Hi
I have a moderately complex print in PLA which I’d like to be able to separate from its supports more easily so I bought a PEI plate from Bambu and a reel of PETG (not Bambu).
I think I filled out all the options (temperature and interface layers etc) as per the Bambu wiki for this pairing and sent the job to the printer.
It printed pretty well - there was an issue with a poop of plastic on the plate halfway through but removing it fixed the issue - and the end result looked good.
I then took it off the plate and tried to remove the supports. Virtually all the layers were not adhering to each other so it fell apart in my hands.
As a test, I have printed the same thing with the same PLA and the standard PLA settings - it came out fine with all the layers adhering but the support is a pain to remove.
My questions:
Does it really make a difference to use Bambu filaments?
Could it be low flush volumes which caused this - I admit I didn’t change anything here as the wiki didn’t suggest it
Does anyone have any suggestions about how to best make the supports for a PLA print easily removable?
With a single-printhead printer, you need humongous amounts of purge. If even a tiny amount of the support material remains when the layer extrusion starts, that layer will not stick well to the previous layers. The print will be weak as hell and it’ll come apart in your hands.
I gave up using dedicated support material on my X1C. Most of what I print is functional parts, the amount of waste required to purge sufficiently for the parts to be strong was prohibitive.
If you need support interfaces on just a few layers, it has been working pretty well for me. If you have to support slanted or round overhangs, then i agree, it is prohibitive.
@max9 , did you adjust the purge volume? for the transition from support material to main material you really want all support material flushed out of the nozzle. I typically set it to 800. The other way round is not as critical, but of course the support interface needs ad least some adhesion, so you shouldn’t go too low there too.
I assume that in your print, there still was some remaining petg in the nozzle and that annihilated layer adhesion of the PLA. Check your purge volumes and you should be fine.
The reason I asked was that the whole print seemed to fall apart - not just the layers following the support layers. Purging is not mentioned (or I didn’t see it) in the wiki/
If that’s the purge level, then fine but it felt like it might be temperature too - given that the PLA printing temps change according to the BL wiki.