3D printing a wheel

A friend of mine is drawing up a flywheel for me to get 3D printed in metal. He has a household 3D printer (non-metal), but is asking if the spokes need supports. I have pasted the conversation below, but the basic question is when 3D printing in metal are supports required as its a scintered process?

Hey - may have an issue with the flywheel that I didn't think about when we where together. Basically the spokes and hub are "floating" i.e. would need supports, if you think about it they are halfway up the depth of the rim. The other thing is that the steel process might be laset scintered i.e. its a box of powder thats lasered a layer at a time, that might still work as the powder already supports the layers (as opposed to the 3D printer where its trying to print in thin air)

The 3D print house will add any supports that they feel are needed. I've sent Craftcloud a few floaters and not had any comeback.

They do still need supports as you can see from these pipes

It can also depend what type of metal printing the print house is going to do. I've had ones done where they lay down the layers of powder and scan a laser across each layer to melt them together. With that type of printer, no supports are needed. For others, they are doing a wax print for lost-wax casting, then they would add them as needed. Lots of printer types out there, you should not need to put in supports on your master model, as Jason said.

The powder/laser type does also need supports depending on the part. Good example here, you can see the laser melting the powder and then when the print is removed all the supports can be seen

https://youtu.be/FweX78b87H4?si=YtdA23Tlvy0-iGqW

You can even see the supports on Craftcloud's site next to the laser/powder method

Right so basically draw out the shape as you want it they do the rest?

Quote from: JasonbThe powder/laser type does also need supports depending on the part. Good example here, you can see the laser melting the powder and then when the print is removed all the supports can be seen



You can even see the supports on Craftcloud's site next to the laser/powder method

Interesting!  The places I've had the powder/laser type done, they never mentioned supports, so I assumed there were none.

Quote from: Sanjay FRight so basically draw out the shape as you want it they do the rest?

Yes. Even on a home 3d printer, you make the model you want, and its the 'slicer' software for the printer that adds the supports.

Yes they will add any supports and fettle the print afterwards to remove them unless it is hard to get to like those pipe fittings, which were printed as a long "casting" of several fittings.

I'm not sure I would send them a file that includes the rope grooves as it may be better to machine those. Although if printed you could always regard that as roughing out if they don't print as crisply as you hoped. It will make fitting bolts to the two halves easy as you will be able to print the otherwise hard to drill holes.

Thanks all - I'll make the rope grooves myself as stated, need to work out how many so it looks right - I'll upload the file once done so you can see what's hopefully going to be printed