The ONLY reliable solution (that I've found) for "fine" PLA with dissolvable supports (BASF BVOH)

[jasonrohrer 9]

I got an UltiMaker S3 specifically for printing with dissolvable supports.  However, I could not get even simple test prints to print reliably and repeatably with UltiMaker PVA.  Prints would start out fine, but have adhesion issues midway, and then go haywire.  And yes, I tried every suggested fix, but none of them worked.

 

AquaSys 120 seemed to be 100% reliable, by comparison.  However, using it to support PLA is technically "off-label," and it is also very slow to dissolve (especially in 95F water that won't soften PLA too much).  And there's no "fine" profile for it, and Cura says it's not compatible if you're using the AA 0.25mm nozzle for your PLA.

 

AquaSys GP is meant for use with PLA, and it dissolves very fast in 95F water.  However, the profile situation is even more dismal (no Marketplace profile, because UltiMaker won't allow a direct competitor to their PVA).  It took a ton of monkeying to get their beta profile loaded correctly on the S3.  It seemed pretty reliable (once a print got going, it would always finish).  However, there are apparently some issues with the filament cooking off in the nozzle.  Whenever re-loading GP, a bunch of black bits would get pushed out.  The nozzle eventually clogged, and I had to go through the whole cold/hot-pull cleaning process a few times.  And the beta profile provided (which seems to have some temp problems?) also has no "fine" profile, and again Cura says it's not compatible if you're using the AA 0.25mm nozzle for your PLA.

 

BASF BVOH is the most reliable of the bunch.  I've never had a print failure or a clog with it, ever.  Again, the profile situation is dismal (no official UltiMaker Marketplace support, and the "beta" profile provided requires a bunch of manual tweaking and fiddling before it will load on the S3).  And if you use the BASF-provided beta profile, there's no "fine" setting, and no support for AA 0.25mm PLA.

 

HOWEVER, I'm having excellent results just using the Generic PVA profile when printing with BASF BVOH (as suggested by another user of this forum).  That lets me use a "fine" profile and print my PLA with the AA 0.25mm nozzle.

 

So, print after print, BVOH is just working.  No black bits when re-loading.  No clogs.  And it dissolves quickly.

 

Two down-sides to BVOH:

 

1.  It REALLY sticks to the bed, more than the other supports do.  I'm using Layerneer Bed Weld on the glass bed, which usually makes removal easy, but I still have to pry really hard to get BVOH to pop off the bed.  (Though I suppose you could always soak the bed in water, if it was ever really stuck.)

 

2.  It makes the water instantly cloudy/opaque when dissolving.  This makes it very hard to visually monitor dissolve progress (you have to fish the part out, blindly, with tongs, to check it).

 

 

Finally:

 

Needless to say, this has been a VERY frustrating experience for a $4000+ printer that has dissolvable supports as one of its main selling points.

 

UltiMaker: it seems like you should seriously consider adopting a 3rd-party solution as the "official" dissolvable support for PLA, instead of continuing to push UltiMaker PVA, which just isn't reliable enough.

 

Anyone who tries any one of the three alternatives (AquaSys 120, AquaSys GP, or BASF BVOH) would see a night-and-day improvement over UltiMaker PVA.

 

 

Edited March 8, 2023 by jasonrohrer

[Dadkitess 19]

Well, even the PolyDissolve is way better than Stock PVA. UM PVA is among the worst material to print with, I've use about 5 spools of it and it lead to so many troubles. It might bring so many bad reviews and bad feedback while it would be so convenient to move from that UM PVA to another solution...

[ultis3printa1 0]

I am experimenting currently with BASF BVOH after failing multiple times with Ultimaker PVA (even fresh new purchased PVA printed immediately).

BVOH seems to work a bit better so far (I still am tuning), but is quite expensive for 350g rolls.

Have you thought to use BVOH only for interface layer to save it's use?

[jasonrohrer 9]

Yes, it is expensive.

 

I haven't tried interface layers.  What I was printing was so complex, with lots of internal geometry, that I wouldn't have been able to remove any hard supports from the inside.  All the supports had to dissolve.

 

I have printed a few other things with BVOH since then, and it's still quite reliable.

[Dadkitess 19]

Some update from me since I've used PVA, PolyDissolve S1 and Ultrafuse BVOH : same atrocious material.

I've actually set up a fresh whole maintenance of our UMS5, including a whole new AA 0.4 and BB 0.4 printcore, to use directly a PETG / BVOH combo : the first print went fine, the second one (12h after) went really bad. Exactly the same parameters, same cura profile, just had to split one object in 2 prints, and I don't know how, the BB core already got jammed for the SECOND PRINT of this fresh printcore.

 

How the hell is that possible. The spool was stored directly in an heated chamber which peaks at 28% at most and about 20% for the various soluble support. And I repeat : 12 hours after a successful print, same parameters, same profile, same everything, based on a fresh new printcore. The second print finished with something like 20h of delay, since I had to convince the machine to keep going after it told me that the spool might be empty / lack of material, with visible under-extrusion.

 

From this episode, the BB core is half-jammed. Last print, I disabled the Flow Sensor, and it went OK for the first 15mm and then all the rest of the print has occured without any BVOH coming from the printcore. I have still to understand how / why it can suddenly fail like this. This is beyond me.

 

Business as usual with Ultimaker.

 

Edit : ha, something : BVOH indeed dissolve waaaaaaaay way faster and better than PVA and Poly Dissolve S1. That's a big plus, even if it's not usable, haha.

 

Edit 2 : now that I re-read the OP : how the hell do you get the Ultrafuse BVOH to be 100% reliable ?!! No clogging, no dirty black residues, etc, teach me master ! And I'm talking about fresh new BVOH, fresh new printcore, and cherry on the top, exactly the same PVA profile ! I don't get it. My machine must have some tiny little evil in it.

Edited September 18 by Dadkitess

[jasonrohrer 9]

The most recent thing I printed with BVOH had this problem where the Bowden wheel eventually ground into the BVOH filament and it stopped feeding.  But at least the printer would stop and let me fix it.

 

I didn't have this problem last year, for a much larger print, but I think it was because that larger print had large, contiguous areas of BVOH, where the BVOH was advancing constantly, and not stopping for too long in one spot.

This new print had lots of small areas of BVOH, which means the feeder was rolling the filament in and out over and over, wearing a spot in the same section of filament.  Curiously, the print would always stall at roughly the same spot.

 

 

SO.... the moral of the story is that water-dissolvable supports are an EXPERIMENTAL feature that isn't really ready for prime time.  Maybe it never will be.  Too bad Ultimaker marketed as being a headline feature.

 

For one-off projects, it's worth trying, as you might be able to get it to work.

But I can't imagine using it as part of a daily workflow.

[Dadkitess 19]

Indeed, as you said it's too bad since we've bought it very specifically for this ability. It's our daily use of it... Or it would be if it was able to work 80% of the time, which is not.

 

Actually, i'm even amazed by the fact that they give some official profile for PVA, which totally ignore most of the things you want to adress with such a sensible filament : max number of retractation for instance or even support path strategy : I donw know why but CURA loves so much to do tiny dots of support when everything connected would be WAY faster and safer, at the marginal cost of filament... I've never understood why it's not a priority of development.

 

Even the parameter to "merge" support at a given proximity won't really help to get continous lines much more efficient, even for regular filament.

 

Well, there is not benefit from ranting, UM is kinda dead now, I just feel bad that our company spent 6k€ on an obsolete machine not able to deliver any kind of reliability (except for 1st layer. Damn, i've never seen a printer so good at never ever failing a first layer 🐵

 

[jasonrohrer 9]

If UM is dead, what has replaced it?  Bamboo?  But that can't reliably do PVA supports, can it?  I haven't seen anyone really talking about that too much.

 

When I Google for "best printer for PVA supports," all I find are my own posts from a few years ago.  Not very promising!

[Dadkitess 19]

Indeed, indeed... I'm pretty sure that a Prusa XL would be better (not so bad, actually), but there is no real evidence about it, so far, to my extent.