PVA Soluble Support 3D Printer Filament
PLEASE NOTE: Sadly, we've stopped supplying filaments. After much consideration we've chosen to recommend the following supplier as an alternative.
Here's why:
- Excellent dedication to customer service, quality & range of materials.
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- While other PVA filament can be tricky to print, unwilling to adhere to your main print material or won’t dissolve as easily – rigid.ink PVA adheres correctly to your print material and is completely water soluble. This means straightforward printing, with effortless support removal.
- Need to print tricky overhangs? You’ll need a support material you can rely on. PVA is the perfect support material for similar low temperature print materials and for projects with specifically intricate or hard to reach support cavities.
- You can use PVA with PLA, or other lower temperature materials in a similar printing range of 190-210°C. For higher temperature materials you’re best using HIPS or Break-Away filament.
- Variances in the advertised diameter of your filament can lead to slightly thicker or thinner layers, which not only reduce finish quality but could also lead your supports to be weak, and possibly fail mid print. That’s why we extrude to industry leading tight tolerances, to guarantee 100% printing reliability.
- It’s not just our unmatched filament quality that’s well renowned either. If you ever get an issue with your rigid.ink (unlikely) our efficient, friendly and knowledgeable technical support team are always on hand to get you back on track. We we’re not satisfied with your prints, until you’re ecstatic with them.
PVA Filament 1.75mm & 2.85mm (3mm)
Are you looking at a complicated print job that involves supporting overhanging parts or intricate designs?
Maybe you want to try a material that’s similar to PLA and just as easy to work with, but will also provide the aforementioned support?
If that’s the case, then rigid.ink PVA is the material for you.
PVA, or polyvinyl alcohol, is a synthetic polymer that is strong, non-toxic, biodegradable and, for support purposes, water soluble. That fact that PVA will dissolve in water has led to its being used commercially in a number of products from laundry packs to eye drops. When it comes to 3D printing, the water solubility of PVA makes it an excellent tool to use to provide support to objects that include overhangs or detailing.
As you already know, 3D printing proceeds from the bottom up. If you’re printing an object that incorporates overhangs, areas of your design that doesn’t have any underlying material, you’re going to have trouble. Printer filament has to extrude onto some type of surface, either a build plate or a previously extruded layer of material.
rigid.ink PVA gets rid of the problem by providing a support surface for these overhangs. First, your printer extrudes a layer of rigid.ink PVA underneath the area where the overhang will be. Once the PVA is in place, your printer will have a surface that it can use to lay down the overhanging portions of your object. rigid.ink PVA prevents the distortion or collapse that would happen without the necessary support.
Once you print job is done, removing rigid.ink PVA filament is extremely simple. There are no chemicals involved and you won’t need knives or other tools to remove the support material you no longer need. All you need to do is submerge your object in a container of room temperature water for several hours. The water will completely dissolve the rigid.ink PVA. You’re left with an object that has sharp clean lines and a remarkable level of detail.
When using a support material, it’s very important to be aware of the print temperature of your printing material and your support material. If there is a significant variance between the two temperatures, you may find that one material will warp and deform the other material during the printing process. That’s why PVA works so well as a support material when PLA is being used as the print material. You see, PVA and PLA have very similar printing temperatures. This results in the two materials laying cleanly together without any warping or deforming.
When you’re printing with rigid.ink PVA keep your fan speed lower, high fan speeds can blow newly extruded PVA off alignment before to gets a chance to set. Keep your printing temperatures between 190°C and 210°C, depending on your particular extruder. Use a print bed temperature between 50°C to 60°C and keep your print speed a tad lower than normal, around 30mm/sec.
It’s also important to remember that rigid.ink PVA is not only water soluble, it is also highly hygroscopic. This means that it will absorb moisture directly from the air. The more humid the air, the more water the material will absorb. This means that you should store your rigid.ink PVA in an airtight cool, dry place in order to maintain its strength and integrity.
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Get in touch:
Email - customerdelight@rigid.ink
Phone - 01937 589 052
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Click here to compare rigid.ink filaments
We do not hold Food Safety Certificates. Some of the raw materials used to produce our filaments are food safe accordingly to European regulations, but our filament in it's final form is not officially approved. Neither is the 3D printing process and all the components of 3D printers.
Still not sure if Rigid.ink is for you? Contact us or check out our FAQs page.
Guide Settings
Printing Temperature:190°C
Bed Temperature: Off-45°C
Print Speed: 30mm/s or below
Cooling Fans: As required for primary filament
Ideal build chambers: Open, all covers and doors removed
Good ventilation is essential and do not leave print unattended.
Information
Density: 0.6-0.9g/cc
Glass Transition Temp: 62°C
Sample Weight: Approx 35g
Empty Spool + Filament Weight: Approx 250g + 1KG = Approx 1.25KG
300G Spool Size: 16cm dia, 4.2cm width, 5.2cm dia spool hole
1KG Spool size: 20cm dia, 7cm width, 5.6cm dia spool hole
Please note: settings vary printer to printer so experimenting is essential
PVA Filament – The Easy Soluble Support Material
Help Center - Support Comparison Summary
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For specific 3D printing help, please complete our 3D Printing Help Form.
We do not hold Food Safety Certificates. Some of the raw materials used to produce our filaments are food safe accordingly to European regulations, but our filament in it's final form is not officially approved. Neither is the 3D printing process and all the components of 3D printers.
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Bought some of this from the amazon webshop and after a bit of tweeking found it super for supports. I did find that it absorbs moisture super fast so I would recommend a dry feed box....
Now I need more!
We made the switch to this soluble support recently and are thrilled with the results. It prints very easily and due to the natural color it is a great product to use when we print our orthotics. Other PVA support filaments leave behind residue in the layers occasionally. this support left no reside and a very clean finish. We will be ordering again.
Thanks for taking the time to leave this positive review!
I'm glad to hear that you like the PVA and would love to see some photos of your work :)
All the best
Monica
PVA Soluble Support 3D Printer Filament
This is the first PVA I've tried, and have been happy with the results so far. I've used it with two different non-Rigid.Ink PLAs, and both have bonded well. It has also stuck well to my PEI bed (maybe a little too well, as it required some extra elbow grease to remove bits of it).
I'm running an E3DLite V6 at 212C, no part fan, with bed at 60C for the first layer. 2nd layer till finish drops to 206C, bed to 55C, with 65-75% fan. Printer is a SeeMeCNC Rostock Max V2 with several upgrades & mods.
Minimal PVA can be used with good part design (for most geometries), which is good because PVA is very expensive compared to PLA. On the other hand, I'm rather reluctant to purchase a large roll (to lower the cost/kg) due to concerns of keeping it dry over the several months it would take to use it up.
I use a food dehydrator to dry my filaments, and store each roll in its own relatively air-tight food storage container afterwards. Each container has a few desiccant packs, a cheap humidity gauge, and PTFE tubing to feed the filament out to the printer. The roll rides on a small , kitchen-type turntable.
I would love to give this a better review, but it just doesn't want to print, I've tried setting the temperature higher and lower on both the extruder and the print bed, but it ends up folding over itself in the extruder nozzle or not sticking to the print bed. If you can advise me on how to get this material to work with my printer that would be much appreciated.
I can't fault the delivery however, it was on my doorstep by the following day!
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