ultimaker 2+ abs printing

[james_pollard]

Hi creative people,

I’m looking for advice on doing abs prints on a ultimaker 2+, at the moment I only seem to

get ragged prints

My current settings are the following:

heatbed: 107C

fans: off

nozzle temp: 260C

print speed: 55%

edit: wrong picture uploaded

[gregh]

I print ABS with 100 deg bed and 240 deg hot end, usually at 40mm/s. At 55mm/s I might up the hot end temp a little more, but 260 sounds too hot. I use mostly ABS from rigid.ink; i think it prints a few degrees cooler than some others, but still 260 sounds high. try lowering it to 250 as a start, and maybe more than that.

Also maybe start slower and work the speed up. Is there any grinding in the extruder? Also what retraction settings do you have?

[dramaprint]

Hi Try to lower temperature to 245,cover the printer with a towel to prevent the heat from getting out. Works for all my abs prints

[Gauthier]

What’s the filament brand ?

You can find print settings on Filaments.directory. Go to your filament brand page and then you can see print settings

(disclaimer : i’m the founder).

Good luck

[ddutch13]

Slow speed down to 40-45 play with temp each color and is a little different I put a acrylic door on ultimaker with pet over glass bed I get my filament from matterhackers I only print abs and carbon fiber I have the iroberts feeder

[TomV]

Hi, James. My colleagues print Ultimaker ABS with basic Cura 3.x setting for original ABS pretty well, but a closed chamber (doors at least, full enclosure optimally) is quite necessary here.

[gr5org]

Your primary problem looks like you need more fan. Do the minimum fan where it actually spins. 30% should work well. If you can get the fan to spin consistently at 25% then then that’s good also.

260C is fine if it doesn’t clog. I have gotten clogs at 255C so I usually print cooler. If ABS stays at 260C for just a few minutes it can turn into a gummy substance that will clog up the entire nozzle - you have to take the nozzle out, heat it up to at least 180C and pick out the gum with a toothpick.

In other words if you print too slowly at 260C the ABS will be at temp for too long and cause a clog. So if 260C is working fine and then on the next print you slow it down, it might clog. But if you print too cold you get horrible layer bonding which means the part looks great, feels great, until you drop it or bend it and it splits along layer lines because each layer didn’t melt the layer below enough to bond well.

ABS is difficult but keep at it and within a few dozen prints you will have results almost as good looking and almost as strong as PLA.

So my first thought is you need fan for those overhangs (the ragged part). My next thought is that it’s possible you have underextrusion due to getting a clog in the nozzle but the bottom layers look well extruded. Anyway if you have a nozzle clog the next print will be worse.

In addition you should know that the other advice about towel (or you can use a box) is great. And cover the front of the printer with saran wrap or something. This brings the air temp up (35C is a decent air temp for ABS) and improves layer bonding when the fan comes on (you really need a little fan or the parts look like your photo).

107C bed is great - I find 100C too cold. 105 to 110 is better. It takes a very long time to get up to that temp (or never) and having the covers on the printer makes this possible.

So the mention of “55%” means nothing. We need to know the actual speed that you are printing along with layer height for that to mean anything. So maybe learn a little more about your slicer settings - don’t change them but try to find out what they are set to. Don’t say “oh it’s ‘good quality’ default” because we can’t memorize those and they change from version to version. There are about 100 different default profiles (different profiles for each quality level, filament type, nozzle size) in cura alone. And other slicers I don’t even know about.

[greenlee]

.

[3DSculpLab]

I too was getting ragged prints, then I changed to ultimaker branded ABS which is working fine for me. Also, please ensure there’s right adhesion ( kapton tape etc) and front enclosure installed during print. Use default ultimaker settings for ultimaker ABS.

Thanks,

[gr5org]

Kapton tape is great but not necessary. Better is to use an incredibly thin layer of pva glue (hairspray, wood glue or glue stick). If you use gluestick just apply to 1/3 of the surface area then spread around with a wet tissue to spread it evenly and remove most of it. It should be invisible. Or nearly invisible once it dries.

Even better use ABS slurry. Google it.

[james_pollard]

Thanks for the suggestions, I will give them a try on my next attempt next time I’m at my uni’s makerspace.

Filament brand is Aurarum.

I have tried abs slurry but the print didn’t stick to it, I may not of used enough abs

thanks again for the suggestions

James

[steve3dprinters]

Your bed surface probably requires a layer of Kapton tape or a PVA glue to ensure smooth operation. Also, check the quality of ABS used. PLA is better suited in my Ultimaker 2+.

[3DAmsterdam]

Hallo James

It look like you have some round corners at the bottom. Due the warping of ABS the sides will come up in z-direction and block your nozzle. If you make them straight and use a rim for bed adhesion you get a better flow.

