Following its water-soluble PVA filament, Ultimaker has introduced a new support material: Breakaway. What are its features and uses?
Today, we're going to show you the benefits of using Breakaway support material in an actual printing experience!
First, we used our dual-extruder Ultimaker 3 printer to print a half-drill model. The bottom part was printed with our
Breakaway support material. Remember to enable the purge tower for dual-material printing!
Here, we set the layer thickness to 0.2mm and the infill density to 15%. This print took about 19 hours.
Once printing is complete, you can start removing the supports!
Removing supports can be a nightmare for many, often requiring a lot of time pulling and prying with tools. Plus, you can't always remove the entire support in one go; you usually have to remove them individually. Now, using Breakaway for supports makes everything much easier!
The removal process is still the same: grab a pair of needle-nose pliers, grip the support material, and pull it away from the main body. Most of the Breakaway support material will come off as a single piece, even from recessed areas. Only a very small amount of support will need to be peeled off, and the surface of the removed areas will be very smooth.
Compared to PVA water-soluble support material, there's no long waiting time for soaking, saving you time. It also saves time on removal and sanding compared to using regular filament for supports.
The image above shows the contact surface after support removal, with a surface quality that barely requires any post-processing or sanding.
The image above shows the removed Breakaway support material.
Isn't it incredibly convenient?
Go ahead and try a roll; you'll likely fall in love with this easy way of removing supports, making your next support removal experience much better, saving both time and effort.