Comment on I want to branch out from PLA. Should I try ABS or TPU?
j4k3@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
ABS needs an enclosure for anything above around 10 layers. Even a room closed with it warm and no one inside is not enough to save an ABS print. Just the air from the moving tool head and the bed are enough to disturb a print and cause layer separation. An IKEA Lack table and a garbage bag over it is enough of an enclosure to count and get most prints alright. It stinks though.
TPU will have holes and look terrible unless you print out of a filament drier. You can dry the stuff a lot and print for around 45 minutes with it in open air before it will absorb enough moisture to start expanding steam in the melt zone and blowing holes in your print layers.
Abs needs an enclose vented to the outside, or really good ventilation. The ‘S’ in ABS stands for styrene, a fairly potent carcinogen and irritant. Do NOT print it in your living area as it off gasses while printing.
All other plastics you can print on the A1 will be safer.
IMALlama@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
That enclosure might work for smaller ASA prints, but I needed a lot more insulation than a garbage bag to pull off larger prints.
Maybe I got lucky with TPU, but I didn’t run into any significant issues with humidity when I printed treads for wagon wheels over the course of two or three days.
j4k3@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Makes a huge difference with my junky TPU if it is dry or not.
I also have a massive stacked Lack (sp?) table with double legs. I put that stack with a MK3S+ into a 55 gallon trash bag and can print the entire build volume. The thing is, it has to be totally sealed off well and no traffic in the room that might disturb the thing in the slightest. I won’t even open a door to the room. I also let the bed heat for longer before the print starts. Lastly, I must design for ABS specifically and very conscious of layer thickness transitions. I look at all filaments and designs as an optimization for materials and process thing. I design everything I print. So my advice is and abstraction of what is possible under similar constraints. Most files people share are not very well designed for 3d printing or for material specific requirements/optimizations. I don’t recommend printing other people’s stuff unless you are forced to for some reason.
The primary issue with ABS is how heat is soaked into top layer/bottom layer transitions near side walls. In most cases, just make a tapered transition over a long area and remove any top layers in places like interior areas. Designing tops that are rounded or hollow is another key. Using exposed 3d cubic infill is how I get around a lot of the top layer heat issues.
If anyone is actually wanting to print ABS a lot, obviously just get a Voron.
IMALlama@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
I am happy to have gotten lucky with Overture 95A!
I design my own prints too, but I also have a 350mm x 350mm bed. My bed size has lead to some fairly large prints. My printer is a Voron and I originally built it with the stock acrylic enclosure. This was fine for smaller parts (say 150-175 mm and smaller), but despite keeping keeping corners rounded and avoiding rapid shape transitions I still had some prints pull themselves apart or pull the print bed up. Even on cylindrical and rounded rectangle prints, without a solid top or bottom. It wasn’t until I insulated my Voron that I was able to pull these larger prints off with a chamber temp of around 58 C.
Maybe I should try another material as so far I’ve been sticking with polymaker ASA because it’s cheap and prints decently. What are you using?
j4k3@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
I’ve only gone through 2 rolls of the cheap Matterhackers house brand ABS and maybe a quarter roll of Prusa ASA. My primary curiosity was if ABS/ASA is an effective alternative to Prusament PC Blend. In my experiments, my primary use for ABS/ASA is for refinishing and polishing. I’m super familiar with ABS in pro auto body work I was doing before RepRap was even a thing. I actually specialized in plastics and small repairs in addition to airbrush and graphics work as a painter; liked the art, but work out of used car lots paid the bills.
I only made a little disk sander thing out of a box fan motor with a housing constrained by print bed dimensions, also some dremel drill press tooling, and some BB30 bicycle parts.
The disk sander thing was not very useful overall. The level of integrated design was extreme and impractical in most cases, but it proved to me that I could technically do it. That largely helped me avoid the desire to build a Voron. Plus I spent years huffing ABS fumes already. The bicycle stuff showed me that PC blend is still quite a bit better at holding a load in the real world. I designed a couple of parts with threads that hold the bearings in tension on the spindle of the bike crank. I’m certainly not in race shape any more, but I am still quite hard on bike stuff. Plus bikes are a great test bed as leg forces are unbalanced, the vibration is inconsistent, contaminants are random, and UV exposure is harsh.
Anyways, the prusament ASA doesn’t have as many issues as MH ABS, but the difference is not huge. If I was going to do automotive class finishing, that is the only time I would go out of my way to use ABS/ASA. I could make it perfect on another level entirely than anything else I have played with.