Disolvable supports on a home 3D printer may be possible

A 3D printing coworker with a Rigidbot got a hold of some of the fancy support material used in high end FDM 3D printers. What this stuff is we don't know, but we know it dissolves in lye and ABS sticks to it in a 90 degree heated chamber. But will it work on a home 3D printer?

I gave him my bad wizard model designed specifically to be tricky to print. He says the initial slice wanted to put the minimum of support material and he had to fiddle with the settings to get better coverage. And when he did it enveloped the print. If that doesn't support it nothing will. Then we put it in the special agitating bath to wash the support off.

There were actually 3 done, and only 1 of them worked without breaking the staff, plus there was support material stuck to it, but over all this is the most successfully I've seen this wizard print. A success for home disolvable supports.

Unfortunately the 20mm sphere he printed in the same way still didn't print accurately. The bottom ended up looking like a snow cone, but much less like a snow cone than anything else I've ever seen with a singular exception. So not a complete success, but encouraging.

By the way, the STAB JOE contest is still on. Help me boost my facebook rank and I'll make one winner a game token.