Soluble Support Material

[foreverof 0]

Hi guys,

I am searching around which 3D printer to get, and I really like Ultimaker 2, I was just wondering could this 3D printer do soluble support material? Or not, how soon will Ultimaker 2 have this function? Thanks!

Gordon

 

[illuminarti 17]

Well, for right now, the UM2 is only single extruder, so you can't do use a second support material at all. The broad plan seems to be to provide dual-extrusion capability sometime next year, so at that point, using soluble support material becomes an option, although the quality of most all dual extruder setups still leaves a bit to be desired.

 

[foreverof 0]

Thanks illuminarti for your quick response, I got another question, could UM2 print a perfect round ball sphere (with one small support stand at the bottom), without to use other support at all?

When you watch the CubeX introduction video, it is printing a basketball, could UM2 do the same thing? (I understand now only single extruder means only 1 colour)

 

[illuminarti 17]

Yes, pretty much. You're going to have two problems printing a sphere, on most any extrusion-based printer. Firstly the almost horizontal slopes on the bottom surface are going to need supporting and are still going to come out a little rough probably, because you're mostly extruding plastic into thin air. But once the slope gets more than maybe 10 degrees or so from horizontal, it should print pretty well, and not need support. Secondly, you'll probably want to print with a lot of 'brim' - a single layer thick, wide lip around the bottom of the print to increase the contact area with the print bed, to make sure that the print doesn't come loose as the print gets wider and higher further up. This is especially important the smaller the directly supported area is. But in general, it's quite doable.