[james_pollard]

Hi,

The suggestion to cover at least the front panel appears to off improved the print some, still not

perfect but heading in the right direction at least.

would a raft work better then a brim to minimize the warping?

attached is a couple of photo’s comparing the last print with the most recent one, I’ve also recently learnt

that ultimakers ignore most settings from cura, which result in the fan not being activated for the most recent

print (and myself not realizing till half way through)

any further suggestions welcome

James

[gr5org]

Woah. That’s pretty severe underextrusion. Try printing at half whatever speed you are printing at. If you were printing at 260C with the oldest type of Ultimaker with the original teflon that came out a few years ago then it’s probably already time to change to UM’s newer “tfm” teflon which can handle ABS temps for a longer time. Both types of teflon eventually (e.g. 500 hours at 230C or 100 hours at 260C - these are rough guesses - extremely rough) get soft and the pressure from the bowden and the print head and spring (if you have a spring) – all these squeeze the teflon into the filament and cause tons of friction. So you might need a new teflon. Or you might just be printing too fast. The .4mm nozzle can only push so much filament through that small nozzle in a given time.

[gr5org]

As far as raft is concerned - I’d stay away from that. That’s an old technology from before Cura was created and cura doesn’t do it well and we have newer, better technologies. Raft was helpful back in the days before we had heated beds. To get your part to stick to the bed here is a thorough summary: How to get your 3d printed parts to stick to the bed and avoid curling/warping - YouTube

[3DAmsterdam]

I think that could be the case because you can see the underextrusion appears not only at the bottom. In general if you just cleaned your nozzle it will start without a problem, but if you not cleaned the nozzle problems from the start. Than you know you need a replacement.

Another possibility is that the spring of the extruder is too tight and your filament becomes oval instead of round. The oval dont fit in the bowdentube, you can feel the friction by hand or you can measure it.

Especially the first layer needs a very slow printing speed.for good adhesion. I use PAI now for good bed adhesion works better than buildtak. (to bay as a spare part for reprap printers)

[james_pollard]

Hi,

Here is today’s attempt to get a successful print this time using uni’s ultimaker 3(the 2+'s

where either being used or awaiting maintenance), it got most of the way through

before for some reason no longer sticking and becoming the stringy mess at the

top of the picture(it broke in half getting it off the build plate)

Here’s the settings I used:

print speed: 50mm/s

wall speed: 34mm/s

top/bottom speed: 25mm/s

support speed: 26mm/s

travel speed: 250mm/s

initial layer speed: 20mm/s

skirt/brim speed: 20mm/s

print acceleration: 4000mm/s

travel acceleration: 5000mm/s

print jerk: 20mm/s

travel jerk: 20mm/s

fan speed: 25% or 30%(can’t recall which I manually dialed in)

minimum layer time: 7s

minimum speed: 7mm/s

I also enabled the draft shield in addition to covering the front panel

I’m assuming I’ve made some basic mistake, if someone could gently

point it out to me that would be brilliant, also would it make any difference

if I made it 100% infill?

any help is appreciated

James

[gr5org]

The fans on the UM3 have rpm control or something weird. 30% and even 10% on the UM3 is the exact same speed as 100%. Only when you get below 10% does it start to slow down. I would do 3% fan. Or even lower. Start with 3%. It broke half way most likely due to too much fan.

So you were getting underextrusion near the end. Not sure why. Were you using cura recommended ABS print temperature? I recommend sticking to cura recommendations for UM3 as they tuned the ABS reasonably well.

Did you cover the front and/or the top of the printer? It really helps a lot.

The fans alone might explain both issues - not sure - underextrusion towards top as it is farther from the print bed and bad bonding.

I think I already asked this but can you get by with PLA? PLA is soooo much easier to deal with. PLA will be stronger, easier to print - the only down side of PLA versus ABS is that PLA can’t handle temperatures above 50C. That’s hot enough to kill a human but is still a common temperature for a car sitting in the hot sun in the summer. So if this is something that needs to be in boiling water or is used in an automobile then definitely don’t use PLA.

Unfortunately I’m really not sure what is causing your underextrusion at the top. Maybe a filament tangle? Check to see if the filament on the rear spool is all tangled or caught on something maybe?

[gr5org]

Another thought - 50mm/sec is a bit fast if you are doing .2mm layer height. 0.1mm layer height at 50 is fine but if you are doing .2mm and 50mm/sec I suspect you should try lowering that to maybe 35mm/sec. If you are watching it print and see that characteristic holes-in-the-side of the print as you see in the upper area of the print then just go to TUNE and lower the speed to say 50%.