Support / Solubles 

The importance of support materials

At a certain level in 3D FDM printing it is necessary to use supports to make complex pieces. The main problem is that the base material used to manufacture the piece is not suitable for making the supports, since it complicates post-processing. If, for example, an ABS piece is made with the supports in the same material, it is very likely that the entire support will not be completely removed or that the surface quality of the part will be poor. Another problem that usually occurs is that the support is located in an area of difficult access. To solve all these problems there are support materials.

Types of support materials: Rigid and soluble

Within the support materials we differentiate two types: rigid and soluble. The majority of filaments belonging to this category are soluble materials in some liquid, but there are also materials that are not and offer similar properties.

Within the rigid materials is the PolySupport, a filament that allows a fast and easy printing thanks to the great union between layers. The adhesion between layers is strong enough to maintain the structure and thus be removed by hand, without the need to use power tools or a complicated post-processing, which would cause a considered increase in time to get the piece released from the supports. The HiPS and the Mowiflex 3D 2000 stand out in the soluble materials. The HiPS is a material that is diluted in D-Limonene and presents some ideal general properties to be the ABS support material. On the other hand, the Mowiflex 3D 2000 (PVA) is a filament that is rapidly diluted in warm water and used with moderate print temperature filaments, such as PLA, TPU or PETG.