Printing with ABS - how many people use it and issues?

I did go to 100c for the bed. It took approx 45 minutes to get it heated.

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I tried ABS for the first time yesterday and it worked fairly well. I did have some adhesion issues but it was still able to complete. I cranked the print head to 245 and the bed to 95. No overheating issues and I didn’t turn on the enclosure fan until about 2 hours into the 8 hour print. Now I just need to get the bed adhesion issue figured out. I had a similar problem with PETG.

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Just bumped into this video which goes into many of the background issues related to printing difficulties with ABS and what to do about them.

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Question about ABS prints- I tried using ABS for the first time this weekend (A350 with enclosure), and used the Luban ABS defaults (print at 235, bed at 80). I had adhesion issues, but painters tape and glue stick worked really well to solve that, and the part came out as expected, but the layers were really weak. There was no visible separation/warping, but the part I made snapped apart almost immediately (shop vac adapter for table saw):


I glued it back together, and wrote it off to the wall being too thin at the point where the diameter changes. I did a second vac adapter though, and this one peeled layers off the bottom almost immediately. One of the small tabs on the top also peeled off right away:

From what I’ve seen so far, the answers seem like they might be:
-Increase print temperature
-block the fan beside the nozzle to let the print stay warmer

Anything else that people have found works well for ABS prints?

I have managed to get great results with abs with around 99% success. It would help to mention I use a 4mm treated glass bed you can get from any glass store in an industrial area.

Now back to abs, this is in luban or cura or any slicer software you use, 230 c for the hotend and 100 c for the bed, also get some elmers glue (pretty sure its pva) and dilute it 50/50 with water and spray and wipe the solution with a foam brush as its heating up, when it drys its good to go. Just try to get it as even as you can.

The solutions you buy from magigoo and all the others are just diluted glues anway. Also with the A350 it does take 30-45 mins to heat up and i normally leave all the fans on.

Here is a video I learnt it all from: Here

I would use more printing temperature and more heat to the bed (I have the wasteboard mounted under the bed, 110°C is the maximum I get on my A350)
Preheat the bed for 30min+.

I get the best layer consistency at 0.2mm layer height.

So the first layer seems to stick fine with tape/glue stick, and the ABS I have is saying print temps are (I think)220-240, so 235 is up at the top end of that anyway. I don’t know whether a hotter bed will really translate into better inter-layer adhesion half way up a part like this, will it?

My first try at ABS with the snapmaker was wonderful. 100C bed temp, 260C print temp, with the enclosure. The print took 40 hours because of my settings, but it was essentially perfect. Seven different pieces all over the bed.

Unfortunately now my filament sensor has quit, and I’m waiting a reply from support. :frowning:

I went back and checked out one of those ABS parts this morning just to see if a couple of days’ time might have made a difference, and it broke very easily with a minimal bending force:


You can see in the picture that the layer peeling on the interior layers is still a problem.

Maybe your filament is old or wet or printed too cold.

There could also a mechanical cause, does it also break at the first 50layers?

This is what I think about, maybe layer adhesion could get lost:

May you share your gcode and model, it could even be a Slicer issue…

Sure, attached the STL I generated from fusion. I actually tried again this week, and went to 90 on the bed, and 250 nozzle, and that wouldn’t stick to the bed at all. I’m actually wondering if going lower temp on the first layer, and then bumping it up might help? Even with tape/glue stick, I’d only get adhesion at a couple of points.

shop vac table saw adapter v2.stl (349.3 KB)

I’ve done some eSun ABS+ prints on 310x310 Creality Ultrabase glass on my A350 with the bed set to 100C. It took about 25 minutes to reach 100C, with some insulation material covering the bed to reduce the heating time. That worked fine, except that I only printed at 240C so as not to melt the PTFE in the heatbreak, so the layer adhesion wasn’t great. An all metal (titanium please!) heatbreak is needed (please please please).

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This is probably because the print head temperature is too low during printing, so the layers aren’t joining together properly.

Just yesterday I did my first ABS print, and last night, started a 12 hour print of 4 parts. All turned out pretty great.

I have a stock A350 with enclosure. I spent a whole day calibrating my stepper motors. 20mm cal cube came out ~+/-0.02.
Before doing all the calibration, for PLA I used a lot of painters tape, since then, I only use a small amount of gluestick and rinse it off with water between prints.

I also read that ABS juice should ONLY be used on a glass bed, because otherwise it can be very difficult to get off.

What I decided to do, was make ABS juice and use painters tape. 5g (~2m) of 1.75mm ABS + 50ml acetone. Let it fully dissolve, and I use a paintbrush to paint on a small layer. Heated bed at 80, nozzle at 230.
The juice pretty much makes the painters tape impossible to cleanly peel off, but ABS sands very well so it’s not an issue for me.

EDIT: ALSO, use Luban to connect to your SM through serial port, manually set the bed temp to 80, once it’s heated up, from your touchscreen run a calibration. You get much more accurate leveling this way because of expansion/contraction and such.

@Orbnotacus nice. Though, I think we’re about to see ABS start to fall out of favor. It’s not as strong as once thought and there are now materials coming out that are just as strong but easier to print.

I got some material from Matterhackers called Ryno. That was some impressive material for real!

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@MooseJuice Ryno is incredibly good, and probably going to take ABS’s throne.

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I’ll have to check that stuff out! Thanks.