Printing with Ultimaker TPU and PVA

[bofe112 0]

Hello,

 

I am trying to print with Ultimaker TPU and Ultimaker PVA. I have printed some trial designs with just TPU. However, I had some bonding issues when I used Ultimaker's recommended settings. I am very beginner to 3D printing. I am using Ultimaker 3 and my ultimate goal is to print soft robots. Is there any tip you can give me to improve my prints? I would appreciate any custom settings recommendations.

 

Thank you in advance!

 

[gr5 2,224]

According to this chart - it's not necessarily going to work:

https://support.ultimaker.com/hc/en-us/articles/360011543699-Ultimaker-S5-Material-compatibility

 

Keep your PVA as dry as possible.  Don't leave it on the machine when not printing.  Keep it with lots of dessicant in a sealed bag (I use 2 gallon zip locks and large amounts of dessicant).

 

Anyway according to that chart you can try "breakaway".  But if breakaway works I'd consider trying PLA.

 

I've never tried support with TPU.

 

I would assume the materials will not stick at all.  So you can probably use PLA as the support material but realize that the PLA probably will not ever print on top of the TPU and the TPU must be connected to itself to print on top of PLA.  So for example if you are printing a table, then the PLA can easily support the main structure of the table because it can "bridge" and grip the legs.  But if you are printing a model of a man with his hands pointing down to his toes - when you get to time to print the finger - the TPU on top of the PLA support it just won't stick at all and will fail.  In other words you can print overhangs and bridges but not things "in thin air" supported only by support material.

 

Anyway I've never tried support with TPU so I could be wrong about a lot of this.