Welcome to the SeeMeCNC Community

I've been printing PLA since day one. It's been good. Thought I'd try ABS. I printed something small, and it warped off the bed. Just curled right up and delaminated into pieces.
I decided maybe the roll maybe was to blame, so i started a large dragon print thinking it would fail epically. It did finish, but it's not nearly as nice as the PLA stuff I usually print. What's the trick to this stuff? Can you determine anything I am doing incorrectly by the photos? Thanks!
Temperature 230, bed temp 80.
layer height .2, infill 30%

Temperature 280?! That is wayyyyy too hot for most designs. Try 260 at most, or 245 is probably more reasonable generally.

I think a lot of people that have success printing with ABS (myself included) have sealed enclosures for their printers. That really helps on the warping / delamination front.

Oh whoops, I meant 230. Oy, 280 would be pretty hot. Sorry about that, I'll update the post. Haha! The default was 228, but I upped to to 230 because I like nice round numbers.

Now I'm curious to see what would happen if I did print at 280...

Did you calibrate your extruder? So that when you extrude 100mm its 100mm. Check doodatdoes youtube channel for a simple tutorial.
Small perimeters and low infill helps a lot with big prints. The new 3D honeycomb infill from Slic3r works great at 10% or 5%.
Yes, an enclosure it's a must too.

Whats your speed and retraction settings?

It depends on the filament but I'd up the temp to 240ish and increase your retract. If memory serves, I think you can't retract PLA very var before it starts jamming; ABS doesn't have that issue so much. Maybe try retract in the 5-6mm range, that's what works for me.

Thanks for the input. I'll try upping the temp. Do you mind posting your retraction settings? Mine are here.

I'd slow that retract back to around 45mm/sec and change the retract length to 5. My z-lift is set to .2.



g.

This might be a good time to ask, why does the layer fan not run with ABS?

Because it'll cause your parts to warp/split. ABS *HATES* being cooled during a print. That's why The Big Boys use heated build chambers for ABS. There _are_ certain circumstances were you would use a fan, but it's pretty rare.

g.

ramai wrote:This might be a good time to ask, why does the layer fan not run with ABS?

Because... you know...."shrinkage."

I can post my settings when I get back home. Yours are pretty reasonable though. The only thing I see is that your minimum travel is a bit high, I think mine is 3mm.

I wonder with the advent of the new filament types like pte+ etc if abs will go the way of the dinosaur. Seems like abs is not temperature stable, and you have to accommodate it in so many ways.
If I decide to enclose my rmx will it be useful for other materials as well?

I also wonder the same things.

If you do build an enclosure, at least it won't HURT anything. But if it will be helpful, who knows.

Thanks for all of the tips, the changes suggested definitely have improved things. Printing at a higher temperature has definitely made a big difference I think. I still have issues with tall models splitting, but I think the main fix for that is enclosing the printer.

if you have any splitting clear thin abs glue (tap plastics has it) will seal them up nicely. just need a bit of pressure on the joint after gluing. then an acetone brush will make your part shiny...

Tom C

Best things I have done to improve splitting are print hotter (depending on brand/color I print ABS up to 255C, pretty much never below 235C), go slower (max speed for bigger objects is 30mm/s), and block airflow to the print area some how (just making a triangle out of 3 USPS medium flat rate boxes work for a long time for me).