Puzzle Cake custom supports (soluble)

prusaprinters

<p>I came across the puzzle when I bought it for my father last Christmas and it's really interesting. During figuring it out, I had the idea to make a 3D model and print it. Alas, Thingiverse already had a model, thanks to @tapka.</p> <p>As I have a couple of multi-material printers, I thought that to get a pristine parts I'd use soluble material so that the supported areas would be printed with good quality. The soluble material I have is BVOH, bit expensive but overall quite good material for this application. With some caveats...</p> <p>First I tried Prusa Slicer 2 and using BVOH only as the support interface material. This didn't work out very well, because BVOH didn't stick to the sparse PLA support structure and the obviously print failed when the messy blob of BVOH started moving around with the printhead. Not sure if this is because the BVOH has been unused for almost a year or something, but I've noticed this before.</p> <p>So it seems that small surfaces are hard for BVOH to stick to, but larger work fine. So seeing that configuring the slicer to do things properly isn't probably going to work, I went and designed my own supports that work quite flawlessly with PLA and BVOH.</p> <p>These custom supports accomplish a couple of things:</p> <ul> <li>provide a good base for BVOH to stick to</li> <li>provide a 'perfect' base for the supported part as the BVOH is printed in regular model pattern, not in support mode pattern</li> <li>limit BVOH usage to only a couple of layers where it's needed. I use a single nozzle-multi extruder setups, so each material change needs a certain amount of purge which is practically waste</li> <li>sate my curiosity about proper soluble usage</li> </ul> <p>OpenSCAD source: <a href="https://github.com/spegelius/3DModels/tree/master/Puzzle_Cake_remix">https://github.com/spegelius/3DModels/tree/master/Puzzle_Cake_remix</a></p> <h3>Print Settings</h3> <p><strong>Printer:</strong></p> <p>FankenCube 4x</p> <p class="detail-setting rafts"><strong>Rafts: </strong> <div><p>No</p></div> <p><strong>Supports:</strong></p> <p>No</p> <p class="detail-setting resolution"><strong>Resolution: </strong> <div><p>0.2</p></div> <p><strong>Infill:</strong></p> <p>10%</p> <p><strong>Filament:</strong></p> Verbatim BVOH <p><br/> <p class="detail-setting notes"><strong>Notes: </strong></p> </p><div><p>There are 2 support models for Disk and Case-models. Download the original models from the original thing.<br/> Assing the soluble model to the extruder/tool that has BVOH loaded and other models to the tool using the PLA/PETG/whatever. <p>Disable supports.</p> <p>Might need to enable thin wall detection or similar option if the support structures aren't printed fully.</p> <p>In single nozzle - multi extruder setups quite large amounts of purge is needed to get rid of all BVOH. With PLA, I need to purge ~80mm material per each material change, otherwise the print is brittle due to BVOH affecting layer adhesion.</p> <h3>Post-Printing</h3> <p>After printing, the support from the disks separated without needing water. The case supports needed some time water to loosen the BVOH before using pliers to remove the supports.</p> </p></div></p></p> Category: Puzzles