Let’s talk about ABS. So after the Filaween
episode on the Innofil3D ABS, i got of ton
of comments, some questioning my sanity, essentially,
because i pointed out a flaw with ABS, which
is that layer adhesion basically disappears
if you don’t use an actively heated build
chamber or even just an enclosure of an kind
- and I had deliberately made that choice,
because, let’s face it, at least 99% of
all printers out there don’t have a fully
enclosed build chamber, let alone one that
has an active heater in there. In fact, none
of the printers i own and only a single machine
capable of printing ABS that’s ever been
in this workshop was enclosed, and that was
the CEL Robox. So while Filaween is supposed
to be a series about typical, real-world performance
of these materials, and not lab-grade tests
and perfect-world conditions, almost every
single material still has that same tradeoff
- either you print cold, that is with a lower
hotend temperature, in a colder environment
or use a stronger part cooling fan, or you
print hot and crank the temperatures up so
high that you end up with a super solidly
fused brick that looks nothing like the original
part you wanted. Well, where you want your
parts to end up on that scale is totally up
to you, but i try to test somewhere in the
middle ground temperature-wise where you get
parts that remain mechanically accurate and
usable, but still get good strength. But of
course, that will vary depending on what the
part you’re printing is being used for.
So i ran a few more tests on the Innofil3D
natural ABS. I bumped up the temperature to
240°C, as you all suggested, though i’d
personally have lowered the temperature for
all the curling i was already seeing. Then
i re-ran the strength tests in open air, in
an enclosed chamber and in the enclosed chamber
with the part cooling fan at a fixed 20% setting.
Now, the “chamber” I’m using here is
just the shipping crate the Dynamo3D OnePro
came in, and with the printer’s heated bed
going and the cracks sealed off as good a
i can, it reaches 32 to 35°C in there, which,
as you’ll see, already has quite an impact.
If you don’t want to commit to building
a chamber around your 3D printer, you could
also just grab a trashbag or two and plop
that over your printer, that should already
be enough to have it heat up to where ABS
will work much, much better.
Now, of course, this doesn’t just apply
to ABS, i’ve also A-B tested rigid.ink’s
ASA, which, as you can see, also profits greatly
from that extra ambient temperature, and other
filaments like HIPS, Taulman’s 910 and PC-ABS
also benefit from an exclosure.
So let’s look at the strength numbers: As
expected, the higher temperature by itself
as well as when combined with the enclosure
make this ABS a great deal stronger, almost
doubling the rating it got at the original
235° in open air. What did surprise me was
that adding a fan seemed to increase strength
even more - it’s just a tiny bit, but i’d
assume that’s only from the layers lining
up better. And really, it should have been
obvious, because print quality took a plunge
with both the extra temperature and when adding
an enclosure. At its worst, even the vertical
walls are completely jagged and unusable.
Yes, that is very definitely a temperature
issue.
Now you could counteract that by increasing
minimum layer time, but at the same time,
that will reduce layer adhesion, so really,
you’re not gaining anything.
So while strength was much better with the
higher temperature and the enclosure added,
again, it’s a tradeoff between quality and
strength, and realistically, if you add all
those countermeasures of using a part cooling
fan, going slower etc because you’re effectively
printing too hot, that’s going to put your
prints very close to where you started out.
It looks like the filament just has that heat
limit of how hot and fast you’re printing,
how warm your ambient temperature is and how
much heat you’re sucking back out with a
fan.
What i also think makes a huge difference
in this entire topic is the filament itself,
obviously. In this case i used Innofil3D’s
material to give it a second chance, but it
seems like it’s one of those, i don’t
want to say watery, but definitely higher
flow and lower melt strength materials. The
Esun ABS i have also performs extremely similar
there, with you either ending up with weak
parts or temperature artifacts. Even rigid.ink’s
ASA still profits a lot from the enclosed
chamber, but has much less apparent artifacting
from it. And particularly ABS blends can perform
significantly better or worse than others,
as we’ve seen with the REC ABS.
So, should you be using an enclosed chamber
for ABS and similar filaments? Yeah, i’d
say, it’s a good idea to have one, even
and especially for the better filaments, and
to be honest, unless you’re living at the
equator with no air conditioning, i’d heavily
advise against using ABS without an enclosure.
It’s not just for how your parts will turn
out, but it’s also about health and safety,
as ABS is one of the materials with a higher
particle count and an enclosure can help keep
the fumes constrained. Performance-wise, I’ll
just repeat it again, even though i know the
comments will disagree, but for normal users
that don’t need that last bit of temperature
stability and don’t vapor-smooth everything
they print, copolyesters aka PET and PETG
are just a much better choice. And even for
mechanical applications that involve a bit
of heat, PETG is a great option. It’s tough,
it’s reasonably temperature resistant and
so much easier to print well. Point in case
- i printed the spindle motor holder for my
MendelMax 3 CNC conversion from Ultimaker
CPE and DAS FILAMENT PETG and it’s holding
up perfectly.
Now, does that mean ABS is universally a bad
material and you shouldn’t use it at all?
No. It has its uses, but i believe that for
many jobs, there are just better and more
consistent alternatives out there. Over the
years, I’ve not encountered a bad copolyester
yet, but I’ve come across many ABS filaments
that didn’t perform as expected.
So what do you think? Have you made similar
experiences yet? Are you running ABS on a
daily basis as your main material? I’d really
like to know in the comments below.
Either way, I hope this video is helpful to
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