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Need help printing with water soluble PVA | Forum

Topic location: Forum home » Support » General Questions
RichardGravener
RichardGravener Nov 7 '22

Tl;dr: PVA comes out in fluffy clumps when printing. Extrudes fine when not printing. All normal checks and provisions don't help. Need help please.

So I recently got a dual extruder printer which I was very excited about (BIBO 2) and it works very well at printing two rolls of PLA. Now I'm trying to print some small figurines with the water soluble PVA as a support material. I haven't got past the fifth layer in two days. I had problems out of the packaging with it refusing to adhere to the glass buildplate. It prints with bubbles sometimes which I compensated with by turning the temperature to 165-175 centigrade. It's kept in a sealed bag with desiccant and I baked it gently to remove water.

The PLA it's going with prints fine with a raft but the PVA stubbornly refuses to stick to either the glass buildplate (heated to 50, 60 and 80) or the raft. I have calibrated the plate twice and dismantled and dredged the nozzle.

water soluble film manufacturers

It extrudes fine when not printing but when printing it comes out in fluffy clumps.

I'm at a loss, I know that "trouble printing PVA" is a truism but the manufacturer (Technology Outlet) had some of the best reviews.