Support-Magnet (Free Body Diagram)

The Idea

As a Mechanical Engineer I have spent multiple hours drawing free body diagrams and calculating forces, moments, stresses, deformations and so on. But, although I was using my white board quite often for that sake, I came up with the idea of support shaped magnets long time after.

Usage

Does it seem odd to explain the functionality of a magnet? At least I think so. However, I see two different use cases of these support-magnets:

As it is

… but with the benefit of knowing what that icon means. It's always easy to flex being an Engineer.

For drawing free body diagrams

… to avoid the struggle of drawing supports yourself.

Variants

The supports that are included here are:

• Fixed Support
• Loose Support
• Parallel Guide
• Fixed Clamping
• Joint

Each variant comes in two different size options according to the diameter of the magnets:

• diameter of 10 mm and a height of 3 mm
• diameter of 5 mm and a height of 3 mm

But you can also vary the scale in the slicing software to fit magnets which differ from the ones I used.

Printing Advice

I printed the models on a Creality Ender S1 Pro using black and white PolyTerra PLA-filament. The slicer settings in the Cura Slicer were:

• Temperature: 210 °C (Nozzle), 60 °C (Printing Bed)
• Printing Speed: 30 - 50 mm/s, except for the first layer (15 - 20 mm/s)
• Layer height: 0.12 mm
• Number of top and bottom layers: 3
• Number of contours: 3
• Infill: Lines, 20 %
• Supports: None
• Pause: at height = 3.6 mm (for inserting the magnet) and at height = 4.0 mm (for changing the filament)

Please drop a comment on what worked best for you. Happy Printing!

Further remarks

• I set the tolerance of the chamber diameter for the magnet to 0.15 mm in the CAD-model. A little force is required to insert the magnets . If the tolerances are too tight for your case, you can change the diameter in the CAD-file yourself or adjust the diameter by scaling the model in the slicing software. I had to use a tight fit, because the magnets tend to get stuck on the magnetic fan cover of my printer - Yikes! 
• Especially for the smaller models, a good bed adhesion is required. It is recommended to clean the bed ahead of printing and to use a smaller printing velocity for the first layer.
• You might have to check if pausing the printing process can be handled by your printer. It mainly depends on the command the slicer is adding to the .gcode-file and if your printer can understand it. For most printers this should not be an issue, but for the Ender S1 Pro it get's weird. See the appendix for more information on that.

Appendix: Pausing and resuming printing of Ender S1 Pro

For adding the command to pause the print, I used the Cura Slicer. There, you have to navigate to

Extensions>Post Processing>Modify G-Code

Then, a new window with the title “Post Processing Plugin” should open. There you can decide where to stop and at which location the printer should park. You might want to set the Standby Temperature to your printing temperature so your printer is up and ready to continue. For Ender S1 Pro, you can use the Method “BQ (M25)”.

If you are done configuring the pause command, you can slice the model and start the printing procedure. If the printer has paused and you have performed the intermediate steps (inserting the magnet/ changing filament), I assume  you want to resume the printing process - here comes the weird part. The UI of the printer will only show the pause and stop button. Don't press the pause button! Instead, tap the menu at the top where you would usually change the printing temperature. Then, head back to the progress site. Et voila, the resume button should be visible. You can press it to continue printing. For a more visual explanation, you can refer to this video here (not mine).