Also wish I just stick with PLA vs PETG for support instead.
I got both Support for PLA and Support for PLA/PETG both dried with AMS HT.
Other filament doesn’t causes this mess except the support.
That looks unfortunate, sorry to see the mess! Wonder what went wrong? Or maybe I just have beginner’s luck… I haven’t used it very much, but I’ve had good success with “Support For PLA/PETG” (haven’t tried the other). FWIW here’s a photo of a good size chunk of support interface I used for a flat piece (experiment). The black underneath is black PETG HF, which was the primary material, then the support is printed on top of that for an interface (the actual piece was on top of that, of course, with no spacing). Anyway I found it pretty clean, with just a few errant fibers here and there.
OTOH (and somewhat off topic) I’m not convinced the AMS HT can dry anything. Mostly just par-boils it… 
I have to open it every hour or so to let out the moisture (humidity immediately drops a few percent, then slowly climbs back). And after a few spools it started telling me the exhaust valve is stuck or indeterminate (replacement valve is here waiting for me to do the work). Maybe it never worked right in the first place… 
Ended up getting another dryer in the meantime (Pi x4) which isn’t really a whole lot better but at least works w/out a printer and has nice capacity.
Cheers,
-Max
Any reason you don’t use 100% fill rate for the interface layer? When I use support material, it’s usually because I want the best possible surface. The picture looks more like 50%, so I imagine, the pattern is also visible on the supported surface?
I only have a problem with the support material when it is used on tree supports. The interface layer with its grid structure is simply partially printed into the air at the edge of the tree. This results in lots of little hooks, some of which simply stick up and catch the nozzle when it passes over them. This causes all these little pieces to fly off and end up lying around everywhere.
Oh, 100% just seemed like overkill for that piece (this stuff ain’t cheap! 
). OTOH I wasn’t sure how easy it would be to remove if that whole interface was also PETG (even with a gap), so seemed prudent to use the support filament (since I had it). There was some texture, maybe about as deep as a textured PEI plate or so, but for this piece it didn’t matter. (I ended up using it, so taking a picture is tricky.) There was plenty of actual support though, no sagging or anything really ugly. Probably could have been spaced even a bit wider, really, as far as that goes.
I’ve used it a few times again since my initial post here and still no issues (no re-drying, but stored in a fully vac. sealed bag). I’ve only used it in “special” cases like large or tricky areas so far, really. Nice to have in the quiver.
-Max
PS. the resulting texture could be used for some interesting effects, based on the interface pattern… we just need more to choose from in the slicer!
1 Like
Hybrid tree supports might help because it puts more “normal” (as in the blocky ones) support style support bodies near the area where it prints the support interface.
1 Like