Typically when support is needed on a 3D print, it is made out of the same material as the part, then it must be removed by breaking it off. This can be a very tedious process and can damage your part or cause poorer surface quality. One of the advantages of dual extruder printers, like the Ultimakers, is that you can use a different material for the support structures. If you use a water-soluble material, that means the support structures will dissolve away in water after some time. The downside is that it can take hours to dissolve depending on the size of your part.
The most common dissolvable support material for FFF printing is PVA but we have not had much success with that on our Ultimakers. As a result we have been using Infinite Material Solutions' AquaSys 120. This dissolves much faster than PVA and works with a wider range of materials.
Next select Ultimaker S5 as a non-networked printer
Then change the material in Extruder 1 to whichever material you'd like to print with
AquaSys 120 is compatible with PLA, ABS, PC, ABS, Nylon, TPU, CPE, PC, and PP
Then change the material in Extruder 2 to AquaSys 120
Next import your part into Cura
Then under the simple Print settings, check the Support box and change it to Extruder 2
Change any other settings you'd like
Next go to Custom settings and scroll to the bottom
Check the box to Enable Prime Tower
The Prime Tower tells the printer to extrude a bit of material from the nozzle on the side to clear out anything in the nozzle before switching extruders on each layer
Another optional step would be to try to only use the support material at the interface where the supports touch the part rather than for all of the part
This saves the support material which is a bit expensive
The option will not be immediately available so click the gear symbol next to Support and scroll down all the way to the support section and check the box for Support Interface Extruder
Once the option is available, select Extruder 1 for the Support Extruder and Extruder 2 for the Support Interface Extruder
Note that the staff have not yet tried this option
If you did not do the optional step above, your sliced file should look something like this
The Color scheme was changed to Material Color to see which extruder was extruding what
Purple is Extruder 2 and yellow is Extruder 1
If everything looks good, save the .gcode and upload to 3DPrinterOS to send the print
If you did follow the optional step above, then your sliced file should look somewhat like this
Again, I changed the color scheme to reflect the materials
Here we can see that very little of the soluble support is being used
The time also decreased by about 1.5 hours
If everything looks good, save the .gcode and upload to 3DPrinterOS to send the print
We can see that Obi-Wan has the AquaSys 120 material in Extruder 2 and Maroon PLA in Extruder 1, if you have different material for Extruder 1 than is in the printer, notify a staff member to change it for you
We will try to keep AquaSys 120 in Obi-Wan, so it is important that you slice for an Ultimaker S5 and not an S3
The materials in the printers can be viewed on the Printers page as well
Please notify a staff member before you start a print with AquaSys
The nozzle has a tendency to clog with this material so it is important that is cleaned before each print
Once a staff member has cleaned the nozzle, you can send the print
Hopefully your print was successful and without any nozzle jams
If so, remove your print by taking out the glass bed and prying it off with a spatula
Place your print in a tub of water to dissolve away the supports
After some time the support material should breakdown into a jelly-like material
When it is soft, you can assist with the removal by hand
Please use gloves when handling the soluble support material
This print took around 3 hours to fully dissolve the supports, with some minimal manual removal