Support Material Working Party

Hi,
how about opening up a Support Material Category in the forum for accumulating all informations and progress on the topic of Support Material.

[Edit: this seems to be a working party - Sebastien]

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/12/2010 02:10PM by SebastienBailard.

LOL! How about if people start actually trying out support materials instead of just talking about them? The discussion of support materials has been going on for five years now, but the actual work on making them real has been effectively zip.

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Hell, there are no rules here - we're trying to accomplish something.

Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.

Thomas A. Edison

Forrest Higgs Wrote:
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> The discussion of support materials
> has been going on for five years now, but the
> actual work on making them real has been
> effectively zip.

Not quite accurate. See [blog.reprap.org]

Also, I believe someone had experimented using two different plastics, one soluable in acetylene, the other one not... I could have sworn you were a part of that, but not sure.

PLA works as a support material for ABS and you can dissolve it with caustic soda.

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[www.hydraraptor.blogspot.com]

nophead Wrote:
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> PLA works as a support material for ABS and you
> can dissolve it with caustic soda.

+5 Informative

So the question becomes: Does discussion of alternative support materials merit it's own forum?

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/11/2010 02:34PM by JohnnyCooper.

Well, as Forrest pointed out, discussion in these forums rarely produces anything useful. People experimenting and reporting back results is what moves RepRap forwards.

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[www.hydraraptor.blogspot.com]

"People experimenting and reporting back results is what moves RepRap forwards."

this is why i thought there should be a category for this topic, as i regard this forum as the central hub for informations belonging to repraping and associated topics.
So even if there is "rarely anything usefull" for now, doesn't mean that there won't be any in future.
And i think that whithout a usable and economic support material (in best case recyclable), this project will halt at some point concerning build quality and complexity of the printed objects, which would be sad.
An own forum category will certainly help gathering all belonging information in one place and will make it easier for people to jump in and push it forward.

PLA as supportmaterial for ABS is maybe fine but also pretty costly,
so there must be something suitable for also supporting PLA.

KurtCircuit Wrote:
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> And i think that whithout a usable and economic
> support material (in best case recyclable), this
> project will halt at some point concerning build
> quality and complexity of the printed objects,
> which would be sad.

I doubt this. Lack of support material does not kill printability of many objects that would normally require support material -- it only increases cost, complexity, and/or adds post processing strategies, E.G, a part must be printing as multiple parts, which must then be epoxied together to create a final product.

That said, having a support material available allows making some objects less costly and easier to print, and puts fewer demands on the post-processing skills a specific person might possess.

... yesterday i had a discussion with a guy from my local granule-distributor - PS is a soluble thermoplastic!

You have to select the 'stable' plastic in respect to resistance for the solvent (e.g. Acetone) - and when drying the solved PS, you'll receive solid PS again, but it would be a bit more brittle than original ... but for the use as support material this wouldn't be a flaw ...

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Viktor
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Aufruf zum Projekt "Müll-freie Meere" - [reprap.org] -- Deutsche Facebook-Gruppe - [www.facebook.com]

Call for the project "garbage-free seas" - [reprap.org]

PS as in Polystyrene? That would make sense, I've dissolved a lot of polystyrene cups with gasoline when I was a kid.

the problem with a support that disolves with acetone is that most everything disolves with acetone. a low cost water soluable thermoplast is what we need
and so far those tend to not be low cost. but we do keep looking. though water soluable wouldnt be necessary as long as the solving agent only disolves the support. are there any alcohol disolving thermoplasts?

I think I heard someone mention snapping the support off with objet or something...

Forrest tested solving HDPE with actone, what's not working, so HDPE/PS would be a perfect material/support-compination

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Viktor
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Aufruf zum Projekt "Müll-freie Meere" - [reprap.org] -- Deutsche Facebook-Gruppe - [www.facebook.com]

Call for the project "garbage-free seas" - [reprap.org]

I don't think so because HDPE is unlikely to stick to PS and vice versa. Everybody seems to forget that support material is not simple to overcome gravity. The filament has to bond to it so that it is held in place when turning a corner and is held down against the warping force, which is massive with HDPE.

The object material has to stick to the support just as well as it does to the bed material.

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[www.hydraraptor.blogspot.com]

... the techguy said PS is soluble by most acids, so other combinations with plastics resistant aginst the specific solvent could be worth a try

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Viktor
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Aufruf zum Projekt "Müll-freie Meere" - [reprap.org] -- Deutsche Facebook-Gruppe - [www.facebook.com]

Call for the project "garbage-free seas" - [reprap.org]