FormFutura® Atlas Support

Atlas Support is a water-soluble PVA (polyvinyl alcohol) support material for complex multi-extrusion 3D printing with PETG based materials. Atlas Support is a 3D printer filament with improved thermal stability and can be 3D printed at slightly higher temperatures compared to regular PVA. This makes Atlas Support an ideal PVA support material for PETG-based materials with good thermal and chemical adherence.

Key features

• Excellent (cold) water solubility

• Improved thermal stability, resulting in less risk on deterioration/crystalizing inside the nozzle

• Max thermal stability of 225° C, tested up to 256 seconds with no flow

• Biodegradable once dissolved in water

• Safe dissolution in tap water

  • Can be disposed of in the kitchen sink, or household drain with an excess of water

• Good bonding to PETG-based materials and other (thermo)plastics that print within a similar temperature range

• Less sensitive to deterioration by humidity compared to regular PVA

Applications

• Reliable multi-extrusion 3D printing of complex structures that require a water-soluble support material

• 3D printing geometries with large overhangs, or complex hollow structures

• PVA Molds

General printing guidelines *

Nozzle size: ≥ 0.15mm

Layer height: ≥ 0.1mm

Experience level: Expert

Print temp: ± 180 - 210° C *

Fan speed: 0 - 30%

Heat bed: ± 0 - 60° C

Enclosure needed: No

*) Above displayed settings are meant as guidance to find your optimal print settings. These ranges in settings should work for most printers, but please do feel free to experiment outside these ranges if you think it is suitable for your printer. There are a lot of different type of printers, hot-ends, and printer offset that it is extremely difficult to give an overall one-size-fits-all setting.

*) Do not exceed a printing temperature of 225˚C, because AquaSolve PVA will then crystallize to quickly and it will no longer flow and/or dissolve in water. Printing with PVA materials does require a certain level of 3D printing expertise as PVA cannot stay too long in the hot secondary/support nozzle and needs to flow and by that needs expert tweaking to find the optimal “waiting temperature” for the material not to deteriorate/crystalizing in the hot secondary/support nozzle when not being 3D printed.     

PVA compatibility overview *

General guidelines for 3D printing with support materials like PVA and BVOH

Printing with support materials, in general, isn’t plug and play and does require a fair amount of 3D printing expertise as there isn’t a generic one-size-fits-all setting for multi extrusion 3D printing with PVA and/or BVOH filaments. The optimal 3D printing settings for support PVA and BVOH filaments can even vary between the same models of 3D printers.

One of the most common challenges is to establish a good bond between the PVA and/or BVOH support material and the primary build material. Below parameters are of utmost importance to establish good bonding between the 3D printing materials.

• Verify the extrusion distance between the printed object and the support material.

• Typically the default setting in most slicer software is set at an extrusion distance of 0.1 - 0.2mm, which is optimal for break-away support materials. For water-soluble support materials, we recommend turning this setting down to 0.0mm.

• The displayed printing/nozzle temperature should be accurate.

• If the temperature deviates up to or over 10°C from the intended printing temperature, this may negatively impact the flow of your support material. How big this deviation is wildly varies depending on the printer you're using.

• Make sure your printer is properly leveled. Avoid height differences across the multiple nozzles.

• To verify your nozzles are leveled, we recommend 3D printing a small rod (e.g. 5cm x 1cm with PLA) and switching nozzles every 1 - 2 layers to detect any imperfections in the layers. 

Compliance *

This filament is compliant to the directives and regulations listed below:

• RoHS directive 2011/65/EC

• REACH directive 1907/2006/EC

*) This declaration of conformity to directives and regulations is prepared according to our present standard of knowledge and may be amended if new cognitions are available and applies only for the above-described products.