Sprue Spiral

Sprue Spiral

The Sprue Spiral command lays a wire out as a flat spiral floating over the plate on small legs, and hangs a copy of the piece from every stretch of it. Where the Sprue Helix stacks its turns upward around a trunk, the spiral spends plate area instead of height — there is no trunk at all, and each piece hangs from a single connector.

Like the helix, it was made with chains in mind: one link, a number of copies, and an automatic layout that keeps the links close enough to assemble but never touching.

ArtisanSprueSpiral

Building the spiral

1. Select link — pick the mesh (or SubD) to multiply. Its anchor is placed automatically; the X / Y / Z buttons re-align it, and a gumball on the original link lets you drag it by hand.
2. Set Copies (60 by default) and, if needed, Min Distance — extra clearance on top of not touching; 0 is right for interlocking links.
3. Generate spiral — the command works out the turns, turn spacing, and inner diameter from the copies, staying inside Max Diameter, and reports how many pieces were placed and how many centimeters of chain that makes. Pieces that still intersect are drawn red in the preview. If the plate cannot hold the run, the panel says so — and suggests the helix, which stacks turns upward instead of paying plate for them.
4. Adjust, and Accept.

Connector

• Length — from the wire surface down to the piece.
• Diameter — thickness of the connector.

Spiral

• Inner Diameter — the eye at the center where the wire starts.
• Turn Spacing — how far the wire moves outward per turn.
• Turns — how many turns; quarter-turn steps are allowed.
• Wire Diameter — thickness of the spiral wire.
• Height — how high the spiral floats over the plate.
• Max Diameter — the printer-plate limit the automatic layout must respect.

Centre and legs

• Centre Diameter / Spokes — a ring on the floor with curved risers feeding the spiral from the middle; set Spokes to 0 for no centre.
• Legs: Diameter / Separation — the posts holding the wire at its height, spaced by distance along the wire.

Base

• Honeycomb base — an optional perforated hexagonal sheet under the legs, with its Cell Size, Wall, and Thickness. Off by default.

A gumball at the spiral’s center moves the whole structure on the plate.