Mecha’s Comprehensive Guide to PVA Supports for the H2D
Updated: 7/21/2025
Hello everyone,
Over the past few weeks, I’ve been bashing my head against a wall trying to perfect the printing process for using PVA supports on organic, rounded miniatures—and I’m happy to say I’ve finally developed a repeatable, functional, and clean workflow that solves many of the core issues with Bambu’s H2D presets.
In this post, I’ll cover:
- The problem that led me to use PVA in the first place
- Common issues and community advice
- My final working solution, settings, and tips
If you’re just here for the settings, you can find the 3MF file at the bottom of this post.
The Problem
I wanted to print this highly detailed model of Tracer from Overwatch in PLA Silk / Galaxy. These specialty filaments rely on a perfect surface finish, so post-processing like sanding or filling is not an option—it ruins the sheen. While some careful heat-treating can restore a bit of luster, it’s nowhere near the clean finish that a pristine print provides.
If I were printing with standard PLA, I could’ve used tree supports and cleaned it up afterward. But even then, the bottom-facing surfaces would suffer. Soluble supports like Bambu’s PVA seemed like the ideal solution.
“Luckily, I have a Bambu dual-extrusion printer, so this should be easy!”
— said a much more naive version of me.
What followed was weeks of print failures, clogs, motor overloads, and forum-diving hell. Most discussions ended with “PVA sucks, don’t use it.” Still, I was determined—others had made it work, so I knew it was possible.
Drying
You’ve heard it a thousand times, but it bears repeating:
DRY. YOUR. FILAMENT.
PVA is extremely hygroscopic—even more so than the desiccants you store it with. My local humidity hovers around 55% RH, and just a few minutes of exposure caused bubbling and stringing. I originally followed Bambu’s drying instructions using a Creality Space Pi 2 dryer, but its tiny vent holes allowed the PVA to reabsorb moisture shortly after drying.
Now, I keep my PVA drying at 60°C continuously—even during printing.
If your dry box is well-sealed, you might get away with transferring it quickly after drying, but PVA is fickle enough that it’s worth the constant heat. Just don’t go much higher than 60°C, or you risk making it too soft, which can cause jams or slipping.
Also: make sure your filament path from the dryer/dry box to the extruder is fully sealed with PTFE tubing.
Crackling? Bubbling? Stringing? Poor print quality?
Your PVA probably needs more drying.
“Extruder Motor Overloaded” / “Filament Not Extruding Properly”
This one nearly broke me.
Nearly every extruder switch would trigger the dreaded beeping, followed by:
- Extruder motor overloaded
- Filament not extruding properly
I’d remove the filament, snip the end, maybe disassemble the extruder, and reattempt the print—only to fail again. Sometimes the PVA would ooze so much that it caused toolhead switch failures.
Eventually, I realized these errors only happened during nozzle switches, which pointed to a temperature and retraction issue—specifically, PVA sitting too long in a hot nozzle. Left idle, PVA becomes a brown, hardened tar that clogs everything. It also softens drastically, causing the extruder gear to slip or deform it into a clog-inducing blob.
At first, I thought active drying during printing was the issue. It wasn’t.
The real culprit? Nozzle temperature.
Bambu’s H2D defaulted to 240°C for PVA—way too high. Most X1C profiles use 220°C, and this GitHub issue report confirmed my suspicions.
Fixes:
Lowered PVA temp to 220°C- Moved PVA to the right (fixed) extruder
Using the fixed extruder prevents soft filament jams and follows Bambu’s own TPU guidance, which oddly doesn’t apply the same caution to PVA—but should.
Once I made these changes, I never saw an overload or feed error again.
Adhesion Issues: PVA and PLA Not Sticking
Some guides suggest using PVA only for the interface layer, but on complex organic models, I found it more reliable to use PVA for the entire support.
When I tried hybrid supports (PLA support + PVA interface), they often failed:
- PVA wouldn’t adhere to PLA
- PLA wouldn’t adhere to PVA
- Supports would spaghetti mid-print
This was made worse by PLA Silk/Galaxy’s slick surface. Fortunately, forum user cbath shared this post, which became the foundation for my solution.
He advocated building a PVA block “mold” around the model, ensuring consistent adhesion PVA-to-PVA, not PLA-to-PVA.
I tweaked his method slightly and ended up with this reliable configuration:
Final PVA Settings (highlighted in white in screenshot)
-
Support Type: Normal
Threshold Angle: 15°
→ Maximizes surface coverage and stability. -
Raft Layers: 2
→ Prevents floating PVA islands. -
Support Base + Interface: PVA
→ Full PVA provides better consistency. -
Initial + Support Layer Expansion: 6mm / 5mm
→ Builds the surrounding “mold”; tweak as needed if contact looks weak. -
Top/Bottom/XY Distance: 0mm
→ Ensures tight, clean surface contact. -
Base Pattern Spacing: 1mm
→ Increases grid density; you can try 2mm to save filament but expect tradeoffs. -
Interface Pattern: Rectilinear Grid
→ Maximizes surface contact; reduces floating islands. -
Independent Support Layer Height: OFF
→ Keeps everything at consistent height.
Lower all support print speeds to 10–30mm/s to reduce failures.
The “Island” Problem
Even with reliable supports, I ran into a big issue with tiny PLA “islands” that form in early layers of curved organic models.
These islands are prone to detaching, ruining the print. Lower layer heights (required for detail) and slippery filaments make it worse.
Fixes:
-
Slowed all PLA and PVA print speeds to 10–30mm/s, including infill
-
Disabled extra Z-hops and wiping moves, such as:
- Reduce Infill Retraction
- Flush into object infill
- Wipe when retracting
-
Increased PLA temp by 10°C to improve first-layer adhesion
-
Used Gyroid infill, which seemed more stable than Monotonic
-
Oriented the print for more surface contact when the island first forms
These changes significantly reduced movement-induced failures.
Conclusion
PVA is still a pain to work with and requires many compromises—but if you’re stuck (like I was), I hope this guide gives you the clarity and working baseline you need.
The surface finish I achieved simply would not have been possible with traditional supports.
I highly recommend importing the 3MF file rather than copying settings manually—there may be additional tweaks not covered here.
Happy to answer questions or troubleshoot with anyone going through the same ordeal.
Like another PVA warrior once told me:
Peace and good luck! 
