Submerging PLA when printing with PVA

[nicklas 0]

Hi,

 

I just did my first print with PLA and PVA support. It's a big print and it took about 30 hours to finish. Now I want to remove the PVA support. 

 

Is it critical to submerge the entire PLA into water or can I simply only submerge the parts with PVA?

 

I know that PLA can be affected by water hotter than 35 degrees Celcius, and I want to be as gentle with my print as possible so I won't damage it.

 

Do you have any tips and tricks? 

 

Thanks :-)

[SandervG 1,155]

Hi @nicklas , 

if there are parts of your print that don't have any PVA on it, you don't necessarily need to submerge it in water. The water is solely used to dissolve the PVA. If you have a method that prevents your print from tumbling over, or sink, and only keeps the PVA under, go for it. 

 

With most prints, I think that won't be the case though. But you don't necessarily need to keep it at 35ºC, I think our pages say don't go higher. But you can go a bit lower 🙂

 

Hope this helps!

[NBull 2]

I normally just have a big bucket of water to dissolve the PVA. the water only gets replaced when to milky, so it's more or less always room tempter around 17-20ºC. so in my experience PVA will dissolve fin in way lower tempters. I speed up the proses by brushing of the PVA when it gets mucous. if it takes to long or are hard to remove I would say its probably more because the water is saturated, then because of the tempter. So if you are afraid to damage the PLA just let it sid longer in colder water and you should be fin. 

 

In general its only the parts with PVA that needed to be in water. But depending on the model and how the PVA support is, there can be some stringing caught between the PLA layers. 

 

[nicklas 0]

Thank you, NBull, that was really helpful. I think I did experience some stringing issues because I discovered some holes in the PLA where the support has been, and it's the first time I've ever seen that issue.