. Follows the outline of the overhang tightly. Less material than grid and less leakage along walls, but thin pillars can wobble on tall parts.

A practical rule: organic for figurines, brackets, and anything with many small overhangs; grid for wide flat overhangs, tall parts in a hot chamber (ABS, PC, high-temperature materials), and all soluble supports.

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Rafts

A raft is a few support layers printed under the whole part. It is not a support in the usual sense but lives on the same settings page (Raft layers). Use it when:

• the first layer of the part is small or has many islands,
• you print in Mirror or Duplicate mode, where automatic bed levelling is disabled; see Part Placement,
• a high-temperature material warps at the corners despite the chamber.

Set Raft layers to 3 or more and keep Raft contact Z distance at 0.2 mm. The Vision Miner library includes Raft variants of the Detail and Draft profiles with this already set.

Running a Breakaway Support on the Second Toolhead

The plain case, part on T0 and a breakaway material such as HIPS or HTS2 on T1, needs only a few settings on top of a calibrated printer. The full slicer walkthrough (extruder assignment, wipe tower, idle temperature, preview check) is in Multi-Material Printing; the points that are specific to breakaway supports are:

Breakaway materials have thermal limits of their own, though usually milder than soluble ones; check the datasheet the same way as described in the next section if the build material needs a hot chamber.

Running a Soluble Support on the Second Toolhead

Soluble supports give the cleanest surface, but the support filament has thermal limits of its own, and most clogs we see in support tickets come from ignoring them rather than from the printer.

Why soluble supports clog

A soluble support toolhead spends most of a print waiting. The build toolhead prints for many minutes, the support toolhead is picked up for a few seconds, then parks again. While it waits, the toolhead and the filament inside it sit at chamber temperature plus the standby temperature the slicer assigns to the idle tool.

Water-soluble polymers soften at much lower temperatures than the engineering materials they support. If unmelted filament above the heat break stays warm for long enough, it softens, swells, and can no longer be pushed through the heat break when the tool is picked up. The clog sits on top of the heat break, not in the nozzle. Moisture makes it worse (soluble supports are hygroscopic by design), and retraction makes it worse (soft material pulled into the cold zone solidifies there).

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Check the support datasheet against your build material

Support material datasheets give two different temperature limits, and it is easy to mix them up. Using AquaSys 120 as an example (values as published by the manufacturer):

• Chamber temperature is what the printed support survives. Once a support wall is on the plate, this material keeps its shape in a chamber up to 120 °C. This is the number in the product name.
• Pathway temperature is what the unprinted filament tolerates while it waits in the toolhead. Filament that sits at 80 °C or above for extended periods will not extrude properly.

Compare the two numbers with the build material:

1. Open the Vision Miner filament profile for your build material and note its chamber temperature.
2. Compare it with the support material's pathway limit, not with its chamber range. If the datasheet has no pathway or storage limit, ask the manufacturer.
3. If the build material's chamber is below the pathway limit, print normally with the settings below.
4. If it is at or above the pathway limit, the pair will work only with the mitigations listed after the settings table, or with a support material that has a higher pathway limit.

In the example, a build material printed with the chamber at 70 °C is fine. A build material that needs a 90 °C chamber is inside the support's 80-120 °C chamber range but above its 80 °C pathway limit: the printed support holds, and the waiting filament clogs.

Support toolhead settings

Apply these to the support extruder only; the build extruder keeps its normal profile.

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When the build material needs a hotter chamber

If the build material's chamber is above the support's pathway limit, you have three ways out, each with a cost:

1. Lower the chamber below the pathway limit. The build material warps more; best for small or well-fixtured parts, possibly with a brim or raft.
2. Keep the chamber, shorten the time at temperature. Standby temperature of the support toolhead as low as possible (0 °C is allowed, see the FAQ), retraction 0 on the support extruder, wipe tower on. Route the support spool outside the chamber if you can.
3. Change the support material to one whose pathway limit is at or above the build material's chamber temperature, checked the same way.

For build materials that cannot be printed without a hot chamber (PEEK, PEI, and similar), option 1 is not available: plan on option 2 from the first print or pick a support rated for that chamber.

Handling the support filament

• Dry before every print. Follow the manufacturer's numbers; for the example material it is 60 °C for 4-16 hours, with 70-80 °C only if the spool has clearly absorbed moisture. See Filament Drying.
• Keep the spool out of the heat while printing. A spool inside a hot chamber is above the pathway limit before it reaches the toolhead.
• Let heat out of the top of the chamber if the build material allows it. Customers report that removing the rear lid plugs and propping the lid open about 1 cm was the single most effective change. It lowers the chamber temperature, so only do it when the build material tolerates the drop.
• Store sealed with desiccant. A soluble spool left open overnight will need drying again.

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Removing Supports

Same-material and breakaway supports

1. Let the part cool to room temperature for same-material supports; the 0.2 mm gap separates cleanly once both sides have shrunk. Breakaway materials usually peel best while the part is still warm; check the material's instructions.
2. Grip the base of a support pillar or branch and bend it sideways, away from the part. Do not pull straight down: that tears the interface layers out of the surface.
3. Use flush cutters for thin branches and a palette knife or deburring tool for the interface remains. On carbon-fibre and glass-fibre materials wear gloves and eye protection; the fragments are sharp.
4. Light sanding or a heat gun pass removes the last marks on ABS, ASA, and PC.

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Soluble supports

1. Break off the bulk of the support by hand first; less material to dissolve means less time.
2. Submerge the part in warm tap water. Most soluble materials dissolve fastest at 40-80 °C with gentle agitation (a stirrer, a bubbler, or a magnetic stir plate). Check the material's datasheet for the temperature and whether the water needs to be changed as it saturates.
3. Rinse the part in clean water and let it dry. Residual film on the surface means the water was saturated; dissolve once more in fresh water.
4. Dispose of the water according to the material's safety data sheet and your local rules.

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If the Support Toolhead Has Clogged

1. Heat the tool to the support material's print temperature and try to pull the filament out from the top. If it will not move, the swollen section is above the heat break.
2. Do a Cold Pull at the low end of the material's range. Soluble materials release cleanly when cold-pulled.
3. If the heat break is packed solid, follow Hotend Disassembly and, on the V4, Heat Break Replacement. Before restarting the print, change at least one thermal setting from the soluble support section above, or the new heat break will clog the same way.

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Troubleshooting

FAQ

Support

If you could not find an answer here, reach out to our support team.