Christmas Advent 3D Printing #Day 19 Advice printing with support materials

December advent calendar - modular Christmas tree

3D Printing advice #Day 19

For the background and introduction - Day #1 Post click here

Last time - For Day #18 (Popsicle (Ice lolly / Ice-pop) was printed using Acrylic (PMMA) filament from E3D.

Christmas Advent 2017 Download on Thingiverse here - designed by Tom Van den Bon @geekc0der With some help for each day by the South African Makers team.

The original advent calendar from 2012 is on Thingiverse - designed by Peter Leppik.

It's time for Day #19

Day 19 gift is designed by Gerhardt Breedt -  It's a totally awesome little Jeep, with a lot of detail.

Great little Jeep - printed in Faberdashery Greenery Green (It's Army-Man-Green really)

Because this model is a little more complex to print, and requires the use of support structures, today I'm giving advice about the use of different support materials available and how well they tend to work.

Single extruder setup - 

First let's look at what a 3D print will look like if support material is enabled using a single extruder machine.

Support structure enabled - Support in Green, model in Yellow (top faces shown in red-orange)

Lets print that...

It printed just fine, but now you have to remove all that support material. 

For removal of PLA you will need - 

• Cuticle Nippers (Top-Tip - they work great) - For MEN, or WOMEN - :)
• Pointy thing (left hand side - very pointy)
• tweeters, 
• time, 
• patience, 
• cup of tea, 
• soothing music, 
• etc.

Have a guess how long the above support removal was, I'll tell you down below, after we look at the alternative method.

Dual extruder setup - 

I'm using Faberdashery PLA( above) and Polymaker Polysupport (Below)

Another reason for doing this intensive advent calendar every day, was to test out the Olsson Ruby nozzles. They are doing really well, so today they get a short break. 

I will be using the Faberdashery PLA and Polymaker Polysupport in the BCN3D SIGMA R17 3D Printer.

The SIGMA can't fit the Ruby nozzles :(

The 500g roll of Polymaker Polysupport material fits really well in the SIGMA R17

Here I am using the support material in a different way, it's an interface rather than full structure.

The above Gcode image shows the model car in blue (PLA on left extruder), with a blue support structure (also in left PLA).

The interface (Dense support material) between lower PLA support and the model is shown in green, and is using the right extruder fitted with Polymaker Polysupport.

Let's print that on the SIGMA R17 -

The main PLA material is used for both the model and 98% of the support structure, just the interface is in Polymaker Polysupport.

Printed great, no problems at all - Polysupport prints a lot like PLA (just slightly higher temperature).

Lets remove the green support material...

The only tools you need for Polysmooth support removal are 'pointy thing' and a toothbrush,

It comes off clean and easily. Just a quick brush and a poke here the there.

Support cleanup time compare - 

The Pink Jeep, using just PLA support (Single extruder) was 16 minutes and 23 seconds. I also used a flame to smooth off a few sharp edges. (+10 seconds)

The alternative Green Jeep, using Dual extruder 'IDEX' SIGMA PLA and Polysupport was exactly 1 minute and 18 seconds. That was including brushing time, I also did not need to use a flame for cleanup.

With big and complex print projects, a break-away support material saves you many hours of cleanup. The material basically pays for itself in time saved. You also only use a small amount of it, when using it as an interface layer as I have above.

The only reason you may want to use it for full support, would be if you were using an expensive material like Bronzefill, you would not want to waste Bronze material as supports.


Print advice - (Support materials)

I think I'm going to do a few more blog posts on different support materials and the best settings to use (in New Year 2018), it was not long enough today to really go into full details about all aspects of support structures and other materials available.

With that in mind below are my top-tips, advice and general experience of support materials.

There are other options for a dedicated support material.

PVA is often talked about as a soluble support material, designed for use in dual or multi-extruder systems. But it's usually a massive pain to use.

E3D spotted the pain that PVA was causing users and made a modified version called Scaffold (See below for more details)

PVA – I have tried around 10 different manufacturers and suppliers over the years. Still not impressed

General conclusion for PVA - I have wasted more time trying to print with ‘PVA’ than any other 3D printing material. It is possible, just not sensible or normally worth all the effort. It’s only fun/exciting and interesting the first time you try to use it. (I basically HATE it now).

Good aspects –

• It is a support material…

• Water soluble, good but also leads to many, many of the problems below.

Not so good – (my experiences with various printers and extrusion systems) - 

• It’s very soft; filament deforms easily in extruders and does not pop-back into shape – it just tends to get squashed / squeezed - and then stops feeding/extruding.

• It will ‘cook’ in the hot-end – don’t go over 190 Degrees C for any long period of time - (long, being more than ~15 minutes) – take it out of the hot-zone.

• It’ll often stop working (extruding) half way into a print job.

• It’s quite expensive.

• Few people make it, and many wished they didn’t when customers complain.

• It will take on moisture, and in some cases become destroyed / useless.

• It does not tend to stick all that well to many 3D printer build surfaces

• It does not stick well enough to many materials, so not great at building on top of a material like PLA/ABS.

• You really need to use a lot of it – dense supports for it to usually be successful – cost / time / risk of print failure increased.

