support material only works if I turn off retraction. help?

[Lincoln K]

Ever since I got my replicator about a month ago, the support material has always been a mess of wobbly strings.  It ends up being like shredded wheat.  

I tried turning off retraction, and now get proper strait walls in the support material, but of course get lots of stringers from the lack of retraction.

Does anyone know how to fix the support material without having to turn of retraction?

Thanks!

Lincoln

[Shawn]

re-level your bed.

Anytime I see the shredded effect, something is a little off. The
retraction settings matter - but the recommended practice that I've seen
is to simply bump the retraction speed to about 80mm/s (assuming you are
using acceleration). But the shredding effect is almost always a
levelling thing in my experience. The thin walls show this nicely.

HTH

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[Lincoln K]

Thanks for the response Shawn.

I don't think it is leveling though because the prints without support seem to be working.  I have gotten quite used to leveling the HBP too.

Also, would turning off retraction fix it if the real problem was leveling?

[Shawn]

My understanding is that it all works together and it is a fine balance
to get EVERYTHING just right. So turning off retraction may fix the
immediate issue, but introduce others.

I've also seen where prints *look* fine, but then you do something -
like thin walls for supports - that show your levelling isn't quite
there. And when you get levelled to where those thin walls print fine,
what you thought was a fine print becomes an amazing print. Sometimes.
YMMV.

Of course, the actual settings you need for your environment would be a
little different than mine. But hopefully this helps narrow down the focus.

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[Jetty]

Maybe try tuning it.

Retraction doesn't work the best anyway. Retraction occurs when the
extruder stops.

It makes sense that on support (as it's not 100% density), it starts
and stops more often
than regular printing, so the effect of it not being tuned correctly
is likely more visible
on support than regular printing.

So it's probably wrong on both, more visible on one than the other due
to increased usage
and tuning may help.