Printing with ABS and PLA together

[sasabs]

Can I setup the printer so that one extruder prints ABS and the other PLA, or am I asking for trouble?
I print ABS now and wonder what the effects are on PLA with a heated bed.

[curious aardvark]

yes it can be done.

If you can get abs to adhere to a surface at around 60c - then you shouldn't have any problems.
Or better yet use normal bed temps for abs and don't start printing with pla for the first few layers. This will get round the fact that pla doesn't need a heated bed.

But unless you're using flexible pla with rigid abs - I don't see what reason there would be for mixing two rigid plastics with very similiar properties ?

I pretty much use pla for everything rigid, haven't - so far - noticed any differences betwen that and abs that would make me choose one over the other for any particular job.

Actually i have just thought of a reason for mixing abs and pla.
Use abs for supports and dissolve with acetone :-)

The other way to do this would be to keep the bed unheated, use a raft with just pla and print abs directly onto the pla.

I Might try this anyway :-)

[sasabs]

Thanx. I will experiment. I only print ABS but someone gave me a couple of rolls of PLA. Need to mix for color combo I want

[curious aardvark]

You'll love pla.

Doesn't warp, prints clean and sharp. Doesn't need a heated bed. Sticks like a limpet on steroids to blue painters tape.

One thing to bear in mind if you go the cold bed pla raft route. You'll need to print fairly slowly to avoid excessive warp from the abs.
But abs sticks to pla as well as it sticks to anything. So - theoretically that should work.
Actually getting the abs off the pla raft could be a problem. Now I'm definitely going to have to try this.

And remember to set the nozzles at different temps. makerware and simplify3d let you do this easily.
No idea about rep-g.

[sasabs]

GReat. Have to try these experiments. I wonder about PLA as the support. It dissolves more readily then ABS in acetone.
Warping is a big problem for me since I make full bed size boxes (6x9). If PLA stays flat I will switch over.