The main reason I bought a dual head printer was being able to print soluble support. Here is what I tried so far:
PVA. Seems all but impossible to print as it will burn to charcoal after a while and clog the nozzle.
HIPS. requires a heated bed, which I added, but even then my first prints would always fail after a few hours with the hips feeder jamming for no apparent reason (manually extruding still worked, the nozzle wasnt clogged). After some thinking it seems the filament was getting too warm in the insulator, or even further up in the bowden tube, so ever since I increased the fan speed about as high as I can without overcooling the head, it appears to be working better (although the high fan setting also causes the hips to warp, due to the braindead cooling setup of the vertex).
My main problem with hips is that it hardly sticks to pla or abs. Thats ok, even convenient on some prints if the support material starts on the bed, but its a problem on other prints. Using cura to print an ooze shield and using more supports than really needed can help, so the hips can stick to itself. As illustration, Ive been trying to print this marble machine: thingiverse.com/thing:1385312@70% scale to keep print times reasonable.
It does print without support, but the overhangs look really bad. So i tried supporting it with ‘too much’ HIPS, and I cut off the bottom so the hips connects to the bed, not the PLA (you cant do that in repetier afaik):
Here it is after I removed most of the hips by hand:
Ive not yet tried actually dissolving the remaining HIPS, my D-limonene is set to arrive today. Some reports I saw say it will degrade PLA too or wash out the colors. We’ll see.
What I havent tried yet:
ABS + PLA and dissolving the PLA in NaOH. I did try to dissolve some pla in hot NaOh and after a few hours, I couldnt really see any difference, so that doesnt seem to be convenient if it even works.
E3D scaffold (e3d-online.com/All-Filament/E3D- … ?filter=48). This looks promising, supposedly prints like PLA but dissolves in water. But its out of stock. And will likely require an ultrasonic bath.
Has anyone else managed to use a soluble support material on their vertex ?
Here is the above print after soaking in D-Limonene without agitation or heat for about 6 hours:
Print quality itself isnt particularly impressive, but the model is scaled down, printed @0.2mm height and it seems a little over extruded too. The drops are water from rinsing it.
But the HIPS does dissolve nicely. After about an hour most of it seemed gone, but to dissolve the gunk takes a lot longer. The good news is that the PLA doesnt seem affected in any way. Well, it smells nice now :p. I read somewhere that the color leeches out only if the limonene is heated, so there’s that.
The limonene is a little nasty though; dont let the smell fool you, it really does irritate the skin and it dissolved my latex gloves in seconds. The smell is also, while not unpleasant, overwhelming and nauseating. But from what I read, it wouldnt be toxic or a cancer risk. Apply some common sense when using it (ventilation, protective gloves that arent from latex, eye protection, …)
Hi,
I tried HIPS and it worked ok, but getting it off with limonene is a tricky issue. I quit that after a few tries.
At the moment, I print the support with PVA and that works fine, as long as you modify your extruder housings.
After modifying the extruder housing, I can print PVA and SmartFlex without any problem.
Experimenting with extrusion is recommended.
Not to mention, That I use E3D print heads!!!
Teh cooling is important.
[quote=“frank.von.thienen”]Hi,
I tried HIPS and it worked ok, but getting it off with limonene is a tricky issue. I quit that after a few tries.[/quote]
I didnt think it was so bad, you just have wait long enough. After a relatively short time (1 hour or so), most of it appears gone, but there is actually still a lot of sticky stuff. I left it in there for another 5 hours or so, and after rincing, it seemed clean to me. The sink where I rinced it in was another story though, it was covered in a microscopic layer of HIPS. Note to self, dont use the kitchen sink next time.
[quote]Not to mention, That I use E3D print heads!!!
Teh cooling is important.[/quote]
Good to hear PVA is doable with E3Ds and modified extruder. At what speeds can you print it? Are you using a .35mm nozzle or wider?
Hi,
no I am on 0.4mm nozzle and a very low speed, unfortunately, I am not at home, to give you the info.
The most important thing is, to have a steady flow… and a very very low retraction, almost 0.
but I will get the setting off S3D over the weekend
