ABS Warping

[Gambo]

to add my happennies worth. Not all ABS filaments are the same depending on their exact formulation some are easier to print than others. we work mainly with ABS and nylon and in both cases we found we could work with some brads of filament and others failed or were unreliable for us.We found the easiest ABS to print with was ABS-x filament made by Mitsubishi in Holland and sold as own brand premium filament by several retailers as ABS-x by 3dfilaprint and as ABSpro by Oosnest that I know of there is probably a retailer near you,Next in order of ease we found the ABS regular also made by Mitsubishi and sold by the same outlets.Several other brands we have tried have proved almost impossible to print reliably.Incidentally we always pint onto Tufnol (Garolite) sheet with a very thin coat of ABS milk,

[curious aardvark]

The reason I have been trying ABS is that I bought 5 rolls when I got the printer almost 3 years ago and always thought that was the best and strongest but will have to try some of the newer ones.

lol - I have several shelfs FULL of old abs.
I used abs for the first 6 months I had a 3d printer, then tried pla and have never touched abs again.
With a raft it worked reasonably well. Not brilliand but useable.
But I could never print without a raft and rafts make the base look horrible and can be right bastards to seperate from larger prints or prints that take a long time.

UNless you have a heated enclosure pla will always make stronger, more durable prints.
And their are so many different and easy to print with filaments out there now that nobody ever needs to use abs.

Plus it stinks up your workshop and you have to do matrhs to get the sizes accurate.
It's just way way more hassle than its worth.

[Roberts_Clif]

But I could never print without a raft and rafts make the base look horrible and can be right bastards to separate from larger prints or prints that take a long time.

I hate using rafts they are horrible, most of my models have a flat surface making the rafts unnecessary. though a heated print chamber sure make a difference.

[Firepower]

I have tried quite a few different bed surfaces. At the moment I have glass on the bed and use diluted with water PVA glue and that really makes prints stick.

If it is a stiff print and bigger than 1.5 inches it is very difficult to get off the glass. So bigger prints I just clean the glass.

If prints are difficult to get off I put water around the edges and after about 20 minutes they come off.

So looks like I stay with a glass bed surface unless something better comes along.

So no raft needed when using a glass surface.

[Gambo]

Have y7ou tried Tufnol (know as Garolite in the US) ?I have used it very successfully for over a hundred parts from vey small cylinders wit a tiny contact area to pully wheels of 125mm dia again with very low contact area.What I do is clamp a 1mm sheet of Tufnol and a 4mm sheet of borosilicate glass to the build plate. I sand the Tufnol with a 240 grit paper to remove the shiny surface and then coat it with a thin layer of ABS milk (approximate 10% solution of ABS in Acetone)With the bed at 80C I have an almost 100% record of success with ABS-x using a skirtand Oosnest ABS but sometimes needing a brim.Normally parts come free easily once the Tufnol has cooled below 55C any difficult pieces can be removed by flexing the thin Tufnol sheet once they have cooled.The only problem I have found is you have to clamp the Tufnol down all the way round to stop it warping,

[Firepower]

Gambo

Thanks for the information. I'll keep it in mind but quite pleased with the glass bed at the moment. I have also bought a PEI sheet for the bed but have not tried that yet.