I’ve always read that most knowledgeable 3D print fans are against pla support, so I’ve followed along and only use petg. Today I decided to give support material a try and I’m thrilled with the outcome. Can anyone explain why they don’t like it?
This may depend on two things, which generation you have and what surfaces you used it on.
The current generation is version two, most issues were with generation two.
Neither generation had issues with flat surfaces below the material, but generation one had real issues with it being a curved surface. It was incredibly difficult to remove cleanly.
Think a sphere of support under a curved model.
Personally, I don’t mind at all whether someone chooses to use support material or not - I’m completely neutral about it. Everyone has their own workflow and preferences, and that’s perfectly fine.
For me, though, I simply don’t use it because, from my perspective, it’s just too expensive. Even if you only need a small amount, the cost adds up quickly, and at that point it becomes a matter of weighing the benefit against the price.
It’s really just a practical decision rather than an emotional one, and I think everyone should feel free to choose whatever works best for them.
Its too expensive, requires nylon levels of dry, and not even that good IMO. It’s extremely wasteful on single-nozzle printers.
I just overuse support so that it is easier to get pliers on and remove, you kinda get the best of both worlds. If you can get your supports so that you can get pliers on them, and allow you to twist your hand to dislodge, you can get away with really tight supports. [more interface layers, more interface expansion, 0 interface spacing, sometimes design a small sacrificial platform]
The one use case that its REALLY good for is dissolvable supports for internal geometry that you could never fish support out of. Rare, IMO.
I think everyone who does not like had specific experiences.
In my case, Gen 1 material, I could not see a benefit over using a same material support. Especially once forum members started posting about using PETG for PLA and vice versa.
Where I need something really special, I occasionally still get out my roll of BVOH but mostly PETG does a pretty good job as a support interface.
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I’m really struggling with the support filament for PETG/PLA on an H2C printer. I’m using PLA for the model and the tree (hybrid) body support structure. I use the support filament for the top interface. I set my Top Z distance to zero bottom is set to 0.12. Each time the filament is used it either globs on the print model, the wipe tower, or the actual model itself. I like the principle behind the filament (similar concept of PETG). I tried using it in my AMS HT attached to the dedicated left nozzle. I also dried it for 12 hours in the AMS HT before printing. The printer and Bambu Studio recognize the filament immediately. I am using variable layer hight - adaptive and smoothing - to improve model surface quality. After slicing I look at layer height and can clearly see the support filament. I truly believe this is an adherence issue and I’ve obviously have a print setting that is out of wack. If anyone has successfully used the support filament with PLA please let me know nozzle temps, flow rates, retraction settings, cooling, etc Thanks