[SGVHAK] how to avoid a failed 3d print session

[Homan Chou]

My office just bought the makerbot replicator 2 and I've been trying
to print out a PLA plastic model of a delorean that I found on
thingiverse.com

We've had some failed prints due to the print becoming loose from the
glass while printing.  Selecting 'raft' during the slicing process
will first print a mesh lining on the bottom so that helps with that.

The next time I printed it, I set the splicer to low quality (default
15% fill), selected to include 'raft', and included 'support' for the
hell of it (the documentation isn't explicit about what it does).  It
took 4 hours to print and the result was terrible.  It looked like the
delorean was encased inside scaffolding and yarn from a hot glue gun.

Then we tried high quality with raft but no 'support'.  The wheels
printed to about 25% tall, was looking awesome, then when it got to
the under carriage, it just tried to spew hot plastic right in
mid-air. Duh... fail again.  So I guess support is needed since the
under carriage doesn't have anything underneath it to build upon.

Then we tried high quality with 'raft' and 'support', 3% fill, it took
about an hour to slice, and pretty much all day to print, and though
the resolution was much higher than the low quality attempt, it was
encased in scaffolding in all open spaces, which is still pretty much
impossible to take off.

Any tips?

Homan