Well, I’ve been lucky the past few months because most of the orders on my hub where PLA. Not that I never played with ABS but yet I had enough bad experience with it (Freaking warping) to consider myself lucky not to deal with it every day.
But yesterday I got a very simple order in white ABS.
I tryed first at 50% infill, .10mm layer (HD requirement), with fast honeycomb inffill (the first Honeycomb option in latest SimplifyD).
I have pretty good specs on my printer, metal, perfectly even, hot bed, bed (110°), very constant 230° print temperature. I did not start the head fan though, I thought it was not necessary.
On the attached pictures, My first try is on the left and my second on the right:
I think it’s always a combination of layer height and infill. If you use thin layers like 0.1 mm , better not to have thick infil and vise versa. For me its always works best 0.2mm and 10 - 30% infil. For ABS printer need to be fully enclosed. Infill pattern will determine the strength of the object. Honeycomb has the highest strength and if you are going with this no need to have thick infill.
My config is 83% enclosure (that means I don’t have a top ;-)). As I am a supersatisfied user of simplify3D, I’m just starting with Honeycomb which they just implemented. I’ll try a 20% infill full honeycomb (I suppose it is better than the “fast” one), .20mm (although I’m then not respecting the order requirement, I do think, on sidetalk, that 3dHubs should redefine quality and separate it from resolution).
I’m using a desk fan …300mm diameter, low speed, above my printer), and that’s the main reason why I did not finish the enclosure: Results are best with that fan ON and no top than the opposite. But maybe I should change that setup one day And add a head fan and finish the enclosure. It is just that I also tryed head fan but my big old huge desktop fan is doing a better job I think.
As I don’t have much experience with PLA, but I have read that PLA requires external cooling in order to get good results. But for ABS it is not compulsory. I have tried a head fan for ABS and having a small air flow, was able to get better results. If you have too much air flow, layers will start to seperate. ABS to prevent warping printer need to be enclosed to retain the heat inside.
You can always put a cardboard box over the entire printer, this will keep a lot of heat in until you enclose properly, some people put their printer in an empty wardrobe…
So, it seems that finishing my enclosure is the first think to change. I had two reasons not two. First, I mentionned already, the big fan. But let’s discard that one. The second one was that the whole printer is enclosed in a closet. Ok, the volume of the closet is 3 times the printer, so I guess I’ll really need to enclose only the print zone to get an effective “heat chamber”. But wait, enclosing a flashforge creator, that’s not a piece of cake. Oh my. The top needs to be huge, and let the filament go through. I guess I need to build some kind of pyramid shaped top with a small hole for the PTFE tubing.
Even having an enclosure on my FF Creator Pro, it seems that at .1mm I have a hard time with warping. My sweet spot is at .2mm and 10-30% as previously mentioned. It still looks really great, and much easier to print. Also having a Taz 5 and building an enclosure for it, I can attest to how crucial an enclosure is to getting great prints on ABS. Hope that helps!
Ah, it’s always the simple projects that give us the most trouble! I tell ya, the deformation you are getting seems to be coming from your heat bed temperature. I know that sounds odd, but I’ve been printing exclusively with ABS plastic and I’ve gotten too many results that look just like that! 110 is a very high setting for you to keep the print bed at throughout the duration of the print. If Simplify3D has the setting to change the heat bed temperature based on the layer of the print, you may want to try printing the first layer at 110 and then backing it down to 90 - 95 for the rest. Since I’ve adopted this scheme, I’ve never had the issue since. FYI, I use Slic3r.
I wouldn’t exactly recommend just setting the base temperature to 90 - 95 because then you get the prints warping up off the bed, as well as other adhesion issues with smaller/thinner prints. ABS is a tricky beast, but I’m going to have a crack at this piece myself to see if I have any luck with it! Will post results soon
I’m very impressed by the advice’s I’m getting here. updated defaults settings in simplify3d to do that. i’ve heard of it before, but I was not sure until you insisted on it (I also heard that spreading holly water on the extruder nozzle prevents it from clogging ever).
So far, Honeycomb (full) aint my thing concerning in ABS warping. Attached, the second piece I have to print. Started warping crazy after a few layers only. 15% infill. still 110° bed all time. Switched to linear infill, will be able to compare bot patterns (I DO suspect patterns to have a bigger impact than one can think, I just need to confirm/infirm my theroy
Update: Attached, ongoing print with linear infill. Same settings, no warping. Theory confirmed. At least for Simplify3D honecomb patterns.2015_0809_232529_001.JPG 24
If you run a business toying around with poor results doesn’t help anyone.
Buy good equipment, software, keep a clean and organized space(your place is a dissaster), with those pictures I’ll never buy anything from you. Some AM training will be useful too.
So here are my results. From left to right, the settings are as follows:
1.
Extrusion Temp: 225
Heat Bed Temp: 110 first layer, 95 after
Resolution: 0.2mm
Infill: Rectilinear - 10%
2.
Extrusion Temp: 225
Heat Bed Temp: 110 first layer, 95 after
Resolution: 0.15mm
Infill: Rectilinear - 50%
3.
Extrusion Temp: 225
Heat Bed Temp: 110 first layer, 95 after
Resolution: 0.1mm
Infill: Honeycomb - 75%
The first one goes with my settings, and the other two are based on the settings you listen. The one on the right catastrophically failed because of a loose bolt on the heating bed, causing the bed to shift which resulted in…well, that! I’ve since corrected the issue, and I am now printing three more with the bed at a constant 110 temp.
*EDIT*
So from what you can see here, leaving the heating bed on too high can have rather adverse effects that seem to be incredibly close to what you have. Even though my default configuration (1) didn’t warp as much as the other ones, you can still see that the print quality suffered dramatically. The red one wouldn’t print all the way the second go around, but the effects were similar from what did print XD
TL;DR - The problem is not the heating chamber or your infill/resolution settings, but rather the heating bed. Make sure to start the print out at 110 on the first layer, and 90 - 95 for the rest of the layers.
