PVA on XL troubles
Has anyone else been seeing similar erratic behaviour with PVA? I managed to get a few successful prints back before the alpha firmware and prusaslicer. Trying again since the new firmware and slicer and cant even get one successful PVA supported print PVA keeps lifting up, from the bed, model and even the wipe tower there arent many presets for PVA so ive been trying stock PrimaSelect PVA, higher and lower nozzle and bed temps, tried both the PVA and PLA as the raft for furst layer and i still have failures with PVA sticking to the PLA Anyone got any ideas on what else to try?
RE: PVA on XL troubles
Could it be wet? Came here looking for info on PVA, so not an expert at all- but I’ve read that PVA is pretty hydroscopic - and it seems to be hard to dry. When I hear that it used to work, but doesn’T now, my first thought was moisture?
RE: PVA on XL troubles
That’s what I thought at first but for a different reason. The PVA I got had apparently been sitting there a while and was on clearance. The first couple prints, no issues other than it clearly being too wet and creating random bits everywhere that were left scattered around the bed but the print had no issues. Third one seemed to jam so I cleared it, printed a fourth with no issues. Then after that I got a full clog in the nozzle and gave up on it for a bit. I’ve since built a dry box for it to print directly from and gave it a full day in a dehydrator to dry it out before retrying. I found it clearly had been wet at first as all the popping and cracking that comes from wet filament was gone, but now I can’t get it to stick.
RE: PVA on XL troubles
I'm new to pva and had one good print. 2 days later had lots of trouble. I keep it in a dry box so not sure. Did some reading on it and those that know day that it cooks in the extruder when it sits while printing. I'm looking into bvoh as it's supposed to be friendly. Also it's supposed to be good with petg as well. A little more expensive, but we'll do.
RE: PVA on XL troubles
BVOH was my goto for ages on the MMU. I've not had good success with it on the XL. You still have to dry it in a filament dryer, but still I've not had good results. My best success so far was with aquasys 120. It's a bit more expensive than even bvoh but if you're only printing support interfaces with it, you don't need much.
Check out this post I did in another thread here: https://forum.prusa3d.com/forum/original-prusa-xl-tool-changer-assembly-and-first-prints-troubleshooting/trouble-printing-with-soluble-supports-pva-or-verbatim-bvoh/#post-686006
I posted some working configs that used PETG, PLA and TPU with aquasys 120. I was pretty encouraged by my results with it. I have a spool of pva and a few of bvoh that I'll probably not finish now that I've got this working.
I'm new to pva and had one good print. 2 days later had lots of trouble. I keep it in a dry box so not sure. Did some reading on it and those that know day that it cooks in the extruder when it sits while printing. I'm looking into bvoh as it's supposed to be friendly. Also it's supposed to be good with petg as well. A little more expensive, but we'll do.
RE: PVA on XL troubles
I currently use PVA for soluble supports now. You may have old PVA. I read somewhere that PVA can form hydroxides when it absorbs moisture and sits around. Then it won’t print properly. I have my PVA spool in a dry box I made for hydroscopic filaments. I even dumped a bunch of desiccant at the bottom for luck. I run a long PTFE tube from the side sensors into the filament box. Just to make sure the entire travel length to the nozzle is as super-dry as possible. So far so good.
When I done the print, I unload the tool, purge some PLA or PETG through it and then cap off my PVA box. I found if I left the PVA in the nozzle it would completely harden in the tip and was extremely difficult to clear.
—
SLam
RE: PVA on XL troubles
well I went through a whole exercise after installing .4mm nozzles and I've not had a good chance to try this again. I will probably this weekend. I think the bovh and aquasys are ok and dry but I'm going to run them through the dryer again before I do test.
RE:
After many problems and jams I was able to print with PVA Ultra Innovatefil from Smart Materials. After the company ignored my questions because I couldn't print correctly, and after many failed attempts, I have been able to successfully print this material with PLA and PETG. I haven't tried other materials.Prusament PLA source filament with these parameters changed:temperature 240 degreesFilament type PVA (soluble)Interface distance 0.01
After using the PVA Ultra there are always remains that clog the nextruder. To clean, I heat to 285 and extrude PLA.
Después de muchos problemas y atascos he podido imprimir con PVA Ultra Innovatefil de Smart Materials. Después de que la compañía ignorara mis preguntas, ya que no conseguía imprimir correctamente, y después de muchos intentos fallidos, he podido imprimir satisfactoriamente este material con PVA y PETG. No he probado otros materiales.
Filamento de origen Prusament PLA con estos parámetros cambiados:
temperatura 240 grados
Tipo de filamento PVA (soluble)
Distancia de interfase 0.01
Despues de usar el PVA Ultra siempre quedan restos que embozan el nextruder. Para limpiar, caliento a 285 y extruyo PLA.
RE: PVA on XL troubles
I am printing very successfully with PVA Ultra for PETG, PA6-CF, and PCTG. In fact, it is the best (available) water soluble filament on the market for the upper temperature end materials (everything but PLA). In the case of PETG, it is one of only two materials that I have tested that will have any adhesion with PETG (the other being 3Dxtech X1 USM which appears to have been discontinued without any notice from the company, i.e., ghosting). My experience with clogging was caused by 2 sources:
1) User care and nozzle cleaning protocol: Never leave water soluble filaments in the extruder when not in use, overnight between prints, etc. Moisture can cause it gum up the extruder and clog. Always remove it when done with printing, AND use a purging or cleaning filament to remove any residual material in the extruder afterward. When not in use, the nozzle should be in a purged/cleaned state. Smart Materials 3D clean filament ( https://www.smartmaterials3d.com/en/clean-filament) works great, and it is what I use.
2) Actually an XL issue: Do not use the default 20 mm retractions between extruder changes. The filament ends can become mis-shapened and jam in the hotend before reaching the melt zone. This has happened to me with PLA, PETG, and nylon-CF in addition to WS filaments on long prints. I am successfully using 3 mm retraction between materials now (also turn off jamming in the filament settings).
These are the practices that have eliminated jamming for me, for what it's worth. The filament is not the cause of these issues.