Printing ABS Tips

[SpragClutch]

I'm till pretty new to 3d printing, and have never been able to get consistent good prints with ABS. So for all the ABS experts out there. What are your trick and tips. For printing small items. And for printing big items. What is the best bed to print on? Glass, tape, ect... I want to be able to print in ABS because its cheaper then PET and offers me another option. Thanks in advance for the help.

[jfkansas]

235 extruder temp. 90c build plate. Glass on top of bare aluminum, use binder clips on the front right and left back corners. For small parts glue stick works great. For larger parts use abs slurry, just take about a foot or so of filament off the roll and cut into small pieces. Drop the pieces into a small glass jar with acetone in it. It will melt enough in a few minutes to take a brush and apply it to a warm glass build plate. It will dry almost instantly.

Use top cover, front cover, and cover the side handles. Set print speed in S3d to 80mm/s and travel to 100mm/s. S3d will automatically slow the print down when the layer is too small. If you have small part and run it at 80mm/s, the actual print speed will slow down to 30-40mm/s to allow for layer cooling. This is adjustable in S3d with eh minimum layer duration.

I can't stress enough to not start trying to print until you can successfully print an almost perfect 100% solid calibration box at .2mm layer height. Sides should be straight, corners sharp and top flat.

[Bobbler]

What JFKansas says near enough - I have been printing almost exclusively in ABS up until this week (about 3 months), just managed to get my settings locked down for PLA at long last without messing with the bed materials.

I have had nigh on 100% success with the following settings, with all my ABS - some of it cheap stuff, some of it is from a good branded UK manufacturer. Managed to get something inbetween the two to come up with these settings which worked all the time - I hate having mess with it too much now, just want to get on and print my items.

Extruder at 225
Bed at 100
Speed at 60 mm/s

Bed wise - Kapton, though success was around 75% with that as tended to get curling or the part coming clean off even with clean, especially with longer (2+ hours) build times
Glass bed - 90%+ success. I bought "stove glass" from Robax.
Glass with Buildtak - not had a single fail yet with ABS and same system is now working perfectly for me with PLA - so sticking with that

[curious aardvark]

blue tape on aluminium - between 220 - 240 - depends on roll of filament.
Raft and 120c bed temp.
Also had some luck with abs paint on glass. But that's a real pita as you need to repaint the glass every time.

I pretty much can print most things like that. But with pla I don't heat the print bed and never need a raft.
And I haven't noticed any of the so called pla weaknesses.

When i get round to adding removeable bed system and get some new beds made I'll try the hairspray approach.

I have never got abs to print without a raft. And given that I've still got 6-7 kg on the shelf - I'd like to use it up at some point :-)
Maybe I've just been lucky with the pla I've bought.

[ssayer]

Nah, PLA just prints that much nicer...