I recently purchased a FlashForge Creator Pro for prototyping a few designs/ hobby use with the intention of using ABS with HIPS (need a dual extruder which is why I bought the FFCP) as a dissolvable filament. Prior to this I have 4 years of experience with 3D printing at work.

The FFCP prints PLA, HIPS, or ABS amazingly out of the box with a few adjustments. I upgraded to Simplify 3D which really helped the process.

According to several articles makers are using HIPS as a soluble support while using ABS. This would be great if I could actually get the ABS to adhere to the HIPS. I am using both the ABS that came with the FFCP and Hatchbox ABS with Hatchbox HIPS and I cannot get the ABS to lay on top of the HIPS.

Any suggestions?

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It is difficult, but I will give you two suggestions.

Set your support offset in S3D to 0. If you forgot to do that, the abs wonts stick.

Also, print your ABS as hot as possible!

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Thank you for the advice, I will try this.

Something I was thinking about was, it would be nice if you could print every say 10th or 20th layer in HIPS and the interface layer of the support in HIPS. The rest would be in ABS This would allow not switching material every layer and conserving support material since the two materials separate so easily.

You could do this, and it is a very cool idea. But you have to get your HIPS/ABS combination working first, because if it does not stick, it does not stick…

How you could do this would be to create two models.

Model A, your actual model.

Model B, a “support model”. Say you stretch Model A downward 5mm, and then subtract Model A, so you have a model that is just .5mm where you want the HIPS.

Then, print both model a (ABS) and model b (HIPS), with model a having a support offset of 5mm.

I agree with the other post, set a zero tolerance or gap in Simplify 3D (between the part and the support, that is) also up the dense support layers to at least 4 with an angle that is perpendicular to the part, 90.

print hot and slow down!