• It can leave residue inside the hot-end, causing problems if not fully cleaned out.

• Most 3D printers (extruders / hot-ends) are not setup / designed to use PVA.

E3D Scaffold – 

General conclusion for E3D Scaffold - It's so much better than PVA, but still not great in every machine or extruder setup. I can get it to work really well in my SIGMA that's fitted with Bondtech extruders and E3D V6 Hot-ends. It's just about perfect (apart from the general moisture problem).

Unfortunately in the standard BCN3D SIGMA R17, It will not work well enough, or for long enough to be of any use.

I really want to see a water soluble support material in general use, but until a formulation actually delivers ease of use in more 3D Printers, I'm going to find it hard to struggle on with PVA based materials.

Good aspects –

• It is better and easier to use than a standard PVA.

• Water soluble and also break-away easily.

• Compatible with some materials PLA/PET, and tends to stick slightly better than most PVA only materials.

• It’s grey, which actually makes it easier to see if it’s extruding well.

Not so good –

• It’s still quite soft. In some extruder systems this will still be a problem.

• Moisture will still damage this filament, keep it dry and out of sunlight.

• It’s slightly less prone to ‘cooking’ but still use under 190 is possible and retract out of the hot-zone when not being extruded.

• It’s about the same price as PVA, that’s good because it can actually work, unlike many PVA’s.

• It seems less prone to leaving immovable residue inside the hot-end, but it will still require regular cleaning.

•  Still causing problems if not fully cleaned out.

Polymaker Polysupport – 

General conclusion for Polysupport- It's so far the only support material that delivers on ease of use. For me it's the only dedicated support material worth using at this point (for my needs) It is not ruined by moisture, and that's a big bonus. It also works in the SIGMA extruder system. every other PVA material does not work as expected in SIGMA.

Good aspects –

• It is a dedicated support material, and you can also print objects with it too.

• It’s like using a normal PLA material. Quite easy in most systems.

• Water soluble and also break-away easily.

• Compatible with common materials PLA/PET/ABS, the bond is just strong enough to hold, but straightforward to remove from most materials.

• It does not have a moisture problem, but keep it sealed when not in use.

• It does not ‘cook’ in the hot-end, does not leave permanent residue.

Not so good –

• It’s not water soluble, so you will still need to break-away, can’t be used in the same way a water soluble material could.

• It’s quite expensive - but I also just demonstrated how it saves time and it ACTUALLY WORKS! - Bonus.

I'll go more into support materials, settings and techniques in a future blog post. But please ask questions and I'll make sure they are included next time.

Days 1 to 19 of the Advent Christmas Tree.

Day #19 is done.

Today's story is all about reminding people that not everything can or should be 3D printed, and the things that use support material structures can be a right pain, if you don't choose the correct materials.

Join me next time for Day #20 - getting close now...

Thanks for reading.

Rich.

Please join me on Twitter @RichRap3D

My profile and posts over on Google+

Files and designs shared on YouMagine

Files and designs shared on GitHub

Files and designs shared on Repables 

My Youtube channel is here, all 3D Printing and Hi-Def video content.

3D Printing and support material processing of the Steampunk Octopus

More about the Steampunk Octopus 3D Print.

Many people asked for more details and information about printing and processing the Steampunk Octopus, so here it is.

This was originally an experiment designed to test out settings for Simplify3D on the BCN3D Sigma 3D Printer, but that quickly also transformed into a project I could do with my daughter.

Since this had a large and complex both to print, the support material settings could be tested, and because this model also has many, many separate segments we decided to test out printing the leg parts of various different 3D printers, with different hot-ends, extruders and cooling requirements for the different materials being used.

I have to say a big thank you to the designer of the Ball-joint articulated octopus
model - Ellindsey. It has some different head options and they are a lot of fun to print and build up.

You can also watch this and many more of my video's in HD over on YouTube here.

As you will see from the video, support material removal can be quite a challenge. For some models you just can't use the same material as the main model.

We had fun making this up, and as you can see in the video it's also a good learning experience - thermoplastic softens with a heat-gun or hairdryer and that makes it easier to fit leg segments together.

After a few different test prints, all the leg segments were printed without using any support material.

We spotted that many of the leg segments did not require any support material at all. When using a slightly bigger nozzle size of 0.6mm, you can get a really good overhang greater than 70 degrees.

Water soluble PVA material - make sure you keep it really dry and do not run at temperatures over 200 Degrees - Stick to 195 Degrees C and do not leave it in the hot-end for extended time at temperature without extruding.

I'm currently doing some further testing on a soluble support material from E3D called Scaffold, more info about support material removal in this post here.

Scaffold - Soluble and PVA based but modified to work with more materials and changes to viscosity. Available from E3D.

I have also used PVA based support materials and various other solutions - one being PolySupport from Polymaker (Many thanks for the sample filament roll Ben @ Hawk3DProto).

Polymaker Polysupport - an easy to remove support material - works well with many types of material - not soluble.

Ideally we would all like to use an easy to remove or even better, a water soluble support material that is compatible with many different 3D Printing materials.

The next time I get a tricky to print 3D model, I will compare and challenge these support materials and let you know how I get on.

