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Thread: ABS or Not?

  1. #1

    ABS or Not?

    I'm still fairly new to 3d printing but have printed several things on my FFCP (mostly successfully and primarily in ABS)
    I've just bought some yellow ABS on ebay which prints well at 230 extruder temp and 110 bed temp.
    However it does not dissolve in acetone. The colour leaches out turning the acetone yellow and leaving a gooey lump of white material behind. I guess this means that the material is not ABS?? If not what is it likely to be?

    Although I've had no problems so far with nozzle blockage and the like with the material, I'm a bit concerned that they may be around the corner. Am I becoming paranoid and worrying unnecessarily?

  2. #2
    Technician DrUsual's Avatar
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    I saw the same thing a few weeks ago, trying to dissolve the white ABS that came with my Dreamer. I rubbed what seemed like a liquid ton of acetone on it, but never really got any appreciable dissolving action.

  3. #3
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    I have some red like that. Prints fine, but disolved in a jar of acetone it turned pink. It is good enough for the slurry I needed though.

  4. #4
    Super Moderator Geoff's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Davequa View Post
    I'm still fairly new to 3d printing but have printed several things on my FFCP (mostly successfully and primarily in ABS)
    I've just bought some yellow ABS on ebay which prints well at 230 extruder temp and 110 bed temp.
    However it does not dissolve in acetone. The colour leaches out turning the acetone yellow and leaving a gooey lump of white material behind. I guess this means that the material is not ABS?? If not what is it likely to be?

    Although I've had no problems so far with nozzle blockage and the like with the material, I'm a bit concerned that they may be around the corner. Am I becoming paranoid and worrying unnecessarily?
    There are 2 ways they colour filament that I know of (probably a hundred ways.. but that I;ve encountered... )

    1 - they actually use that colour pellet and filastrude it in that colour, and that's the sort that does not leech.

    2 - They dye the plastic as it's being extruded. This is done usually when the filament was made from a neutral colour pellet (as its sort of clear in its 'natural' state) OR they used tonnes of recycled plastic, in which case it comes out as a grey mash , which they then dye the appropriate colour.

    In the case of #2, it generally is because the filament was actually first extruded clear and then they dyed it during the process... Clear pellets of raw ABS are generally cheaper so often thats why they do it that way.

    So yes it is ABS, try and extrude it at 200c and see what happens, if it wont extrude, then there is your definitive answer...
    Last edited by Geoff; 12-12-2014 at 07:13 AM.
    Hex3D - 3D Printing and Design http://www.hex3d.com

  5. #5
    Presumably if it was pure ABS then it would dissolve in acetone. The fact that it doesn't implies that it isn't. Even if it contained a lot of recycled ABS i would still expect it to be soluble in acetone. Also it means that I can't make a slurry to use as a glue - not a major problem as superglue worked OK

  6. #6
    Did you get pure acetone? I only ask because I bought nailpolish remover at Walgreens originally and had the same problem, but when I bought pure acetone from Home Depot it dissolved fine.

  7. #7
    Technician DrUsual's Avatar
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    That's a good point. I was using nail polish remover from the pharmacy at the grocery store. I need to go to Home Depot tomorrow, so I'll pick up some pure acetone there and see the difference...

  8. #8
    I was using pure acetone that I bought from a pharmacy. The other ABS filaments that I have (white and blue) dissolve ok but this yellow one seems to be acompletely different animal although i am having no trouble at all printing with it

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