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Very cool! (or warm ...:-)

This is an excellent idea, but maybe you should try a soluble support material? that way you just toss it in a bath and not have to worry about the support... I do think this is an excellent idea, but also much more costly in the long run. but if your doing only a few parts and especially if they are solid, this could be a viable answer!

Mark

Dear Mark, the Kg of PVA soluble support filament is 4 times the cost of cheap PLA or ABS, hence if the supports are in a reachable postion is not worth spending the money on PVA.

Now if the supports are in hard or impossible to reach with tools enclosures, than yes, you are right.

HIPS is cheaper but only works with ABS since it dissolves in D Limonene, and ABS is immune to it, but not the other plastics.

I print mainly in PETG, PET, PE, PP and smilar at temperatures above 280 C, and use ABS as support or PLA, cheap low quality filament that is problematic at regular temperatures but it does not mind higher tempeatures to act as support, the detaching of PLA from PETG or other nylons is a breeze, the ABS sticks far better, but still easier to take away than supports from the same material als the part printed.

When I pritn above 300C (like the Policarbonate or similar) than I use cheap low quality PETG as support, since PLA would not take it, the temperature is way above what PLA can take, or even ABS.

When I print towards 400 Celsius than I use Policarbonate as support, this never sticks to the part, just to itself, but in a warm enclosure, above 100C is still sticky enough to hold fast to the part while printed, once cooled it comes out easy.

Than I gather all supports on their polymer basys in separated bins, and latter on I plan to make myself a filament making line (shredder, mincer, sieves, and the proper filament extruding line with diameter check, proper tensioning system, etc, ending up witih a spooling alignment macine and with after spooling semi anealing oven to prevent the filament tangling on the spol if I loose a second the open end from my hand).

It will be a long design process, or maybe I just buy someting ready made, will see.