I highly recommend you heat up the supports, then quickly remove the supports while they are hot. If you choose to do this using a heat source, you NEED to wear a mask.
Hot Water Method
Put the print in a bucket of hot water and let it sit for about 30 seconds, then remove the supports. The result is pretty good, however, I don’t use or go into detail on this method as it has some major drawbacks.
- Some resins react with the water, especially if you leave them in there for too long.
- Heating the water adds time and more equipment as you don’t want to mix this process with your kitchen.
- Disposable of the now contaminated water. IT CAN NOT be dumped in the drain. Leave it in the sun and allow it to evaporate before dumping the build-up resin.
- Models wet with water take 6x longer to dry than wet with IPA, even longer if they are hollow.
Three examples of why I recommend this, best to watch these with sound.
If the resin smokes you got it too hot. This will not ruin the model as by now you have removed 99% of all extra resin, but it will create toxic smoke. I use this model because it has a low heat setting. Don’t use the high setting and melt a glove to your hand please.
Warm supports almost just fall off leaving less damage.
Remove any leftover supports using precision tools, I use this set of dental tools.
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