Thanks for reading, please pop back again soon and catch up with me on the following -

Twitter - @Richrap3d
Google+ - RichardHorne_RichRap3D
YouTube Channel RichRap

Until next time, happy printing.

Rich.

E3D Scaffold - soluble support material testing and 3D Printing model challenge

Testing out Scaffold - Soluble Support Material from E3D.

The team at E3D recently sent me some production reels of Scaffold, the soluble support material for desktop 3D Printing. It's now almost released and should be available soon on the E3D website

I'm testing it out and also seeing what's been changed from the Beta release earlier in the year.

Sanjay at E3D said it has had a few modifications to the viscosity and also compatibility with materials. It's tuned to work well with Edge (PET based) and Nylon materials, but will also work with PLA and ABS.

I proposed a scaffold challenge in the video below, and E3D responded. They have kindly offered some £40 discount vouchers for their webshop as a prize for the most interesting or challenging ideas.

If you have a 3D model that you believe would challenge Scaffold (it's mostly aimed as a dissoluble support material) but can also work well as peal-away support, then let me know in the comments below, over on YouTube or on Twitter @Richrap3d

Also feel free to tell me of your experience with using support material - either using the same material or as a dual extruder setup with a secondary material as support.

Give me some time and I will report back with success or failure and hopefully some print advice or tips for using Scaffold in different 3D Printers.

I'm going to also test it out with some models I have struggled to 3D Print over the years, I'll try to do that on a selection of printers, nozzles and extruders too.

A really good support material is still a major goal for desktop 3D Printers, so it's exciting when a new product becomes available, I'll be sure to let you know how I get on. Maybe this is the one?

I'm already seeing some really great suggestions, thank you for posting - One that really jumped out was a collection of Knots gathered up by Richard Caunt - Very Knotty can be found here.

And if you want to see what a pain removal of support material can be - then take a look at this recent update post and video on printing the Steampunk Octopus.

Thanks for reading, I'll be back soon with more 3D printing.

Rich.

Twitter - @Richrap3d
Google+ - RichardHorne_RichRap3D
YouTube Channel RichRap

BCN3D Technologies SIGMA 3D Printer review and thoughts

Hi Everyone, 

I have been testing the new BCN3D Technologies Sigma 3D printer over the last few weeks. I thought you might like to hear my views about it. This is the 3D printer I have been waiting for this year, and I'm not disappointed at all.

Most of my comments are in the video (below and on YouTube) - This is basically an introduction video to the BCN3D Technologies Sigma 3D Printer - Dual carriage extruder system, professional printing on the desktop - I take a look at dual colour and soluble support materials along with my overall thoughts on the Sigma 3D Printer, who it's aimed at and does it provide value for money (Yes, yes it does).

I'll be posting more about my use of the Sigma, so if you have any questions, or want me to test something specific or just want more about any aspect of it, do let me know in the comments here or on YouTube, on G+ or on Twitter @RichRap3D

BCN3D Technologies SIGMA 3D Printer

The BCN3D Technologies SIGMA 3D Printer 

Just to be clear, I don't work for BCN3D - I'm wearing the BCN3D shirt to show support for a really fantastic team and such a well designed 3D Printer. More people need to be aware of BCN3D - they are a serious 3D printing company who have scaled up in every way from their early RepRap roots at the Barcelona University.

For a further back story on the Sigma and information about BCN3D Technologies - Do also take a look at my visit to see them earlier on this year over on the DisruptiveMagazine Blog - Parts 1 and 2 - 

Part 1 - http://disruptivemagazine.com/blog/from-reprap-students-to-masters-of-3d-printing-a-spanish-success-story-part-1/

Part 2 - http://disruptivemagazine.com/blog/from-reprap-students-to-masters-of-3d-printing-a-spanish-success-story-part-2/

Above is my introduction video and review of the Sigma - if you are looking for a new or first (or second / 12th ) 3D printer it could be a very good use of 17mins, I hope you find it useful.

It's also over on YouTube here in HD if you prefer.

Solid Aluminium monocoque frame / enclosure

Custom Electronics

Full colour LCD touch screen, with simple to use controls.

Dual independent extruder carriages - allows for perfect dual colour printing, or the use of soluble support materials.

PVA soluble support material

Dual colour printing

In my eyes both the Sigma and BCN3D Technologies have a lot of credibility, they certainly deserve more global awareness on what they are doing and the machines they are manufacturing. 

The Sigma is a great 3D Printer. Value for money and robust. Like all 3D Printers it's not perfect, but for someone that wants 3D Printed parts and is not so interested in tinkering, the Sigma is my solid recommendation of where to spend your money and a company to support. They have a long-term view of 3D printing, Sigma is just the start, and what a machine to start with.

The key message here is that most new users looking for a 3D printer now, will be interested in the 3D Printed parts it makes, not so much with the tinkering or constant upgrading. This is a 3D printer that prints, well and reliably. If you need a production machine, say for running a 3D printing Hub. Sigma is a very good choice indeed.


Thanks for watching and reading, 

See you again very soon for yet another 3D Printer review. Busy October!

Cheers,

Rich.