Kühling&Kühling Are Advancing 3D Support Material and Processes for ABS Printing

Kühling&Kühling make the RepRap Industrial 3D Printer from their own manufacturing facility in Kiel, Germany. Introduced in early 2013, the RepRap Industrial is powered by Open Source development to create its software and hardware.

They’re now rolling out what they say are new advancements in support materials which are soluble and breakable and result in clean and precise prints, and they say they’ve also perfected the settings for Slic3r to optimize support printing as well.

According to Kühling&Kühling, successful FFF 3D printing relies heavily on support material being correctly configured to create what they call “true universal printability.”  They say that using the technique of break-away support structures made from the same material and nozzle as the target object brings with it one major disadvantage; removing those support structures without breaking the part or impinging on surface quality on supported bottom edges is difficult.

Now the company says they’ve created a “true soluble and break-away hybrid support material for ABS models” which provides vastly enhanced bottom surface quality for ABS printed parts. They say these soluble support structures mean no detachability issues, and that generated supports made with the materials allow them to be in perfect contact with the model.

The support material can be removed by chemically washing it out with a compatible solvent, and that solvent doesn’t harm the model material itself.  The company says it’s now no longer necessary to accept potentially bad supporting capabilities in favor of “manageable detachability.”

Kühling&Kühling will be rolling out their soluble support ABS model material – and demonstrating their support structure settings for Slic3r – on June 10-11 at Rapid Tech 2015 in Erfurt, Germany. The company says the new “soluble support functionality” built into Slic3r is “by far the most powerful feature” of the latest release.

Certainly a reliable support material which doesn’t degrade the actual print, and is not a major headache to remove is much needed within this industry.  Kühling&Kühling seem to have come up with a solution

Do you use Sli3er or 3D printers from Kühling&Kühling in your work? What do you think of their latest advancements within the 3D printing support space? Let us know in the 3D Support Material and Processes forum thread on 3DPB.com.  Check out the video below showing just how easily these supports can be removed: